“Izola Curry stabbed the reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in the chest with a letter opener on September 20, 1958, at book-signing in a Harlem department store. NYPD police officers Al Howard and Phil Romano took King in the chair down to an ambulance that took King to Harlem Hospital, and its top team of trauma surgeons, Dr. John W. V. Cordice, Jr., Dr. Emil Naclerio, Farrow Allen, and Aubré de Lambert Maynard were called in to operate. Emil Naclerio had been attending a wedding and arrived still in a tuxedo.
They made incisions and inserted a rib spreader, making King’s aorta visible. Chief of Surgery Maynard then entered and attempted to pull out the letter opener, but cut his glove on the blade; a surgical clamp was finally used to pull out the blade. Cordice mapped out a strategy and successfully saved Dr. King.”
An important footnote in this story, occurs with Dr. Maynard’s first attempt to pull out the letter opener, briefly described above. Maynard was Chief of the Surgery at the time, but had less knowledge of thoracic surgery than Naclerio.
Maynard was given the opportunity to remove the blade by trio as a sign of respect. After the blade had been prematurely removed, Maynard left the operating room to discuss the success leaving the trio to close King’s chest.
Later it is stated Maynard made a number of fabrications about the details of the operation.
Dr. Naclerio went on to have a long friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. often exchanging letters.
Said Ron Naclerio, Dr. Naclerio’s son,
“When Dr. King was released, he bumped into my father on the elevator,” Ron Naclerio said. “King hugged my father, thanked him, exchanged numbers, and a strong 10-year friendship began.”
“They talked and saw each other over the next 10 years, calling the house on Thanksgiving and/or Christmas most years. They talked about a lot of things, King respected and trusted my father, and he would bounce thoughts and ideas off my father. I think they each thought of the other as a genius.”
Words courtesy of NY Post
Images by Associated Press & Matthew McDermott