A weekend meant to be spent with grandchildren and celebrating a family member’s birthday took an abysmal turn for North Little Rock District Judge Jim Hamilton after he awoke on the morning of Sept. 21, a Saturday, with a severe headache.
Hamilton, 72 and approaching his 19th year on the bench, would soon be in the intensive care unit at UAMS Medical Center for two weeks with bleeding on his brain and was hospitalized for one month total.
Hamilton fought through this health threat and, with rehabilitation, was back home Oct. 22. Just this month Hamilton returned full time to hearing criminal and civil cases in his court. His return was delayed when he went back into the hospital for removal of a blood clot in his leg the week of Thanksgiving.
His only rehabilitation work now is a home exercise program. His only concerns in returning to work are his stamina during lengthy court sessions and occasional problems with gaining balance, he said.
“When I left the hospital, I couldn’t walk,” Hamilton said recently. “Now I’m walking a mile a day, and I’m loving it when the weather is warmer.
“My rehabilitation is just trying to get stronger, and every day I do,” he said. “I’m trying to gain my balance back. But I drive and I walk.”
Hamilton said that after he awoke with such a headache that September morning, he told his wife, Nancy, that he needed to go to the hospital. That’s the last he remembers from that day, he said. They had seen their four grandchildren on Friday night and were planning to celebrate their son Nathan’s 37th birthday on Monday.
Nathan Hamilton, North Little Rock’s director of communications, recalls a phone call that was “fairly frantic, understandably,” from his mother that morning from Baptist Health Medical Center-North Little Rock. After an initial diagnosis, the judge was quickly transferred to the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.
“With the brain bleed putting stress on his heart and the lungs as well, the doctor said it was pretty bad and immediately had him transferred to UAMS,” his son said, adding that he began calling his two brothers, Nick and Jimmy, and sister, Kiki, to go to UAMS. “The doctor said he has to go now.”
It was determined that Judge Hamilton had a subarachnoid hemorrhage, or bleeding between the brain and the tissue that covers the brain, possibly caused by an aneurysm. However, Nathan Hamilton said tests never definitely concluded that an aneurysm was the cause.
Randy Morley, North Little Rock’s district judge for traffic cases, recalled recently the moment when he learned of the predicament of his colleague and friend. They’ve known each other since the late 1970s, Morley said, and he was the next North Little Rock city attorney after Hamilton held the job from 1977 to 1990.
“It really scared me because it seemed like it was so serious,” said Morley, who was first elected judge in 2004 and is in his third term. “He was [in] intensive care for so long I was very, very concerned about his ability to come back. When I finally got to talk with him after he became able, he sounded really good. … He’s been going at it.”
Hamilton said he believes that his health episode has provided him more patience in his dealings from the bench, though he said he’s always prided himself in treating defendants kindly.
“I think I always have been pretty tolerant, but I do think I am more tolerant now,” Hamilton said of his court demeanor. “I have to understand that no matter the circumstances for their presence in my courtroom, it doesn’t do any good for me to be intolerant. I want to treat them with respect.
“I always wanted to treat people like I would want to be treated,” he said. “We’re all just there trying to get to heaven.”
Morley called Hamilton “really one of the nicest, even-tempered judges you’ll ever see.”
What hasn’t changed is Hamilton’s future plans as judge. With two years left in his elected term, he said he hasn’t looked beyond that.
“I will make up my mind when this term is over,” Hamilton said. “I really don’t know. When I first got out of the hospital, I thought this would be my last term. Every day I get stronger and stronger, I reconsider that option.”
Sitting beside his dad during the interview, Nathan Hamilton listened, then chimed in with “Then he sees his grandchildren and he reconsiders again.” (A fifth grandchild is on the way;
Nathan and wife, Stacy, are expecting.)
Jim Hamilton said he believes that the outpouring of support he received while hospitalized helped with his healing.
“This has made me appreciate people more,” he said. “All the cards and visits and people who said prayers for me. So many prayers were said while I was there I could almost feel them.
“There are a lot of nice people in the world,” he added. “On TV, you don’t see that. You can get callused sometimes. But people sure came out of the woodwork. … I have taken the opportunity to thank everyone I could for the cards and everything. Anybody I’ve missed, I want them to know that I appreciate them, too.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 12/27/2013