HUFFINGTON
12.09.12
OUT AT THE TIMES
spot,” he says. And that
would most likely have
occurred after the 1992
elections; Schmalz was
slated to oversee all the
election coverage.
But on Dec. 21, 1990,
it became evident that
his life would change
dramatically. Schmalz
came back from lunch
that day, sat down at his
computer terminal and
began editing a news
relax. But the twitching
didn’t stop. And now the
words on the screen were
getting blurry as he tried
to edit. Suddenly, he got
very dizzy. He stood up
and took a few steps.
Then he blacked out.
Schmalz was having a
grand mal seizure in the
middle of the newsroom
man, from the science
desk, was summoned
downstairs, and soon
a team of paramedics arrived. The entire
newsroom was shaken,
and reporters, editors and photographers
stood dumbstruck and
watched Schmalz come
to. “As I was waking up,
a crowd was gathered
around me, and Max
[Frankel] was hold-
“This is what AIDS
looks like — good people,
lovable people, people
you want to hug.”
— Anna Quindlen
story on the computer
screen. For weeks he’d
had vision problems,
and his left eye had been
twitching. Assuming
that he was overworked
he had taken off ten days
and gone to St. Thomas
in the Virgin Islands to
at The New York Times.
He fell to the floor and
immediately went into
violent convulsions. “It
was absolutely frightening,” recalls one observer. “Everyone was
horrified. It’s of those
situations where you
just don’t know what to
do. You’re helpless.”
Dr. Lawrence Alt-
ing my hand,” Schmalz
remembers. “He was
quite wonderful. He
was just right there.”
It wasn’t until a month
later that Schmalz found
out what was happening
to his body. But the newsroom grapevine had al-