Would-be vic wonders why he was target
The doctor who dodged death at Bronx-Lebanon Hospital at the hands of an assault weapon-toting former colleague was shocked to be singled out by the killer.
“I was surprised,” Kamran Ahmed told The Post of learning from police that Dr. Henry Bello, 45, had called out for him by name as he prowled the hospital’s 16th and 17th floors, pumping out bullets. “Why me?” Ahmed, 48, said he had worked with Bello, but he that wasn’t the only one with whom the deranged doc had a problem.
“He started working there a couple of months after I was hired,” Ahmed said at his Bath Beach, Brooklyn, apartment Saturday night.
“He is not only after me, he is after a lot of people,” Ahmed said.
“He had a problem with almost everybody, so I’m not the only one. That’s why they fired him, because so many people complained.
“The strange thing was that he was nice with me,” added Ahmed, who specializes in the early detection and treatment of dementia.
“He never argued with me. I don’t know why he put my name.”
Bello was forced to resign from Bronx-Lebanon in 2015 amid a sexual-harassment scandal.
He had vowed then to return to the facility to kill Ahmed — even leaving a series of e-mail, text and phone threats — and tried to make good Friday on his chilling pledge.
By luck, Ahmed was not working Friday.
Ahmed, a father of three, claimed he only talked professionally with Bello while the two worked together.
“I didn’t see him since he got fired. He was fine with me, but he had many argu- ments,” he said.
He’d been saddened to learn that his colleague, Dr. Tracy Sin-Yee Tam, 32, was slain by Bello on the 17th floor.
“Everybody loved her. She loved to teach us. I feel so sorry about her. She was there to cover one of the attending. She was in outpatient usually. Unfortunately she was the victim.”
On Saturday, Ahmed went to a poignant staff meeting.
“Everybody was there and we prayed [and] hugged each other to support each other.”
He plans to see Bello’s other victims tomorrow.
“I heard they are getting better. But one is still critically ill,” Ahmed noted.
Six people suffering gunshot wounds were improving Saturday, officials said.
Four male staffers — ages 27, 29, 31 and 32 — and a 29year-old woman were among Bello’s victims.
Each was in serious condition Saturday in the hospital’s intensive-care unit, according to Sridhar Chilimuri, physician-in-chief at the hospital.
A 26-year-old patient wounded in the rampage was upgraded to stable condition, according to Chilimuri. One victim is expected to undergo surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital. Dr. Tracy Tam was killed after she encountered Bello.