Aubré de Lambert Maynard

Aubré de Lambert Maynard (November 17, 1901 – March 20, 1999) was an American physician and surgeon who is most notable for operating on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to save his life after a 1958 assassination attempt.^[1][2] Maynard was an authority on chest and abdominal wounds.

Personal life

Maynard was born in Georgetown, Guyana and migrated to the United States in 1906.^[1] He initially attended City College of New York in 1922 and later enrolled in New York University Medical School.^[3] He was told that engineering had no prospects for blacks and chose medical school.^[3] Maynard had difficulties finding employment in the medical field. After finishing first on the internship examination, he was hired as the first black intern at Harlem Hospital.^[2] He lived in lower Manhattan.^[4] In 1928, he married Ethel Maynard with whom he had one daughter. The couple divorced in 1930.^[5] In 1978, he wrote the book Surgeons to the Poor: The Harlem Hospital Story.^[1]

Medical career

He served as the Director of Surgery at Harlem Hospital. He also saved the life of W. Averell Harriman.^[6]

Operation on Martin Luther King

Izola Curry stabbed the reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in the chest with a letter opener on September 20, 1958, at book-signing in a Harlem department store. NYPD police officers Al Howard and Phil Romano took King in the chair down to an ambulance that took King to Harlem Hospital, and its top team of trauma surgeons, Dr. John W. V. Cordice Jr., Dr. Emil Naclerio, Aubre C. Maynard,^[7] and Farrow Allen^[8] were called in to operate.^[9] They made incisions and inserted a rib spreader, making King’s aorta visible. Chief of Surgery Aubre de Lambert Maynard then entered and attempted to pull out the letter opener, but cut his glove on the blade; a surgical clamp was finally used to pull out the blade.^[10] Cordice mapped out a strategy and successfully saved Dr. King.^[11] He was the subject of the book When Harlem Nearly Killed King: The 1958 Stabbing of Dr. Martin Luther King, by Hugh Pearson.^[12]

References

1. "Maynard, Aubre De Lambert (1901-1999)". kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu. Archived from the original on 2015-09-18.
2. "Aubre De Lambert Maynard". San Francisco Chronicle. March 25, 1990. Retrieved June 19, 2022. Died Saturday
3. Saxon, Wolfgang (23 March 1999). "Dr. Aubre de Lambert Maynard, 97, a Surgeon". The New York Times.
4. "Jet". Johnson Publishing Company. 3 May 1999.
5. "Western Women: Ethel Maynard first black woman elected to Arizona Legislature". Arizona Daily Star. February 17, 2019. Retrieved June 19, 2022.
6. "Dr. Aubre de Lambert Maynard,97, credited with". 24 March 1999.
7. Schwartz, Felicia (January 1, 2014). "Dr. John Cordice, who operated on MLK after stabbing, dies". CNN.
8. Company, Johnson Publishing (2 October 1958). "Jet". Johnson Publishing Company – via Google Books. {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
9. "Cardozo HS coach Naclerio sets PSAL record with 723rd win". New York Daily News. 2 December 2015.
10. Michael Daly (January 20, 2014). "The Black and White Men Who Saved Martin Luther King's Life". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 2014-01-23. Retrieved 2014-01-22. Stabbed in the chest in 1958, one mistake or sneeze would have fatally severed his aorta if not for the deft work for two cops and two surgeons.
11. "Dr. W.V. Cordice Jr., 94, a Surgeon Who Helped Save Dr. King, Dies". The New York Times. 5 January 2014.
12. Pearson, Hugh (4 January 2011). When Harlem Nearly Killed King: The 1958 Stabbing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Seven Stories Press. ISBN 9781609803216 – via Google Books.