At 83, He Likes to Be Where the Action Is

When Henry Kassel asks, “Can I help you?” it’s obvious he means it. At his post near the entrance of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center emergency room, he is often the first person patients and their distraught families see at the hospital.

Tall and gracious in his green volunteer’s coat, Kassel is a reassuring presence this recent Monday afternoon. He tells a worried young man, whose co-worker required surgery after a fall on a construction site, that his buddy is doing “just fine.”

Another man enters, road-weary after driving from San Francisco. He is concerned about his mother, who broke her hip earlier that day. Kassel looks up the woman’s hospital room number and accompanies the man to the elevator.

Normally, Kassel works at Cedars on Fridays, for four to eight hours. But that week in October he covered for other volunteers. On Sunday night he helped shepherd five mothers-to-be through the admissions process and up to the labor and delivery area. Monday was his fourth straight day at the ER.

Kassel also volunteers every Wednesday at the nearby Los Angeles Free Clinic, performing such medical intake duties as taking vital signs and recording patients’ case histories, work he qualified for after taking an emergency medical technician course.

And on Thursdays, he can be found at the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station, interviewing people about the problems that brought them to the station, directing them to the proper officer and helping to process paperwork. He also role-plays for tests of Sheriff’s Academy recruits, pretending to be a crime victim or a suspect as recruits are evaluated for their handling of the situation. And he took the same eight-hour driving test deputies must pass--including a simulated car chase on the Pomona Fairgrounds.

Not bad for someone who turned 83 in May.

Kassel began his volunteer career 14 years ago, after a stay as a Cedars-Sinai patient. “While I was there, nothing was happening--there was just that lousy television set,” he recalls. “As I was lying there, thinking how bored I was, I thought, wouldn’t it be nice to have someone to visit patients, like an ombudsman.”

As it turned out, Kassel volunteered for the emergency room because, he says, “I wanted to be where the action was.”

Besides greeting patients, logging them in and escorting them to the bustling treatment area, he makes beds, takes messages and delivers blood and X-ray orders. A native of Massachusetts, Kassel dreamed of becoming a doctor, but was thwarted by the Depression. Instead, a year after his 1931 high school graduation, he went into the glass business, first near Boston and then in Los Angeles; he moved to Beverly Hills in 1949 seeking a more temperate climate for his wife’s pulmonary problems.

He retired in 1985 as vice president and sales manager of a glass distribution company, then held sales positions in two other companies, retiring for good four years ago.

On the volunteer job at Cedars, Kassel once helped deliver a baby in the parking lot. He manages to surmount the language barriers in calming Russian, Iranian and Latino patients.

Through the years he has obtained a lab coat for patient Sammy Davis Jr. to use in a comedy skit, received an autographed photo from Ella Fitzgerald, assisted Dick Van Dyke when the actor came in with a bloodshot eye, and--his favorite celebrity encounter--kept tabs on Mel Torme’s mother for the worried singer.

“What I like about the emergency room,” he says, “is that a lot of them come in and they’re petrified. Then I see them maybe two hours later, and they’re smiling, because what they thought was bad wasn’t so bad.”

His efforts are appreciated by colleagues as well as patients. Aggie Garell, director of volunteer services for Cedars, says, “Ever since Henry came here, he’s been totally dedicated to the emergency room. He’ll ask how can we make it better for the staff and for the patients. He always has suggestions for improving the volunteer program. He cares about the people here. We’re blessed to have him.”

At the West Hollywood Sheriff’s Station, volunteer coordinator Deputy Bruce Thomas agrees. “I’ve got younger volunteers who aren’t as sharp as Henry,” he says. “You give Henry a task to carry out, and he grasps it and completes it. He really wants to help. He doesn’t get flustered. He’s very people-oriented, very caring.”

Kassel, the father of a son and daughter, did not slack off, even after his wife, Emma, died in August, a month after their 60th wedding anniversary. “I plan to keep volunteering as long as I have a measure of health,” he says. “I like working with people who have problems, people in trouble.

“I thought when I retired that I could finally read,” he adds. “But I read for a half-hour and then I get antsy. I’ve been reading the same book for almost three months now. I’m on page 79.”