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HERALD Class of 2022 Graduation Inside $1.00
VOL. 124 NO. 26
Meet OBHS’s 2022 val and sal
Village of Bayville election results
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Page 32
JUNE 24 - 30, 2022
A picnic to benefit Ukraine By LAURA LANE llane@liherald.com
Elisa Dragotto/0Herald
MARIA SZHERBA, FAR left, Halyna Fenchenko, Anna Kijko, Ivanna Duda, Tetyana Komzuk and Iryna Bodnar were on hand to serve homemade Ukrainian food at the Father’s Day picnic at St. Josephat’s, a fundraiser for the war-torn country.
Ten Ukrainian police officers, trained in combat, ran for their lives near Lugansk in May as a Russian drone followed them. A helmet worn by one had already been shot off by the enemy as they dodged a barrage of shrapnel. Hearing the roar of bombs in the distance, the Ukrainian fighters were desperate to find refuge. When they spotted the door to an underground shed, they ran inside. As Michael, the last to enter, pulled the door closed, a bomb went off outside, causing the door to explode and fall onto him. Michael cannot share his last name for fear he will be CONTINUED ON PAGE 2
Roosevelt would’ve been proud of these dedicated officers By WILL SHEELINE wsheeline@liherald.com
It was a regular night on patrol for Nassau County Police Department 4th Precinct Officer Douglas M. Bedell in February of 2018, when he came across something unusual. It wasn’t a mugging, a speeding, or anything else that might normally capture the attention of an officer on duty. Rather, Bedell discovered a large lump where his neck and jaw met. Bedell, who lives in Bethpage, went to his dentist, thinking the problem was nothing more than a wisdom tooth or some other dental issue. What doctors found
instead was a malignant mass infected with non-Hodgkin’s diffuse large cell B lymphoma, which occurs when the body makes abnormal B lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that normally helps fight infections. Bedell chose the most aggressive form of treatment, epoch chemotherapy, so he could be back on patrol with his fellow officers as soon as possible. On June 16 he was presented with a Theodore Roosevelt Association Police Award, and in his thankyou speech, he detailed the harrowing days he spent at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in Manhattan, hooked up to an IV machine for the chemo, while his wife, Gina,
W
hat I’ve learned over the last five years is that this department is a family. DOUGLAS M. BEDELL
Recipient, Theodore Roosevelt Award sat by his side. “Essentially, for four and a half days straight, you’re hooked up to the chemo and it’s just running through your body nonstop,” Bedell recounted. “Each
round, the strength of the chemotherapy was greater than the last, and by the later rounds I began to need blood transfusions just to keep going, as my body began to show wear.” But the treatment forced the cancer into remission, and on October 15, 2018, Bedell returned to the 4th Precinct, and, at his insistence, to full duty. As it
turned out, however, the chemotherapy irreparably damaged his liver, and Bedell is now seeking a liver transplant. Police from across Nassau and Suffolk counties gathered at Sagamore Hill, Theodore Roosevelt’s summer home in Oyster Bay, to honor Bedell and Officer Jocelyn Nuttall, of the Suffolk CONTINUED ON PAGE 4