

40 Years After an Acid Attack, a Life Well Lived - Byliner
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/nyregion/40-years-after-an-acid-attack-a-life-well-lived.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=all

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GuiA
I'm certain I've seen Dr. Miele in the BART before.

Everyone (myself included, which I am ashamed of) did everything to not stare
at him nor look in his direction– which of course would have been glaringly
and awkwardly obvious to anyone observing the scene.

Reading this article, his body of work is fascinating. Part of me hopes that
if I ever see him again during one of my commutes, I'll have the courage to go
up to him and ask him questions about all the cool stuff he's done.

~~~
Mz
I wonder how aware he was of it and how much he experienced it as socially
isolating. When I saw "Shallow Hal," the beautiful thin actress who wore a fat
suit for the role of the fat girlfriend tried it out by going to a bar. She
was used to being looked at. No one looked at her when she was the fat girl.
She remarked in an interview how socially isolating it was. I know he is blind
but he is not stupid. I wonder how much of that he notices.

~~~
joshschreuder
But a thin girl in a fat costume knows what it's like to be thin and socially
active. It makes it more jarring to go from one extreme to the other (as it
would be for an overweight person who was ignored to suddenly become the
centre of attention).

By that same token, I don't know if Dr. Miele would notice much of it, because
he has been isolated in public from such a young age.

~~~
Mz
I am handicapped and so are my sons. We are "normal" to each other. I forget
how impaired my oldest son is. When he runs into something which trips him up,
I am often jarringly reminded. The article suggests Dr. Miele likely
experiences a "normal" home life and is sensitive to the detail of wanting to
be known for the right reasons. He may not be painfully aware of how strangers
react, because he is used to it. Or it might be like a constant annoyance
which grates all the more for having gone on so long. It would be interesting
to hear his take on it.

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chime
> But he said hers were wasted words.

> “That’s so fascinating,” he said, “but you know, it wouldn’t have made a
> difference. I was a cautious kid. I knew who was outside the gate. I knew
> Bassy. You would have opened it, too.”

I can't imagine the trust issues one would have after going through this. If a
stranger does something, it can be explained away. But if it is someone you
know, makes it much more difficult.

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XorNot
About 6 months ago in my lab we had an acid attack. One student took offense
to another telling him what to do, grabbed a hammer and the nearest vial of
sulfuric acid and chased the guy down, knocked him down, and started pouring
acid on him.

About the only lucky thing about the attack is that the victim didn't get any
his eyes, but months on he's still recovering after multiple skin-grafts.

There isn't really a lesson that we can fathom from this really. It happened
about 24 hours after an incident when the perpetrator had gotten angry and
thrown a beaker on the floor, and literally 5 minutes before the acid attack
happened (when the previous events were related to me) I commented that we
should take it more seriously because if someone's not in control that's how
acid gets thrown on people.

~~~
omarchowdhury
Tell us more about the perpetrator.

~~~
XorNot
He was just a new student - working closely with the victim actually.
Apparently he turned out to have schizophrenia, but it was previously
undiagnosed or unreported or something. Which is just weird as hell because
how do you get to Ph. D level and have schizophrenia in the first place?

------
pinaceae
interesting as this again was done by a deeply disturbed individual, a
paranoid schizophrenic.

society since then has not gotten better at identifying threats coming from
sick people. down to sandy hook, the completely insane individual is left
alone until he/she commits an atrocity.

~~~
k-mcgrady
I have no specific evidence but I believe society has gotten better and
identifying mental health issues and treating them.

>> "down to sandy hook, the completely insane individual is left alone until
he/she commits an atrocity"

It's up to family and friends to help identify problems someone they know
might be having and it's up to the government to provide adequate support and
facilities to treat ill people. People being left alone with their problems
until they crack is not just due to people not identifying the problems, it's
due to inadequate care options.

~~~
specialist
Based on my recent personal experience, I don't feel that much has improved.
Perhaps society is more accepting of the condition, and less likely to
stigmatized. But helping a mentally ill person (in the USA) is pretty much not
an option. Perhaps I didn't look hard enough.

~~~
k-mcgrady
>> "But helping a mentally ill person (in the USA) is pretty much not an
option."

Could you explain why? Here (the UK) there is quite a lot of free help from
the health service and there are a lot of charities I know of which provide
counselling. Local GP's are also able to work with people and refer them to
specialists if necessary.

~~~
DanBC
In England:

A person can go to their GP to get treatment, and the GP will either treat
(access to short form talking therapies and some medications), or refer on to
a community team.

The community team provides access to heavier duty meds; long form talking
therapies; ECT; hospitalisation; a variety of different clinicians, etc etc.

Note that treatment can be forced, and against the patient's wishes. Note also
that there's the possibility of community treatment orders. These mean that a
person living in the community (not in hospital or prison) could also be
forced to take medication regularly.

All of this is free at the point of delivery. (With the exception of
prescriptions, but there are so many exemptions they're free to most people.)

And let's not forget that people with mental illness are far more likely to be
the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrator.

~~~
specialist
_Note also that there's the possibility of community treatment orders._

We don't have that option. And I'm really torn on this one.

 _And let's not forget that people with mental illness are far more likely to
be the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrator._

Absolutely.

------
AlexMuir
A brilliant story, well written.

There have been a few horrific stories of cultural backwards attacking women
with acid in the UK press. It's made me far more cautious when handling
automotive batteries.

I won't move a car battery ever again without wearing safety goggles.

~~~
praptak
Acids are dangerous indeed. In case of hydrochloric acid you don't even need
to splash yourself to get hurt. The fumes are enough to damage your eyes or
respiratory tract - gaseous hydrogen chloride dissolves in the moisture
covering eyes and mucous membranes, producing hydrochloric acid.

~~~
pyre
To be fair, I remember handling HCl in chemistry and the fumes didn't dissolve
my eyes, though I could tell that the fumes weren't nice either. It would
depend on the concentration of the gas, which would also be a function of the
concentration of the HCl that was vaporising.

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aaron695
It is an interesting story about someone's life and overcoming adversity.

But don't fall into the trap and read anything else into it, the things you
should fear in life are quite boring. Some comments seem to be going down this
path.

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melc
Thanks for posting this article. Dr. Joshua A. Miele is an incredible person
and very inspiring. Thank you for your great work and contribution to people.

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seatac
no offense but he looks like a certain Star Trek character I forget his name.

~~~
EliRivers
How does adding "no offense" to the front of a statement affect how offensive
the remainder of the statement is?

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d0vs
What does this have to do with Hacker News?

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dschobel
How hard would it be for HN to filter posts like this? There are only so many
permutations of "Why is this here? / What does this have to do with HN?"
possible...

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gnosis
To my knowledge, HN hasn't added any new features in years. I think the people
who run this site are pretty happy with it the way it is and don't want to
change it, despite many suggestions for improvements. So I wouldn't hold my
breath waiting for them to do anything about it.

~~~
pg
Actually I added one about an hour ago.

This is an interesting suggestion but it would not be on our top 100 things to
fix.

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unimpressive
>Actually I added one about an hour ago.

What was it? I'm genuinely curious.

~~~
pg
Better detection and banning of abusive crawlers.

