THE WORST CUTS
How a gunshot victim faces down life as an amputee
He remembers the months after the bullet more than he does the actual shooting — operations, blood infections, more operations, opioid addiction from pain killers, a leg amputation.
Joshua Arrington, 28, was shot in the arm and abdomen in December 2011. It ended up costing him more than a stint in the intensive care unit.
“It was bad. I did the initial amputation and then I had to get a revision. After that, I thought I was healed. I thought everything was good to go,” he said.
“Six months later, my leg was not healed. I had an infection on the inside of the leg. So they ended up having to cut me five inches shorter.”
Arrington, a high school basketball star, was 19 years old when he was shot in Hollis, Queens, in a feud over a girl’s Facebook post.
He never thought the two bullets would cost him a leg and require years of recovery.
He’s also surprised that some people consider gunshot victims to be akin to heroes.
“Unfortunately in today’s community, you get shot and you walk away from that, you’re the man, you know?
“They don’t understand how traumatic it is. Yeah, yeah, I’m the man — from the outside,” Arrington said of how he was viewed on the street.
But on the inside, it’s different. “I didn’t know what I was dealing with,” he said. “What am I going to do at home?”
Doctors at Jamaica Hospital, who staff one of the city’s busiest emergency departments, see what Arrington observed in his own situation: Young men who survive gunshot wounds have cheated death, but often find the road to recovery is difficult.
“A lot of these patients require reconstructive measures that are fairly extensive surgeries,” said Dr. Moustafa Mourad, a Jamaica Hospital surgeon who specializes in head, neck and reconstructive surgery.
Other doctors might be called to help heal gunshot victims — neurosurgeons and oral surgeons. And people recovering from bullet wounds might need speech therapy and physical therapy.
“And given the fact that a lot of these victims are younger, it’s a drastic change and impact on their life to go from young, otherwise healthy people to having large teams of doctors managing them,” said Mourad. “They’re missing school, they’re missing work.”
Despite the hardship, Arrington rose above. He put the mechanical skills he learned in high school to work and eventually opened his own body shop in Freeport, L.I.
He also visits high schools to talk about gun violence, and he works to mentor other amputees.
He says something has to be done about the guns.
“There are 6 million and 1 ways to get a gun. It’s not like you’re getting a gun from another kid. You’re getting a gun from an adult,” said Arrington.
“Growing up in the neighborhoods that we grew up in, it’s not that you’re taught violence. ... It’s that you naturally get forced into that [situation of] ‘I don’t want to gett bbeatt up anymore, so I’mI’ goingi to go get a weapon. I’m going to get a gun.’ ”
Gun violence has surged across New York City in 2020. Police counted 1,704 shooting victims as of Nov. 22, compared with 840 for the same period last year, a 103% increase.
Murder is also up this year, claiming 416 lives as of Nov. 22 compared with 304 in the same period last year.
Hospitals and trauma units are reeling from the spike in gun violence, which has come at the same time as the COVID pandemic.
“I think it’s a public health crisis in the United States — we have a problem with gun violence,” said Dr. Katherine McKenzie, a Jamaica
HHospitalitl traumat surgeon.
Arrington says not enough is being done in his old community in Queens to steer people away from street lives that involve gun violence.
“I don’t want to say gun violence is up because police funding is down. That has nothing to do with it,” he said. “These kids are at home. They’re not doing anything. They got nowhere to go. What are they going to do?”
Arrington has noticed that diseases have fund-raising events — cancer walks, multiple sclerosis bike rides.
“Does anybody know about the day of the gun violence walk?” he asked. “No one has a gun violence walk. I don’t know the date of one.”