Path of a Bullet

It's called “cracking a chest.”

Surgeons take giant surgical shears, snip apart a person's rib cage, and then use huge metal spreaders to lay the chest open.

It's one of the most dramatic and gruesome procedures in medicine. Dr. Doug McConnell has done it dozens of times, often because of diseases such as cancer or heart disease. But more and more often, McConnell has been finding himself elbow-deep in some 15-yearold's chest because of gunshots. After one such incident, as McConnell explained to a family that their son and brother had survived the chest operation but was still at death's door, the sister of the victim was puzzled.

“You got the bullet out, didn't you?” she asked McConnell.

McConnell realized it was time for some in-your-face education about what a gunshot really does.

“Where the fairy tale ends and reality begins, (kids) are totally confused about that,” McConnell said.

McConnell, 51, thought that if he could share with kids what he sees after someone takes a gunshot in the chest, or head, or gut, it would make an impression. Perhaps even convince some kids straddling the fence or still watching from afar to steer a course away from gun-toting friends. He wanted to show youngsters that a bullet the size of the end of a fountain pen can rip a hole the size of an apple out of flesh and bones. That sometimes even the best medical intervention can't save someone's life because the bullet has shattered such a large chunk of brain, or heart, or lung.

He pulled out his video camera and begin taping images, not sure exactly where it would all lead, but feeling a need to help solve the growing problem of youth gun violence.

Then, in October 1995, McConnell was seated at a community dinner next to eight strangers. One of them happened to be Carl Cohn, superintendent of the Long Beach Unified School District.

McConnell told Cohn about his idea. The educator loved it.

A few days later, a 13-year-old named Marcos Delgado was shot in downtown Long Beach. Another 13-year-old named Raymond Aioletuna was arrested. Both were middle school students.

That shooting happened on a Saturday afternoon. By Monday morning, Cohn was on the phone with McConnell discussing how to bring home the reality of gunshots to his students.

That week, there was a meeting with representatives of the Long Beach Police and Fire departments, the area's main trauma hospitals -- St. Mary and Long Beach Memorial medical centers -- and the Press-Telegram.

A three-segment video was produced.

It opened with blood dripping off a young man's hand into a huge pool on the floor of an operating room. He had been shot in the chest and his left side was spread open in an effort to save him. The operation was not successful.

The second segment showed a youngster who had suffered a spinal cord injury from a gunshot wound. The youngster lay motionless except for an occasional twitch.

McConnell shot the first two segments. The third, shot by the Jordan High School video club, showed paramedics treating a man who had put up his hands in an effort to stop a shotgun blast. His hands were bloody stumps.

McConnell tested the three segments at the second Public Safety Summit in January, and before middle school and high school students later in the spring.

People were moved and disturbed by the raw footage. The students said it was a great start.

But they said the video would have even more impact if there were images showing a bullet going through flesh or other objects. And they wanted to know more about the victim, and see how the violence affected family and friends.

The issues introduced in that video became the basis of this “Path of a Bullet” special section: the emotional effect on police, firefighters and caregivers, and the financial cost to everyone.

McConnell's video and this section are the result of a cooperative effort.

The hospitals and the police and fire departments committed to giving McConnell and the Press-Telegram access to their people and facilities.

On the video project, former Long Beach Police Chief Bill Ellis accompanied McConnell to a shooting range and filmed melons being blasted with 9 mm rounds. Farmer John's donated a pig's rear quarter, and they pumped 9 mm, 45-, .38-, and .357-caliber bullets into the flesh.

“The entrance wound was the size of a pencil,” McConnell said of the pig. “But at the back there was a hole big enough to scoop bone out with my hand.”

Those images are now part of the video. With the help of the school district's video department, McConnell is also shooting tape of paramedics and caregivers at Memorial and a closing segment by Ellis. Both will be included in the video.