SALT LAKE CITY — Rabbi Avrohom 'Avremi' Zippel thought the worst was behind him. Twenty years after his former nanny first touched him inappropriately, a jury had found her guilty as charged.
But the 28-year-old faith leader wound up in an emergency room three weeks later, believing he'd had a heart attack.
The tightening in his chest didn't surprise a doctor who recognized him from news coverage of the case. The diagnosis was a severe panic attack, but the patient disagreed.
"The case is over," the Orthodox rabbi recalls explaining to his doctor. "He said, 'That that's not how this works. The wounds that are opened during a process like that, they fester and they sit, and they come and claim their dues, even weeks later.'"