The team at Los Angeles General Medical Center is calling on the community for assistance in a unique and pressing matter. They need help identifying a patient, a young man who has been under their care for over five weeks, with no name to his face and no family to stand by his bedside.
Named "John Doe" by hospital staff, this patient is described as around 23 years old, standing at 5 feet 5 inches, and weighing a slight 106 pounds. With brown hair and blue eyes, he is a slim man who has become the subject of an unusual citywide appeal. In an effort spearheaded by the L.A. County Department of Health Services, the public hospital has put out a call. For 38 days, the bed of this young man has been anchored, with his identity anchored to nothing but the hope that someone might recognize him.
In a bulletin issued early Thursday morning, which can be viewed here, officials were sparse on details about the man's condition or how he came to be in their care, citing privacy concerns. But his lack of identity has not just stumped the hospital staff; it has left a wider community concern about the anonymous lives moving among us, unseen.
Hospital spokeswoman Katie Garibay, a clinical social worker at Los Angeles General Medical Center's Department of Social Work, has become the point of contact in this case. For anyone with a clue, even the smallest inkling as to who this young man could be, it is Garibay who might field your call. "Anyone with information is asked to contact Katie Garibay, Clinical Social Worker at Los Angeles General Medical Center Department of Social Work," pleads the hospital's request. The phone number provided, should anyone wish to help solve the mystery of John Doe's identity, is 323-409-3761.
