DR. MYIESHA TAYLOR: TURNING TRAGEDY INTO INSPIRATION FOR MILLIONS

The year 2017 marks the 25 anniversary of the Rodney King verdict and riots. Like many of us, I can remember when I heard the verdict come down. It was April 29, 1992, and a jury had just acquitted four police officers caught on video beating motorist Rodney King.

After seeing that video over and over and over again with officers beating a Black man who was already down sent a rage through the Black community and many of us just “knew” that officers would be convicted. But when the verdict came back not guilty, the Black folks erupted.

In Los Angeles, shock over the verdict quickly turned into outrage and violence. More than 60 people died in the riots, The L.A. Times reports, while at least 1,000 properties were damaged. Damages totaled billions of dollars.

For Dr. Myiesha Taylor, the cost was personal. Her father was one of those lost in the violence.

Myiesha was just 18 years old, about to graduate from high school when her father, Dwight Taylor, was walking home from work when he was shot 3 times. No one saw who did it.

Friends put Dwight–bloody and all–into the back of a car and brought him to a hospital. But, Myiesha said, her father didn’t get medical attention in time. He died hours after being shot.

“In trauma you have a golden hour where if you get the person to the hospital and in the O.R. within an hour or so, their chances of survival increase dramatically. Well, my father didn’t have that opportunity,” she said in an interview with NBC News.

But that tragedy brought inspiration. She had always wanted to pursue a career in medicine, but the loss of her father pushed her specifically to the field of emergency…

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