On the way to Albert Einstein Medical Center, the police radio is off, a very bad sign, Judy knows, thinking, "They don't want me to know what's going on." But the officer's cell phone keeps going off. "They wanted him to get me there fast."
One of her friends calls from New Jersey.
"What do you need me to do? Do you want me to get the kids?" she asks.
"No," Judy says, thanking her, but thinking she doesn't want anyone telling her children their dad is hurt. She doesn't know that a priest is already accompanying her son from school, and someone from Homicide has gone to get the girls.
"I can't talk now," Judy says.
The officer drives past the hospital and a roiling mass of uniforms, badges, and shoulder-harness radios, flashing red and blue lights, and jostling TV cameras.
He pulls around the back through a guarded, empty parking lot. Judy never looks up. She watches her feet as she's led along the edge of a building, through automatic doors into a room.
She doesn't want to believe this is happening. A few of Chuck's fellow officers from the 35th surround her.
"He was breathing when they brought him in," they say. "They're working on him."
It is 11:30 a.m., but Judy has lost all sense of time. Everything seems to be moving in fast-forward and slow motion all at once.
Doctors - or are they nurses? - tell her the surgeons are trying to relieve swelling in Chuck's brain. All afternoon and through the night, Judy clings to a thread of hope.
While police fan out across the city, looking for the robber, Cardinal Justin Rigali administers last rites.
Judy sits beside Chuck in the intensive-care unit. Now she regrets every minute she stepped away to lie down or get something to eat. The face she sees is not his, all puffy and distorted. John, 16, stands guard, watching the monitor measuring the pressure in his father's head. He talks to Chuck about the Eagles games they've been to, and the one they have tickets for. He runs out to report to Judy.
"Mom! His pressure went down when I talked to him. It's getting better!"
The next morning, the staff takes Chuck for a test to assess brain activity.
Judy won't go. "I feel like I'm going to a death sentence," she says. Her sisters and her brothers-in-law go in her place, then soon return.
"He's gone," they say.
Now the doctors need to talk. Chuck is an organ donor. His heart is strong. But people are lined up for blocks, waiting to pay their respects.
"Let's wait," Judy says. Chuck stays on life support for hours, as the mourners pass through.
She finds some comfort knowing Chuck's heart is given to a 49-year-old father of three, a man retired from law enforcement who says he can't wait to get back on the football field.
|
|
|
|
|
|
MOST POPULAR PHILLY.COM PHOTOS
Daily Headlines
Subscribe now! Daily Headlines Newsletter
Philly.com news blogs
Philly.com Promotions
