A Jewish ER doctor in California opened up about his shock at encountering Nazi tattoos – including a swastika – on the body of a severely ill coronavirus patient he was treating.
As his team prepared to intubate the man — a procedure that carries a high risk for health workers of contracting the virus — he found himself thinking if the roles were reversed what would have happened.
He came in by ambulance short of breath. Already on CPAP by EMS. Still, he was clearly working hard to breathe. He looked sick. Uncomfortable. Scared.
As we got him over to the gurney and his shirt off to switch a a hospital gown, we all noticed the number of Nazi tattoos. 1/
— Taylor Nichols, MD (@tnicholsmd) November 30, 2020
“The swastika stood out boldly on his chest. SS tattoos and other insignia that had previously been covered by his shirt were now obvious to the room,” Nichols tweeted last week.
“We all saw. The symbols of hate on his body outwardly and proudly announced his views. We all knew what he thought of us. How he valued our lives,” said Nichols,
He added the man, who had no teeth, the result of years of methamphetamine abuse, had begged him to save his life.
“Don’t let me die, doc,” he said, according to Nichols.
“For the first time, I recognize that I hesitated, ambivalent, and my mantra isn’t having the same impact in the moment,” he went on. “All this time soldiering on against the headwinds, gladiators in the pit. And I realize that maybe I’m not OK.”
He later told CNN: “I was struck by the impact that this had on me, that I never really faced that kind of hesitation before in my career.”
“With this patient, I really didn’t have an opportunity to talk to them,” he continued. “I was left only with the impact that that symbol had on me. It’s a symbol of hate. It challenged me a bit.”
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