Crippler
05-04-2004, 09:17 AM
I apologize if this story was already talked about, but I did searches for "nurse" "nurse kill" "nurse kills" & "Charles Cullen" in the last 10 days & found nothing, so here goes.
Here's the story (http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1083306825291990.xml) from Friday's Star Ledger.
I had heard about this story in passing. I thought it was awful, but in our sad reality it's no longer all that surprising, so I didn't spend much time thinking about it.
Well, it just hit a little closer to home for me. Yesterday it was confirmed & about an hour ago I received an email from an undergraduate brother informing me that among this cretin's victims was a young man named Michael Thomas Strenko. Michael was a student at Seton Hall University who passed away last May of an apparent blood disorder.
As if the one year anniversary of Michael's untimely death approaching wasn't enough for his family to deal with this week, they recently learned that their son did not succumb to illness, but rather to the sick mind of a disturbed hospital employee. One that tried to take his own life on two different occasions, had spent part of 1997 in the infamous Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, had been fired from 5 hospital jobs, and resigned from two more under considerable suspicion. And all in the NY/NJ/PA area, reaching as far back as 1984 when he worked at Mountainside Hospital.
Now, I can't say that I knew Michael personally or spent any time hanging out with him, so don't cry for me. But he was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity, as am I, and it just hit me like a ton of brick when I read the email. I feel so terribly for this family. Imagine your son is fighting for his life, and a few days after he makes a big turn for the better & things start to look hopeful, he suddenly dies seemingly without warning. You suffer, you grieve, and you try to move on. Then, nearly a year later, you find that your son was taken from you. I don't know what I would do.
If there is even the slightest shred of good news in this whole fiasco, it is that Cullen was found fully competent & won't be evading jail time on grounds of insanity. Thankfully, this despicable human being will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. And in a NJ facility no less, where a 44 year old male nurse who killed people cowardly with needles will spend some quality time with men who probably don't think too highly of that kind of thing, and are capable of killing people who aren't bed-ridden.
OK, that's enough of my ranting. Not looking for sympathy, just somewhere to vent....thanks for your time.
http://pic5.picturetrail.com/VOL77/857148/1548180/50299178.jpg
Let's get Sirius...
I plead the FiF!
Here's the story (http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1083306825291990.xml) from Friday's Star Ledger.
I had heard about this story in passing. I thought it was awful, but in our sad reality it's no longer all that surprising, so I didn't spend much time thinking about it.
Well, it just hit a little closer to home for me. Yesterday it was confirmed & about an hour ago I received an email from an undergraduate brother informing me that among this cretin's victims was a young man named Michael Thomas Strenko. Michael was a student at Seton Hall University who passed away last May of an apparent blood disorder.
As if the one year anniversary of Michael's untimely death approaching wasn't enough for his family to deal with this week, they recently learned that their son did not succumb to illness, but rather to the sick mind of a disturbed hospital employee. One that tried to take his own life on two different occasions, had spent part of 1997 in the infamous Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, had been fired from 5 hospital jobs, and resigned from two more under considerable suspicion. And all in the NY/NJ/PA area, reaching as far back as 1984 when he worked at Mountainside Hospital.
Now, I can't say that I knew Michael personally or spent any time hanging out with him, so don't cry for me. But he was a member of the Sigma Phi Epsilon Fraternity, as am I, and it just hit me like a ton of brick when I read the email. I feel so terribly for this family. Imagine your son is fighting for his life, and a few days after he makes a big turn for the better & things start to look hopeful, he suddenly dies seemingly without warning. You suffer, you grieve, and you try to move on. Then, nearly a year later, you find that your son was taken from you. I don't know what I would do.
If there is even the slightest shred of good news in this whole fiasco, it is that Cullen was found fully competent & won't be evading jail time on grounds of insanity. Thankfully, this despicable human being will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars. And in a NJ facility no less, where a 44 year old male nurse who killed people cowardly with needles will spend some quality time with men who probably don't think too highly of that kind of thing, and are capable of killing people who aren't bed-ridden.
OK, that's enough of my ranting. Not looking for sympathy, just somewhere to vent....thanks for your time.
http://pic5.picturetrail.com/VOL77/857148/1548180/50299178.jpg
Let's get Sirius...
I plead the FiF!