From The Road
Monday, April 07, 2003
Another sad day indeed.
Last night, I got in late after working all day on a documentary shoot for an up and coming show called Heavy Metal Parking
Lot, that will air later this year on a digital cable channel called Trio. All weekend, we had been interviewing people who haunt
special events as groupies. Saturday, we went to a Tattoo Expo and then yesterday a cat show. I always get the strangest gigs. I love it.
Being at these events, I had not been near a tv set or radio all day. When I got in last night, after kissing and hugging the wife, I went in to check my email and get some dinner. As the computer was booting up, I turned the tv on and caught the last few seconds of a picture that instantly turned my blood to ice. There on the screen,
with the date of 2003 underneath it, was a picture of my collegue
and friend, David Bloom.
The sound was down and I sat there stunned for a second as the screen faded to black. I jumped up and ran into the family room where my wife was also watching tv and asked her if David had died. She said she didn't know as she had just turned on her tv at the same time. In sheer panic, I logged on to my news service, only to have my friend's face staring back at me from the web page: David Bloom Dead In Iraq.
I couldn't control the tears. It was something I had feared. He was right on the front lines and knowing how David loved to push the envelope, I had just felt he could get himself killed doing what he loved to do. But as I read, I discovered that David had not died from a bomb or gun shot wound. He had died of a pulmonary embolism. Having grown up in a medical home, I knew what that was, an obstruction of a blood vessel in the lungs, usually due to a blood clot, which blocks a coronary artery. It's a fairly common condition that can be fatal. According to the American Heart Association, an estimated 600,000 Americans develop pulmonary embolism annually; 60,000 die from it.
But how did David develop one? It turns out that apparently another condition caused the clot. DVT or Deep Venous Thrombosis. It's the pooling of blood in the lower extremities that can cause a clot to form. This pooling can happen when a person sits or stays in one position with little or no movement over a long period of time, alowing the blood to coagulate, sometimes forming a thrombos or blood clot. It happens to those confined to bed rest for extened periods of time. Passengers on long overseas flights get them often enough that some have died as a result. David, who was over 6', was crossing the desert of Iraq in a cramped vehicle, forced to sit with his legs folded for most of each day. A couple of days prior to his death, he had developed an extreme pain behind one of his knees. He talked with some of the military doctors there in Iraq but also conferred with doctors in the U.S. by satellite phone. They all said the same thing. Get to a hospital immediately. DVT is often fatal as the clot breaks loose and races to the lung, blocking an artery to the heart. I spoke with a doctor today and he said that if David had been able to get to a surgical hospital immediately, he would probably still be with us today. But being in the middle of a desert, in a very remote part of the world, two days from Bagdad, he could only take some aspirin for the pain.
The last time I saw David, he and I had spent a month together during the Presidential election mess in Tallahassee and
I found him to be a deeply intelligent and wonderfully witty individual. One night, in a moment right out of the movie Broadcast News, we were fighting a live deadline and one of our satellite trucks had gone down minutes before the
Nightly News air time. So we recorded his voice-overs in the backseat of my camera man's Suburban and then, as the tape was handed to me, David smiled and said, "run like the wind, Rob". I took the tape and, like the scene in the movie, ran as
fast as I could down the stairs of the hotel where the field news room was set up, into the street, down one block, and then
after turning onto the main street, down five more city blocks to our other satellite truck in front of the court house that was waiting for the tape. A tech grabbed it out of my hand, slammed it into a video deck and punched play, feeding it live to New York, who recorded and cued it up immediately, ready to punch it "on the fly" under David's report that was getting ready to play. I had shin splints for a week after that but it had been worth it.
During that month, he would often ask me how he sounded. Some times I would tell him he sounded just fine, other times I would ask him if he was still actively looking into other careers. He had a million dollar smile and an infectious laugh. He always wanted to know if that last piece was a career ending bit. We all assured him it was the best he had done yet. In an industry bloated by mega egos, David never had one, even as he was striving to be the best he could be.
So far, this war has been as remote to me as it has been to most of the rest of you. But it has now kicked in my front door and delivered news that has broken my heart. I know what David's spiritual beliefs were. Though we never got around to
speaking about it, which I now so regret, David was a commited Christian. He was a good man. A kind man. And he loved his wife and three daughters more than life itself. My only solace during this time of sorry and grief is the knowledge that I'll see him again in the next life.
Please pray for David's family. And say a little prayer for me to, if you can. I'll be okay. It just hurts right now. A lot.
Hug your children and your loved ones today and don't forget to always tell them you love them every chance you get. David had just gotten off of the phone with his wife, telling her that he loved her, walked ten feet and collasped into eternity.
Just some thoughts on a sad day!
~ Read David's Last Email ~
Send notes with condolences to David Bloom's family at:
BloomFamily@NBC.com
or
mail to:
The Bloom Family
c/o NBC
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY
10112.
David's friends have established a trust for the benefit of his three
daughters.
Donations in memoriam may be sent to:
David Bloom Children's
Trust
c/o Latham & Watkins
885 3rd Avenue
Suite 1000
New York, NY
10022
For further reading and information:
"Into The Very Presence Of God" Chuck Colson, Townhall, April 17, 2003.
"Remembering David Bloom" MSNBC, April 6, 2003.
"David Bloom, 39, of New York" MSNBC, April 9, 2003.
"Consummate Pro with a Human Touch" Jonathan Alter, Newsweek,
April 6, 2003.
"NBC Correspondent David Bloom Dies in Iraq"
Washington Post, April 6, 2003.
.: posted by Rob 8:50 PM
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