An aspiring missionary doctor was killed Saturday at Christus St. Joseph Hospital when an elevator malfunctioned, decapitating him. Hitoshi Nikaidoh, 35, of Dallas, a surgical resident, was stepping onto a second-floor elevator in the main building around 9:30 a.m. when the doors closed, pinning his shoulders. The elevator car then moved upward, severing the doctor's head.
Ouch. Now, this article pretty much speaks for itself, so I only have two things to say in regards to it.
First off, looking over the article, it seems that this place knows that it has had problems with these elevators, and one Alan Van Nort, a member of the state's Elevators, Escalators and Related Equipment Advisory Board, is quoted as saying "The city has primary responsibility for inspections, and then reports of any incident go to the state for review." Now, I may be a little crazy or something, but if I ran, say, a hospital, and something in it was potentially dangerous to the care of my patients (who are, after all, here to get better, not worse), I'd be doing everything I damn well could to get that handled. I happen to be one of those people that is extremely displeased with the medical profession nowadays, on many levels (
Secondly, I got a sick hatred out of how this article went on about how this doc had found God, become a youth leader, and decided to go into missionary work. Is this supposed to make his death even more tragic? So, what, if he'd tried to go on and do his job because he was Asatru, or Shinto, or Atheist, his death wouldn't have meant as much? Fuck you. His death is tragic for the fact that it was accidental due to faulty machinery that should have been handled a long time ago, and thus the world lost another person that might have gone on to great things...or maybe not, but at the very least his family and friends will never see him again. His particular beliefs are of no fucking consequence, and don't need to be brought up in a news article. I'm so sick of things like this being tagged into news stories, simply for the fact that it causes a quick tug on the heartstrings and makes people shed an extra tear.
Soundbites about found religion are one of the modern-day fnords.