Full-Court Press
Boyhood pals, now doctors, team up to save man's life at Pistons' game.
ROBIN SCHWARTZ
Special to the Jewish News
T
he Detroit Pistons weren't the
only ones working as a team
during Game 3 of the NBA
Finals. Amid the crowd of screaming
fans packed into the Palace of Auburn
Hills, two Jewish doctors who happen to
be childhood friends teamed up to help
save a life.
Dr. Danny Rosenberg of Novi and
Dr. Todd Marcus of Birmingham, both
35, sprang into action when 78-year-old
Ed Szumowicz of Davison suddenly col-
lapsed in the stands.
"The guy slumped over in his chair,
he looked pale, and by the time I got
there, it was clear he wasn't breathing,"
said Rosenberg.
"There was no heart rate," added
Marcus.
Both men rushed over from different
sections of the sports arena to perform
cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Their
quick action paid of
As the two doctors did chest compres-
sions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation,
Szumowicz started breathing again. He
gave a "thumbs up" to the crowd as
paramedics carried him away on a
stretcher.
The two doctors are being hailed as
heroes.
"Luckily, he came around after a short
time," said Rosenberg.
"It's not about what I did or what
Danny did — it's our job, its what we're
trained to do," said Marcus.
"This gentleman needed help and we
were glad to do it for him," said Marcus.
Although they're old friends, the
emergency on June 14 was the first time
that Rosenberg and Marcus had seen
each other in years. They grew up
together and attended Andover High
School in Bloomfield Hills. Both men
are now pediatricians — Rosenberg in
Novi and Marcus in Livonia.
Because of their lifesaving actions, the
Palace gave them free tickets and invited
them back for Game 4 to be honored.
They hope their experience will encour-
age people to learn CPR
"It really didn't matter that I was a
doctor," said Rosenberg. "What mat-
tered was that I was there and I knew
how to do CPR Anyone can do CPR,
it's an inexpensive course, and it's very
easy to take," he said. 111
Aiding Hezbollah
Dearborn man sentenced to federal prison.
DON COHEN
Special to the Jewish News
A
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6/23
2005
22
34-year-old Lebanese man who
entered the United States in the
trunk of a car at the U.S.-
Mexico border after paying $3,000 to
bribe an official at the Mexican
Consulate in Beirut, Lebanon, was sen-
tenced by U.S. District Court Judge
Robert Cleland on June 14 to 52
months in federal prison.
Mahmoud Youssef Kourani accepted
a plea bargain and pled guilty to con-
spiring to provide material support to
the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, designat-
ed by the U.S. government as a foreign
terrorist organization. The original
charge had a maximum penalty of 15
years imprisonment and a $250,000
fine.
Kourani took up residence in
Dearborn after entering the country in
early February 2001. He was ordered
deported in May 2003 for harboring an
illegal immigrant, but before he could
be sent back to Lebanon, he was indict-
ed by a grand jury for the more serious
offense of aiding Hezbollah.
"Hezbollah is possibly the most
sophisticated and dangerous terrorist
threat that America faces," says Betsy
Kellman, director of the Michigan
Regional Office of the Anti-Defamation
League. She compared it to Al Qaida.
When told of Kourani's courtroom
Drs. Rosenberg and Marcus at the Palace of Auburn Hills during Game 3
of the NBA Finals.
The American Red Cross offers first aid and CPR courses at six different service
centers in Wayne, Oakland and Macomb counties. Cost is $45 for eight hours
of training. For information or to register, call the Red Cross, (313) 576-4100.
Course schedules also are available online at www.semredcross.org
statement that he didn't know he was
raising finds for Hezbollah, Kellman
said: "Kourani certainly has ties to
Hezbollah, and we would be naive to
think that he didn't have these connec-
tions."
The indictment stated that Kourani
was "a member, fighter, recruiter and
fund-raiser for Hezbollah" and that he
had received "specialized training in rad-
ical Shiite fundamentalism, weaponry,
spycraft and counterintelligence in
Lebanon and Iran." It also charged he
had recruited and fund-raised for
Hezbollah while in Lebanon, and held
fund-raising meetings at his home in
Dearborn in November and early
December 2002.
The indictment further stated that his
brother, Haidar, who at the time was
Hezbollah's chief of military security for
southern Lebanon, oversaw Kourani's
Dearborn-based activities. In another fil-
ing, the government claimed that anoth-
er brother had participated in "missions"
and that they had evidence that a moth-
er brother was also a Hezbollah mem-
ber. It said: "Hezbollah has loyalists and
operatives in numerous countries,
including Ontario, Canada and the
Eastern District of Michigan, made up
of 34 counties in the eastern half of the
Lower Peninsula."
The government charged that
Kourani employed the taqiyah, which it
defined as "a Shia Muslim doctrine of
concealment, pretense and fraud" that
allowed him to avoid attending mosque
services, shave his beard and keep his
religious beliefs secret while in the U.S.
Speaking before his sentencing,
Kourani told the court through a trans-
lator the he would "like to apologize to
the U.S. and the American people" for
committing the crime, but insisted he
had been misled by a Lebanese scholar
who convinced him to raise money for
orphans.
"I didn't mean to commit any crime,
didn't mean to inconvenience the