"SOLVED" MYSTERY

THERE'S A SIDE TO PR THAT FEW KNOW EXISTS

That hot August day set out to be a "bad one" by PR standards. I place that phrase in quotes because when you work for a hospital system you understand that a "bad" day could mean dozens of bleeding people being rushed into the Emergency Room after an accident or some other disaster. Or a child going into cardiac arrest as doctors and nurses race down the hall after hearing the cry of "Stat!"

But for public relations folk a bad day is usually anything that can make your organization look "bad." It doesn't matter whether you are at fault or not -- perception, as they say is everything.

We knew that morning (my boss and good friend Marty Davis and I) that this would be a bad one for us. There had been a rash of food poisonings in facilities in the NYC Health & Hospital Corporation (HHC) -- the largest municipal hospital system in the world. Not just any facilities mind you, but long-term care facilities where patients are generally sent because their conditions are too severe to leave without ongoing medical care. Two patients had died and others were ill -- all from food apparently prepared and served by HHC staff. The thought of bed-ridden patients being fed poisonous food at city health care facilities is a ghastly image. The media just loves those!

After a briefing from the HHC president we headed out to one of the affected facilities. In the car we talked about the awful possibilities: Either we had a systemic food supply problem that made all patients potentially vulnerable. Or we had some wacko "angel of death" going around killing off patients. The media loves those too.

Then our beepers went off simultaneously. For those too young enough to know -- there weren't always cell phones. So Marty pulled the car over and found a working pay phone to call in. I knew by his expression this was bad -- but I never dreamed of what he would say: "We have to make it over to Harlem Hospital -- someone just walked out with a baby..."

Unbelievable! Even for two veteran PR guys, this was beyond the playbook.

When we arrived the streets were cluttered with police cars and media vehicles. A summer Harlem crowd had formed, many of the stunned, many angry, many both. 

We cut through the media frenzy and went to meet with the Harlem Hospital Executive Director, Head of Security and other key staff. No one had any answers other than: A "suspicious-looking" woman who was dressed as and acting like a nurse, was the one who most likely walked away with the baby.

First you think - how could this happen? Didn't anyone think anything strange? Didn't they know this woman? Well, no. Hospitals are open 24 hours a day, seven days a weeks, etc. There are multiple shifts -- no one knows the faces of everyone who works there. This woman apparently had an authentic looking hospital I.D. (not so difficult given the postage stamp-sized photo) and hospital garb. Nurse outfits are not like the 50s and 60s when all wore white dresses and caps. Now the dress is far more casual and can vary. Hospitals also have lots of visitors for patients, meetings, etc. every day. Not to  mention there are other distractions like, well  patient care.

And what of Security? Well as my boss told a reporter -- "A hospital is not a prison."

How true. Nor is it an airport.  You don't frisk people, there are no metal detectors and it is relatively easy to get a pass to visit a patient. That pass takes you virtually anywhere in the hospital that is not flat out restricted to personnel members only. 

Remember this is nearly 15 years before 9/11.

As the days and weeks went on we knew little more than we knew that first day. Police, as they say, were baffled.   

Then a solid lead came to light. A person of interest was traced to an address in South Carolina. The NYPD dispatched detectives, the S.C. State Police were on the scene, as was the FBI. They converged on the home, but to no avail. The woman in question had an air tight alibi.

The case eventually made it to television's "Unsolved Mysteries"  a Top Ten show at the time that had lead to the arrests of numerous cold case suspects.

No leads, nada!

And so things stood suspended in mystery.

Years later I began teaching PR in college. I have told this story to students many times as a way of telling them:   1) how in PR events can take a bizarre turn;  2) that there are lessons to be learned about how we dealt with the media that day (such as waving off the "packed room press conference"  and instead opted for individual interviews with the Executive Director to avoid a circus atmosphere)

I told that story to two classes just last month. It almost always draws a gasp or two.

But not nearly as loud as the one I let out yesterday when I saw the story on-line that she had been found!

I have often thought of her. In recent years I even wondered if it would have a Hollywood ending -- like maybe she would wind up as a student in my class.

But in reality there could be no more Hollywood ending than sitting at the computer on a cold January day when the news came flashing across the screen that the the mystery of that hot August day had been solved -- finally!