July 6, 1994DAD MAKES SURE DOC FINDS BULLET
July 6, 1994DAD MAKES SURE DOC FINDS BULLET
By Jonathan Dube
SOMETIMES it pays to be a pushy parent.
If Shawn Simmons hadn't insisted that doctors X-ray his daughter Taihesha
before releasing her from the hospital Monday night, the 5-year-old girl might
be walking around right now with a bullet still lodged in her head, family
members said.
A few hours earlier, at a family barbecue, Taihesha had toppled off the
monkey bars at a playground at the corner of West 23rd Street and Surf Avenue in
Coney Island.
Taihesha's head was bruised and bleeding, so her father drove her to Coney
Island Hospital, where doctors closed the wound with two stitches and prepared
to release her, according to Taihesha's uncle, Abdullah Garrett, who carried her
into the emergency room.
But when they took the X-ray Simmons then insisted upon, doctors spotted a
small-caliber bullet lodged in her head. They operated and removed the bullet.
Taihesha was released from the hospital early last night.
Police said the girl had been struck by a stray bullet fired in the
neighborhood about 2:30 p.m. They had no suspects yesterday.
Taihesha's mother, Wakima Simmons, 25, said when she first saw her daughter
after the operation, the girl smiled at her and said, "Hi ma, I'm fine. Ma, do
you know when they took the bullet out of my head, daddy was crying like a
baby?'
"Every time he thinks about it, he starts crying," Wakima Simmons said. "This
is like a nightmare to us."
Kenneth Kiernan, a hospital spokesman, did not dispute the family's story.
"According to the chain of events as presented, the girl fell from monkey bars.
Nobody presented it as a bullet wound, and we weren't looking for a bullet wound. We treated what was presented."
Police said there was another incident Monday night where a child was struck
by a stray bullet and the parents did not immediately realize what had happened.
A 2-year-old boy was standing with his family watching local fireworks in
front of their home on East 48th Street in East Flatbush at 10:30 p.m. when his
mother discovered he was bleeding just above the left elbow, police said.
Thinking the boy had been hit with a firecracker, the mother took him to
Brookdale Hospital Medical Center, said Sgt. Andrea Herzberg, a police
spokeswoman. But when they saw how crowded the emergency room was, they went
home.
The mother took the boy back to Brookdale yesterday. Doctors looked at the
child's arm, saw the silhouette of a bullet just beneath the skin and realized
he had been shot, Herzberg said. Doctors won't be removing the bullet for at
least a week, Herzberg said. A hospital spokesman said the child was treated and
released.
Taihesha Simmons did not cry at all during her operation, family members
said, and yesterday she was running around the hospital as though nothing had
happened.
But her parents and three brothers were shaken. "I'm leaving here," said her
mother, adding that she wants to move to Connecticut or the South within a
month. "I know if I stay, I'm not going to let them go to school and I'm not
going to let them go outside. I'm not keeping my kids here, no way."
Staff Writer
