Five people were wounded, three of them children, in a shooting rampage at a Jewish center   MESSAGE BOARDS: Hate crimes VIDEO CNN's Greg LaMotte talks with the emergency workers who saved boy's life. Real 28K 80K Windows Media 28K 80K

September 23, 1999
Web posted at: 4:35 p.m. EDT (2035 GMT)

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- A 5-year-old boy, the most seriously injured victim in last month's shooting rampage at a Los Angeles area Jewish center, goes home Thursday. He will be taken from the hospital to his house in a fire truck -- driven by the rescuers who originally treated him.

Paramedic Todd Carb, who was one of the first on the scene at the North Valley Jewish Community Center, remembers seeing five people down, including the boy, Benjamin Kadish, who was shot twice and unconscious.

Carb said his partner radioed the hospital that the boy was "circling the drain."

"That means that they're coming close to dying," Carb explained.

Kadish was taken to Providence Holy Cross Medical Center, where he underwent more than six hours of emergency surgery for his abdominal wounds.

Emergency room physician Dr. Charles Deng was the first to see Kadish at the hospital.

"He had no blood pressure, no pulse, so that would put you at the most critical condition you could possibly be in," Deng said.

Carb was one of the first emergency personnel to arrive at the scene

The youngster was later airlifted to Children's Hospital in Los Angeles, a pediatric critical care center, for treatment of a bullet wound to his leg.

Kadish was transferred from Children's Hospital to Woodland Hills Medical Center Monday to prepare for rehabilitation.

"We wanted him to meet the people who will be providing follow-up care at his home," Woodland Hills Medical Center spokeswoman Nicole Lorey said.

Suspected gunman Buford O. Furrow Jr. fired at least 70 rounds inside the North Valley Jewish Community Center in August, wounding five people, including three young children, police said. He turned himself in to authorities in Las Vegas after a massive manhunt.

Furrow, 37, is charged with five state counts of attempted murder for the shootings at the community center. He also faces federal charges, for the killing of U.S. Postal Service employee Joseph Ileto, and two weapons charges.

Sutton takes "great satisfaction" in the fact that he, a minority physician, saved a child allegedly targeted because he was Jewish

Furrow is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in the federal case October 12th.

Authorities describe Furrow as a white supremacist who allegedly committed the crimes out of anti-Semitism and hate for people of other races. As it turned out, Kadish was saved by the combined efforts of a Jewish paramedic, an Asian emergency room physician and an African-American surgeon.

"For this Jewish, innocent child, whose life is at stake, to be saved by another minority, a black man, I find that very ironic," said Dr. Charles Sutton, who is black. "And, yes, that gives me great satisfaction."

Correspondent Greg LaMotte contributed to this report.

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