Hospitals

To Whom It May Concern,

Please add Washington Hospital Center to the list of hospitals that I gave you a while back. I'm not sure of the exact date that I gave you that list, but I remember writing in bold letters "Under No Circumstances Shall You Take Me To The Following Hospitals!"

I've been going up to WHC all week and I think I've seen enough to put them on the list. Please remember that the list is not ranked. The now closed Greater Southeast Community Hospital was at the top, but that doesn't mean that Howard Hospital (#2 on the list) was any safer. That list is like a terror watch list. All of them are not cleared for flying. What does that mean?

First let me say that this is not an indictment of any one particular doctor or nurse at those hospitals. If you work there, please don't get offended because I may not be talking about you. It's the collective synergy of those people that scares me. So now that I've gotten that out of the way...what do I mean by "under no circumstance?"

Let's say I'm standing in front of Washington Hospital Center when all of a sudden I get shot (A possibility in DC just about everywhere you go).  I'm now laying on the ground bleeding heavily. Two feet away from me is a herd of doctors standing there with stretchers and surgical equipment and someone holding the Emergency Room doors open. In that completely plausible situation I expect you to run over to me and slip a Smarttrip card in between my teeth and cheer me on as I army crawl down Michigan Avenue to Brookland Metro Station. Bloodied and bruised, I'll crawl up the broken escalators and lie there on the platform, slowly bleeding to death, as I wait for the single-tracking red line train to finally show up.

I'll roll myself into the crowded car where zero people will offer me a seat. One day the train will make it to Metro Center and I'll continue my slow crawl toward the white lights of the Blue/Orange Line and when I've finally arrived at Foggy Bottom, I'll ascend the also-broken escalator up to the front door of GW Hospital where they seem to actually want people to survive.

If for whatever reason you think that's too unrealistic and you're good nature gets the best of you, then just hand me a plastic knife from the cafeteria and squeeze into a cup some of that hand sanitizer that they have on all the walls. I'll do the rest. I don't need a doctor, but I will take an Advil if you have one, because removing my own bullets will probably give me a cramp in my hands or wrists.