The Lennon Report Page #7

So I made a like list

and a dislike list

and I knew I wasn't going

to be a teacher

because I hate kids.

And knew I was going to

become a secretary.

And I couldn't become a

surgeon because there were

no such thing as female

surgeons in those days

so I became an E.R. nurse.

Am I still working as a surgeon?

Yes, I am, I've been a

surgeon for the last

thirty-three years and

still working full-time.

I've been a registered nurse

for forty years.

I am still working.

I'm a consultant right now.

I'm not working in a hospital.

But I still am actively

working as a r.N.

I don't think I ever will stop.

- You have to understand

that in the 70s...

New York was in tough shape.

The famous headline from

the daily news:

"Ford to New York City:

Drop dead."

New York was teetering on the

edge of bankruptcy,

so it was just pulling itself

out of that difficulty.

It wasn't as trendy and

"chi-chi" as it is now.

It was a bit more of a

gritty city.

-It was pre-Gulianni.

So there was a lot of violence

in Times Square.

There was a lot of violence

everywhere.

- Friday and Saturday nights,

you could always expect

two shootings, three stabbings,

or a prostitue who went down...

Off the staircase in

their building down the block.

Always good for that.

- The room where they

brought Lennon in was

right next to where I

was on the gurney.

So the edge of my gurney matched

the entry-way into the room,

so if you wanted

to draw a line from my gurney

to where John Lennon was?

Maybe six feet.

- We didn't know until

well into resuscitation

who it was.

- Do I remember Alan

Weiss that night?

Yes, he was the plague of

my existence that night

- I remember Alan Weiss was

being a total pain

in the ass.

He was on a stretcher

in the hallway

and he kept trying to get

closer and closer to 115,

which was the trauma room.

- And we're working on him

and his heart is intact.

We were pumping his heart.

-We cracked his chest...

- to try and reach his

subclavian to stop

the bleeding...

- and at the same time

Dr. marks,

who is an attending surgeon

at Roosevelt,

he had apparently seen Yoko Ono

put in the back of a police car

because he lives in

that neighborhood

and he came into the hospital

and he came in and he said,

"that is John Lennon."

- And everyone kept

doing what they do

which was what we did best.

Whenever we were working

on any patient,

you blank out who

the patient is.

You just do your job.

-Here's the dilemma.

I'm lying on the bed.

I've heard it's John Lennon

who has been shot.

I've seen Yoko Ono.

So now, I'm pretty sure

it's John Lennon

and I have to get

to the newsroom.

I have to get the information

to the newsroom.

- And to find out that

the police

actually let him use our phone,

I was not happy with

the police either.

- The officer who had

brought me in

had finished filing his report

and just came to say

goodbye to me

and he saw that I was

no longer on the gurney

and he saw me standing at the

end of the hallway...

He was a really nice guy and

came running up and said,

"what are you doing standing up?

We brought you in on

a stretcher."

And I said to him, "well,

haven't you heard it was

John Lennon?"

And he said, "what are you

talking about?

-We kept working on him.

We worked on him for about

thirty to forty-five

minutes, approximately.

We had no pulse,

no blood pressure and

pronounced him dead

after an effort.

-When we lose somebody,

it's always somber.

Because we don't think we

should ever lose anybody.

- And there also is

a feeling of failure.

That we didn't do quite

what we wanted to do

that night.

- I probably got out of

the hospital

a good hour after the

press conference, so

everybody knew by the time

I got out of the hospital.

All I remember is that it

was like a feeding frenzy.

There were just cameras, lights,

microphones, reporters.

- So the police actually

took me home

when they were taking the

medical examiner

up to the Dakota

because he wanted to see.

As I was walking out to

the police car,

some jerk in the street

yelled and offered me

five hundred dollars for

my bloody pants.

- Yoko Ono, who is one

of the most dignified

women I've ever met

in my entire life,

she was in control of herself.

She was extremey sad as

any woman would be

who lost her husband.

-I wish...

the world knew...

that not only...

Did this not need to happen,

it shouldn't have happened.

Here you have the talent

of a generation,

a once in a generation talent.

Everything created:

His music, his art...

Snuffed out by a senseeless

act of violence.

I think it takes a whole

lot to create something

and it takes so little

to destroy something.

- How much better would

the world be today?

I guess you can use

John's own words.

We can only imagine.

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