Rosemary King remained bedridden in discomfort for most of day, which was unusual for the hearty and active 79-year-old Seaford resident.

As the wife of former U.S. Rep. Peter King, who served Long Islanders for 28 years before his retirement in 2021, Rosemary kept a schedule to match her in-demand husband. When her stomach pain persisted, the family doctor advised that she go to the hospital.

Peter King drove the couple to North Shore University Hospital on the evening of June 30.

Adding drama to the trauma, the Kings hit terrible traffic on the Long Island Expressway as they made the emergency trip in a driving rainstorm.

“She has a high threshold of pain; she doesn’t show pain,” Peter King said of his wife. “The fact she was literally screaming in the car – and there was an accident on the LIE – I just didn’t feel she was out of the woods until after the surgery.”

The emergency department staff quickly triaged Rosemary to both diagnose the source of her pain – an inflamed gallbladder – and relieve her symptoms until surgery two days later.

The ED typically sees one emergent gallbladder case a day, but Rosemary’s was unusual because she was in pain everywhere the trauma team probed.

Gangrene and sepsis, life-threatening conditions, were the immediate concerns. She was given an ultrasound within 20 minutes of her arrival. Her pain was so intense Rosemary now admits that she doesn’t remember a thing.

“Most of the time gallbladder issues are related to gallstones, which in the U.S. population is about 10%,” said transplant surgeon Gerardo Tamayo-Enriquez,, a critical care expert who performed the procedure to remove Rosemary’s gallbladder on July 2. “The gallbladder is like a balloon. And when the gallstone gets stuck in the neck, the gallbladder starts distending and eventually the pressure inside causes a problem and gets infected.”

The Kings returned to North Shore today to reunite with and thank two physicians who helped her successfully navigate this medical crisis.

“My son was delivered here 54 years ago on July 1 by emergency cesarean,” Rosemary said. “I know how good you are. I just want to say thank you to everyone who helped me.”

It started with Dr. Allison Cohen, an emergency medicine specialist who identified an inflamed gallbladder as the source of the problem.

“We really try to identify patients like Ms. King for signs of sepsis, meaning that she had a fever, a lot of abdominal pain and her blood pressure was a little bit low,” said Cohen. “Once we see that and use all the tools that we have, we’re really able to facilitate management. We know that what we do at the beginning of a case really counts.”

Once Rosemary was stabilized, she was moved to an intensive care unit and prepped for surgery. It did not go as planned. Tamayo had to convert the procedure from a minimally invasive laparoscopy to an open surgery after he saw the extent of internal trauma: inflammation, bleeding and surrounding tissue stuck to the organ. The liver also was out of place, making the gallbladder difficult to access.

Her surgery ultimately was a success and Rosemary was released after seven days. But the biggest test was this past Friday when she drove for the first time. Now she’s back to an active lifestyle – and wants to thank the medical team that made it possible.

“I just wish for once in my 28 years in Congress,” Peter King said, “I saw this level of cooperation.”