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PHOTO COURTESY OF KENNETH STAHL
essay
Sinai’s Proud Moment
I
Robert Tell
ABOVE:
A block of
Pingree Street
burning out of
control, 1967.
20
n 1967, I was a 30-year-old senior
executive at Sinai Hospital of Detroit,
having moved here from New York in
1964 to take the position. I was on call
that weekend. The chief operating offi-
cers were home and off duty and could
not come in once the violence started.
So I was in total charge of the hospital.
Little did they know or I know what was
coming.
The nursing supervisor called me
at home and said I had better come
in; something was going on. “What?” I
asked. “Just come in quickly,” she said,
“and meet me on the roof of the hospital.”
So I did. We gazed toward Downtown
and the sky was lit up with flames.
It looked like the result of a wartime
bombing campaign, but we still had no
idea what was happening.
We found out very soon from the
police, and the hospital was in chaos.
Sinai had a large African American
employee staff from the inner city.
Suddenly, they couldn’t go home. Worse,
replacement staff for the shift change
couldn’t come in.
People were tired and frightened.
Tempers were growing short. And who
would take care of our patients (who
also could not go home, even if they
were ready for discharge)? Many doctors
could not come in either.
And there I was, suddenly responsible
July 20 • 2017
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for the fate of the entire hospital and
its staff and patients. But I needn’t have
feared. I wasn’t alone. The hospital staff
pulled together as a team like never
before to support me. Nothing was too
much to ask to provide needed care for
our sick charges.
Buses were rented to ferry staff
back and forth through the danger
zones, dodging sniper bullets all the
way. Employees, many of whom were
African American, risked life and limb
to come in, relieve exhausted col-
leagues and make sure the patients
were properly cared for.
Noisy helicopters flew overhead.
Military weaponry and paraphernalia
surrounded the hospital and perme-
ated the city. The sounds of battle
could be heard constantly as our staff
tried to maintain a calm demeanor for
the patients. It wasn’t easy. It was like
a siege and nerves were becoming very
rattled.
Because of the curfew, many of us
did not go home for days, sleeping
wherever an unoccupied bed or sofa
could be found. And, thanks to the loy-
alty and compassion of our employees
— and regardless of what was going on
in the city — the hospital weathered
the storm and neither patients nor staff
were among the casualties of the riot. It
was a very proud moment for Sinai. •
NOTE: This is Robert Tell’s poem, originally published
in the JN in 2002. We thought we’d print it again.
DETROIT, 1967
Seen from the hospital rooftop, the cityscape blazed orange with
hot flames.
From left to right and up and down the whole horizon flickers,
and licked the gray and clouded ceiling of the sky, its heat too dis-
tant to relieve the chill felt by the stunned observer who shivered
with both fear and fascination.
From this high spot, as though observed by some great bird,
nested aloft and safe in forest trees, squinting at the conflagra-
tion down below, hazy lifeforms could be dimly seen scattered like
buckshot.
Bullets whistled past (or into) treasure hunter heads and bodies,
captured by the frenzy of the moment. Danger and the novelty of
curfew could not dissuade then from their greedy quests.
Noisily overhead, the throaty throb of army helicopter blades,
like monster ceiling fans, beat the air into the pulsing wind. Green
tanks lumbered clumsily upon the city streets, their phallic cannons
panned the avenues, and dared the foolish to a challenge.
The thwack of sniper slugs shattering shatterproof window glass
in buses under siege brought workers to their knees where they
crouched and prayed for safety.
Yet it came. Risking everything while the city burned. Amidst the
looting and the maiming, the fighting and the killing, the caregivers
came, refusing to abandon their sick charges trapped within the
sphere of chaos.
With the daylight, when the fever and the fire both had cooled,
when the whirlybirds were hangared and the tanks again garaged,
some looked around with shame at what they’d wrought upon their
own; while others, without bluster or apology, hugged their grateful
patients and went home.