Front page story in Long Island Newsday this morning: a 24-year-old illegal immigrant from Guatemala is paralyzed
after falling from a roof and breaking his back. He is currently in the
hospital at Huntington (my home town). Cost of treatment so far:
$260,000 — “not counting fees for the services of more than a dozen
physician specialists” and “with no end in sight.”
You have to feel sorry for this young man as a fellow human being. On the
other hand, he’s darn lucky he fell off a roof in the U.S.A., rather than
one in Guatemala. As soon as he can be moved, he should be sent back to the
care of his relatives in that country. And the contractor who employed him
should be sued into oblivion, then jailed for 25 years, pour encourager les
autres.