Robert Greenwald is interviewed on CNN by Lou Dobbs about Wal-Mart and the film "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price"
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jgilliam
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Joined May 23 2007
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When Is It Greed?
Robert Greenwald is interviewed on CNN by Lou Dobbs about Wal-Mart and the film "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price"
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I do not know where I have been to just now have seen the documentary, but I sat and watched with complete shock. I have my own "wal-mart" story to tell. My husband was a department manager at Wal-mart and had juvenile diabetes. On Halloween of 2002 he was barely able to call me from his cell phone while he was working. I could tell that he was not well and that his blood sugar was low. He was able to tell me that he was in front of the store. I immediately hung up the phone and called the walmart. I told the assistant store manager exactly where he was, what was going on and that he needed medical attention. The manager said he would take care of it. I immediately left work, which was 20 minutes away, and headed to the wal-mart. When I arrived, my husband was in front of the store exactly where he said he had been, sitting on a bench, alone. I enlisted a young man that was taking in carts to get the manager and to immediately call 911. My husband was unresponsive. No one came. Finally, a customer called 911 from her cell phone and only when the ambulance and fire truck arrived did the manager come to the front of the store. It was the same manager I had spoken to on the phone. He said that he had "looked around and didn't find him" He had not called for medical assistance and he was more concerned with when the firetruck would be moved than the health of my husband. My husband was given glucose by IV and taken to the emergency room. The following week, he was fired for taking "an extended break". The alleged extended break was listed as October 31, 2002. On July 6, 2003, at 6:45pm, my husband and youngest daughter left the house and went to walmart to pick up some popcorn for our family movie night. Forty five minutes later (7:30pm), I was concerned and checked my online banking to see if a purchase had been made hoping that it would tell me if they had checked out yet. No purchase had been made. I called the walmart to have him paged and I was told that they could not page a customer to the phone. I waited an additional forty five minutes (8:30pm) and checked again. To my surprise, a purchase for over $200.00 had been authorized at walmart. I called the walmart back immediately and told the customer service representative that there was something wrong. I told him that Bill was a diabetic and that the purchase had been made less than two minutes ago, to please find him and make sure that he was coherent enough to drive. He refused. He said he could not leave the office. I called the police and they went to the walmart to find him. The time passed and my husband and daughter did not come home. At 9:00 the police called me back and said that our vehicle was not in the parking lot. I had contacted every person I could think of and had two local police departments searching for him. At 10:00pm, an officer came to the house to take a report. Shortly after he arrived, a nurse from Harris Methodist hospital in Fort Worth Texas called. She told me that my husband had been in a serious accident and that I needed to get there immediately. She told me he had been care flighted there and was in critical condition. I asked her if my daughter was alright. I will never in my life forget the pause that followed. She finally said that she did not know where my daughter had been taken but that I needed to get there as soon as possible. It was after one in the morning when a chaplain finally arrived. The surgeon had just told me that "despite their best efforts" my husband had died in surgery. The chaplain came in, and told me that my daughter had been killed instantly. Her death certificate lists her death at 9:07pm. The accident was less than two miles from the wal-mart. I do not blame "walmart" for the death of my family. I do feel that there were several instances in which a simple act of compassion or common sense on the part of a walmart employee could have prevented their deaths. My husband and daughter were not the only fatalities in that accident that night. The third fatality was a father of six. He was also a walmart employee. Wal-mart sent flowers to my husband and daughter's funeral.