ALBANY PARK — Mayor Rahm Emanuel has shaken a lot of hands in his political career, but the clasp he shared with construction worker Carlos Herrera Rodriguez was different.
Paying a visit Friday to the Albany Park Stormwater Diversion Tunnel construction site, Emanuel was making the rounds, greeting various crew members, when Rodriguez' outstretched hand stopped the mayor in his tracks.
Like Emanuel, who famously lost part of his right middle finger while working at Arby's as a teenager, Rodriguez also brandished a missing digit, his right index.
The mayor insisted on posing for photos, hands raised, with Rodriguez.
How'd you lose yours? Emanuel asked.
Rodriguez told the mayor he'd gotten it caught up in his brother's bike chain as a child.
Emanuel once told 60 Minutes that he had cut his finger to the bone while cleaning a slicer. Instead of having it immediately cared for, he wrapped it himself with a bandage. It became infected and he ended up spending seven weeks in the hospital recovering.
He has said he was "one day from looking from the other side of the ledger."
