A Life-and-Death Irony : Shot 3 Times, a Doctor Ponders His Career Helping Lives Begin

It had been a long labor and, in the end, the doctor opted for a Cesarean section. The procedure went well. The baby was healthy, the mother was happy. “It was a boy,” the doctor recalled.

Just another night for Dr. Paul Hackmeyer, clinical chief of obstetrics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He remembers thinking he might get home in time for “the second feature.” Maybe his wife had saved him some popcorn. These family movie nights had become more important since the earthquake forced them out of their damaged Sherman Oaks home. Now the Hackmeyers were in a rented house in North Hollywood, but they could still pick up a couple of videos and snuggle in bed with the kids.

He arrived home just after midnight March 20. The 41-year-old doctor parked in the driveway and stepped out of his car to lock the gate on the chain-link fence that surrounds the house. As he reached for the chain, he said, “I became aware there was something out there” on the other side of the fence.

Two shadowy forms.

“It was so instantaneous. All I knew was I needed to lock this gate and I needed to run. . . . And as I turned, I remember

hearing them say, ‘Don’t run!’ ”

*

The first bullet pierced his left forearm. The second ripped through his right thigh. “I never saw the flash. I never saw the gun.” Paul Hackmeyer was running for the gap between his and his wife’s cars, hoping to shield himself. He remembers the third shot as louder than the first two, probably because of the damage it did. This bullet entered the side of his torso, tearing through his lungs and liver before exiting his chest at a point near his heart. “If it had gotten a little bit more to the left, that would have been it for me.”

Hackmeyer, who has helped in the births of thousands of children, is acutely aware of the irony of the attack.

“What I do for a living is to preserve life . . . I make life-and-death decisions,” he says. “Just as this guy made a life-and-death decision.”

The gunman pulled the trigger, Hackmeyer surmises, in anger because a robbery attempt had been frustrated. Police say no suspects are in custody.

Hackmeyer is sitting in his back yard with his collection of bonsai trees, home again after a week in Holy Cross Hospital in Mission Hills. The news on this day is that two Marymount College students shot in a carjacking outside a San Pedro supermarket have died of their wounds. “That could have been me,” Hackmeyer says.

His manner is gracious, his smile easy. He is at once affable, witty and contemplative. Often, he says, people assume he feels anger.

“What is more accurate is that I’m saddened by how far our society has broken down. I’ve seen it over a lifetime--how far the family has broken down. That good old Americana doesn’t exist anymore.”

He is a Boston native, the son of a radio ad salesman and a mother who died when he was 17. Hackmeyer remembers that, upon his mother’s death, his older brother, who is mentally retarded, raised a simple question: “Who is going to wash my back?”

With some embarrassment, Hackmeyer admits that his own thoughts became similarly mundane with his own life in jeopardy. As he was being rushed into surgery, the last thing he said to his wife Nancy was to remember to water his bonsai trees.

“I wish it had been something more meaningful,” he says, “like ‘Take care of my children,’ or ‘I’ll see you in the next life.’ ”

They have known each other 20 years and have been married for 15. They met while Hackmeyer was a student at Brandeis University, and Nancy Marutani, a Philadelphia native, was a student at Boston University, preparing for a career in law.

Weary of the cold winters, the doctor and the lawyer decided to stake their claim in California. In time there were two girls and then a boy. Brenna is 8, Casey 6 and Jonathan 2. Their dad performed the deliveries. In other ways, life was good as well. The Hackmeyers made many friends. And Paul excelled at his work, establishing a private practice while rising to a position of respect and responsibility at Cedars-Sinai.

But long before the quake, long before the shooting, the Hackmeyers found themselves questioning whether Los Angeles, with all its problems, was worth it. Fear of crime prompted the doctor to purchase a gun for home protection and learn how to use it. He made the purchase with ambivalence, acknowledging the painful thought that his own children might find it themselves.

Before the Hackmeyers could resolve their own debate over whether to stay in Los Angeles, the quake forced them to relocate to a neighborhood a few miles northeast of their Sherman Oaks home. Real estate agents say Valley Village, just north of Studio City, is the most desirable neighborhood in North Hollywood, a place where many homes have been valued at more than $500,000. But as in other affluent neighborhoods, crime has become a constant concern.

On the night he was shot, Hackmeyer did not lose consciousness. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad,” he says. His memories, he says, are a surreal series of black-and-white images. He cannot say why he knew he should lock the gate and try to get away.

He remembers calling for his wife, but she was unable to hear his voice. A neighbor was the first to find him. Another saw a car leaving the area. After Nancy came outside and discovered her husband, the children wanted to come outside too. Later, Nancy and the children piled into a police car to follow the ambulance to the hospital. The Hackmeyers expressed praise for the response of paramedics, the Holy Cross staff and the Los Angeles police.

His recovery seems to be going well, he says, although the drainage of fluid from his liver into a plastic sack at his side indicates that more surgery may be necessary. He spoke of how good it was to be home, to sit in the back yard and feel the sunshine and the breeze.

On this day, Brenna was with friends at Disneyland, while Casey and Jonathan romped around the back yard. Hackmeyer says he worries about the long-term effects on his children. Brenna has been brave and helped look after Jonathan, who is too young to comprehend what has happened. Casey, who had seemed standoffish on her hospital visits, now helps bandage her father’s leg wound.

When he used a euphemism in her presence, making a reference to the time “daddy got sick,” Casey was quick to correct him.

“You’re not sick,” the 6-year-old said. “You got shot.”

*

The shooting, Hackmeyer says, did not resolve the question of whether they should leave Los Angeles and all its troubles. As he put it to one friend, “Where do we go? Petaluma?”

But the sense that nowhere is truly safe isn’t the only reason the question remains open. Dr. Hackmeyer’s office estimates that more than 1,000 cards, phone calls and bouquets have been sent--all reminders of roots that have been put down. Colleagues at Cedar-Sinai Medical Center have established two funds to help the family cope with the financial strain caused by the quake and the shooting. The contractor repairing their Sherman Oaks home put up high-powered security lights on the rental at no charge. Dr. Sanford Tisherman and his wife, Flora, who are Jonathan’s godparents, hired a security firm to patrol the house.

Hackmeyer is especially touched that many former patients sent get-well cards that included pictures of the children he delivered.

It reminds the movie buff in him of the happy ending of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” with him in the Jimmy Stewart role. “I count my blessings,” he says. “There’s been such an outpouring from everybody.”

Nor will the Hackmeyers soon forget the scene of domestic reality that woke Paul up on his first morning back home: Brenna standing in front of TV, singing along with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers; Casey screaming at her to move so she could see the TV; and Jonathan, having just discovered how to remove his own diapers, leaving an odiferous trail .

” . . . and I’m looking at this chaos, thinking ‘Thank God, I’m home.’ ”

The doctor says this without a trace of sarcasm.

“This,” he adds, “is what it’s all about.”