My two aunts were returning to their home in Miramar after attending a play at the Coconut Grove Playhouse. They somehow missed the entrance to I-95 and ending up in a bad area of town just down the street from the Lindsey Hopkins educational facility on NW 20th Street. A young thug from the area opened the right door of their car while they were stopped at a red light and pulled on my aunt Beatrice's purse and dragged her out of the car breaking her right leg when she hit the pavement. The thug ran off with her purse containing all of her identification cards and credit cards.

Despite an operation and months of rehab she never walked normally again. She was able to walk with a cane for a while, then deteriorated to using a walker, then ended up in a wheelchair and then bedridden for at least the last 10 years of her life. She spent the last six years in a nursing home after my other aunt, Norma, passed away in 1999. The expense to the public (Medicare and Medicaid) was incredible, not to mention several hundred thousand dollars that we spent for the nursing home care over six years. And the last 22 years of Beatrice's life was certainly not fun for her due to his crime-caused disability and lack of mobility.