NEW ORLEANS — A young doctor is speaking out after she stayed by the side of a woman injured in a carjacking.
She says the violent crime unfolded in front of her Tuesday afternoon at the Costco gas station on Carrollton and Palmetto.
The doctor's medical training and reflexes kicked into action as she went to be with the victim on the ground, but looking back she wonders could she have been in danger if the criminals were armed and began shooting.
“I'm still shaking. I usually have my kids in my car with me, and this lady, she's somebody's wife. She's somebody's mother. She could have been me. Five more minutes and I would have been the next car in line,” said Dr. Aarti Pais, a Family Medicine Physician at Touro.
Dr. Pais couldn't sleep last night after the woman in front of her pumping gas at Costco was carjacked. It was around three o'clock Tuesday afternoon. She says 35 cars were in line. Someone called out for a doctor. She ran to the victim's aid.
“I'm sitting there with this lady full of blood, and the Costco manager, and it starts to rain. I put my jacket over her trying to keep her awake. She was just in and out of consciousness. She was dragged, so she had like abrasions all over her arms.”
Dr. Pais says no one stopped what they were doing. She estimates it took EMS 20 minutes to arrive.
“It was a lot to stand there people continued to fill gas, and the guy behind her said, ‘Ma'am, can you move your car so that he could have access to the gas?’ So have we as a society become so immune to all this, another day, another carjacking?”
Dr. Pais is originally from India. She and her physician husband love the city, the culture, their children's school, they have successful medical practices, her friends and family are all here, but this was the final straw. They have decided to move. They don't feel safe at home after her neighbor was carjacked moving her garbage can.
“And while she got out of the car to do that somebody drove away with her car. Her kids were in the back. Like where does it end? Can't live cooped up in fear. That's not what this country is about. I mean, I moved here. Isn't this the land of the free, home of the brave?” Dr. Pais asked.
She says it's time for serious violence to be met with serious punishment.
“I don't think it's just a carjacking. In my opinion, it's attempted murder, because you left this lady there to die. And if there are no consequences, what's going to deter other people from doing the same thing.”
And the doctor says the victim's husband called her this morning to thank her. She doesn't know the condition of the victim.
There are no updates available at this time regarding this active and ongoing investigation.