From Bad Old Days To Worse Bad Old Days

Forget the bad old days, here are the really bad old days:

Twice in one week.

A 7-year-old building a sand castle on Staten Island’s South Beach suddenly found herself in the hospital yesterday after her thumb was pricked by a hypodermic needle.

Tanya Johnson of Port Richmond was sick with fear when she brought her daughter to the Sunnyside offices of the Staten Island Physician Practice — but she reassured and comforted little Sayyidah: “You’ll be all right. It wasn’t your fault.”

Only a week ago, an Eltingville woman rolled over on a sheet spread out on Midland Beach and was jabbed in the thigh by a syringe. Filomena Rago is awaiting the results of blood tests to determine whether she was exposed to infection.

Sayyidah Johnson was playing with her sister and cousin near the boardwalk and the Vanderbilt catering hall when she was jabbed yesterday, around 5 p.m., by a syringe that had lay hidden in the sand.

She was scooping sand into a bucket with her hands when the needle struck her finger, her mother said.

“It poked me,” said Sayyidah. “I saw a little dot on my finger.”

After a lifeguard cleaned Sayyidah’s wound with a swab of alcohol, the Johnsons went to the Staten Island Physician Practice, then to Richmond University Medical Center, West Brighton, for treatment. In an empty Gatorade bottle, Mrs. Johnson carried the syringe to the hospital — its bent needle apparently caked with dried blood.