In an emergency room standoff out of the Hollywood movie “John Q,” a Long Island man – distraught that his beloved 87-year-old aunt was critically injured in an operating-room accident – pulled a gun and took hostages, police said.
The drama took place Tuesday at Central Suffolk Hospital in Riverhead, when Dennis Cartwright, 54, a decorated Vietnam vet, allegedly used his gun to take five patients and one hospital employee captive, prompting a police response that ended peacefully without any shots fired.
Last Wednesday at the same hospital, Cartwright’s aunt, Margaret Dioca, was scheduled for a minor procedure when something went terribly wrong – an oxygen tank exploded and caused extensive burns to her face, according to Cartwright’s lawyer, Andrew Siben.
Dioca was rushed to the Burn Unit at Stony Brook University in critical condition, fighting for her life.
As her condition worsened, Cartwright – desperate and deprived of sleep – became increasingly stressed, said Siben.
“She’s like a mother to him,” said Siben. “He thought she might die and he wanted to know how this could happen.
In “John Q,” Washington plays a man who pulls a gun and takes hostages in a hospital – in order to force it to perform an expensive heart transplant on his dying son.
Cartwright was charged with kidnapping and gun possession, and held in lieu of $35,000 bail.