Date: 11/8/2008
By ANDREA BROWN
The (Colorado Springs) Gazette
PENROSE, Colo. (AP) _ Go ahead. Call Chris Clear a pinhead.
Everyone else in town does.
“It fits me pretty good,” said the 19-year-old from Penrose who six months ago survived a freak accident with a garden tiller that shot a 2-inch metal pin into his brain.
What’s weirder is that he didn’t know he had the nail-like pin in his head until two days later, despite a trip to the ER.
He takes the “Pinhead” nickname as a badge of honor and displays it on merchandise.
Folks around Fremont County wear T-shirts with his brain scan picture. The gray X-ray image shows his skull with a long white pin.
The accident happened in April while he was helping a buddy steer an old rototiller.
“I felt something hit me in the face,” Chris said. “I thought it kicked up something like a rock.”
It came at him with bullet-like force, instantly causing a massive nosebleed and severe neck pain. Chris, an EMT and Penrose volunteer firefighter, was taken by ambulance to a Canon City hospital.
On his face near his nostril was a tiny cut — from the rock, it was assumed. He was sent home with a neck brace for whiplash and an appointment with a chiropractor.
For the next two days he had impaired vision and a really bad headache. Back he went by ambulance to the ER — and this time a brain scan showed the metal pin in his head.
“I heard them down the hallway say, ‘He has something in his head; he needs to get out of here,'” Chris said. “I was, ‘What the crap?'”
He doesn’t remember much after he was rushed to a hospital near Denver. During the nine-hour surgery, his parents braced for the worst.
His mom, Dawn, said it was like a Hollywood movie when “the double doors opened up, and here was this surgeon holding up the pin.”
The projectile had entered near Chris’ nose, then shot to the back of his head, missing several major arteries by millimeters and doing only minor damage to his optic nerves.
Chris was too drugged to remember his four days in ICU or his stardom as the patient who had a pin in his head.
When he returned for a checkup, he saw his pinhead X-ray on hospital computers. “They had it as their desktop,” he said. “It was pretty funny.”
The bizarre incident made national news, and the lanky, soft-spoken teen found himself in the spotlight, facing the public without his usual ballcap for protection.
He couldn’t wear a hat until the back of his skull healed from surgery. Nor could he drive his pickup for two months while his vision was returning.
During recovery, Chris, the second-oldest of eight kids, had plenty of company. “I got like 50 friend requests on MySpace in one day,” he said.
People he knew — and didn’t know — asked for images of the brain scan with the pin.
His mom set up a Web site to sell shirts, mouse pads and beer steins with the pinhead scan. Profits go to the Penrose Fire Department, where he’s back on the force and also working for American Medical Response.
There’s no scar where the pin hit, but when Chris pushes the spot his front teeth go numb.
He keeps the pin in his pickup to show those doubters who say, “I saw that on the news, and that’s not you.”
Not minding being called a pinhead should be proof enough.
___
On the Net:
Cafe Press: http://shop.cafepress.com/chris-clear
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary
Feds pay suicidal Air Force veteran’s family
Date: 11/7/2008
Feds pay suicidal Air Force veteran’s family
HONOLULU (AP) _ The federal government has paid $800,000 to the family of a suicidal Air Force veteran who jumped to his death from Tripler Army Medical Center after his pleas to be admitted went unheeded.
Family members alleged staff at Tripler Army Medical Center failed to acknowledge the seriousness of his condition. Attorney Rick Fried said retired Master Sgt. Robert C. Roth, 50, was not hospitalized when he made requests to be admitted.
He suffered from bipolar disorder, had a long history of depression, and committed suicide last year by jumping off the 10th floor of the hospital on the morning of Jan. 2. A month earlier, Fried said, he had suffered severe depression and expressed to the staff that he was suicidal.
The family sued the U.S. government, alleging that Tripler was careless and negligent in its care of Roth.
The settlement means a trial scheduled for next month will not be held.
Roth worked as a clerk in the records section of the hospital.
Tripler’s commander, in a statement, extended the hospital’s sympathy to the Roth family.
“Our command and well-trained staff are committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure an incident similar to this never happens again,” said Army Brig. Gen. Steve Jones.
If Tripler had admitted Roth on either of two instances in December 2006 when he went to the hospital emergency room seeking help, he would have been hospitalized for a short period, said Rick Fried, the family’s attorney.
He would have had his antidepressant medication adjusted and would have been OK, Fried said.
Instead, Roth, frustrated after waiting about three hours without being seen by a psychologist on the second visit, told hospital personnel that he planned to commit suicide by jumping from the top floor of Tripler, according to Army records and Fried. Several days later he did precisely that.
On his first visit, Roth waited more than five hours and never saw a psychiatrist, only a physician training to be one, records show. He told medical personnel he planned to jump off a Makapuu cliff, but his request to be admitted was ignored, Fried said.
Fried said Roth’s depression started to worsen in late 2006, his antidepressant medication was improperly adjusted by his Tripler physician and twice he showed up at the ER wanting to be admitted. Both times he packed an overnight bag thinking he would be.
The second time he left the ER angry — and against the advice of medical personnel — because he wasn’t being treated and had been told patients more sick were being seen before him, according to his family and Fried.
Fried said Tripler did not have a written policy for dealing with suicidal patients.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Feds pay suicidal Air Force veteran’s family
HONOLULU (AP) _ The federal government has paid $800,000 to the family of a suicidal Air Force veteran who jumped to his death from Tripler Army Medical Center after his pleas to be admitted went unheeded.
Family members alleged staff at Tripler Army Medical Center failed to acknowledge the seriousness of his condition. Attorney Rick Fried said retired Master Sgt. Robert C. Roth, 50, was not hospitalized when he made requests to be admitted.
He suffered from bipolar disorder, had a long history of depression, and committed suicide last year by jumping off the 10th floor of the hospital on the morning of Jan. 2. A month earlier, Fried said, he had suffered severe depression and expressed to the staff that he was suicidal.
The family sued the U.S. government, alleging that Tripler was careless and negligent in its care of Roth.
The settlement means a trial scheduled for next month will not be held.
Roth worked as a clerk in the records section of the hospital.
Tripler’s commander, in a statement, extended the hospital’s sympathy to the Roth family.
“Our command and well-trained staff are committed to doing whatever it takes to ensure an incident similar to this never happens again,” said Army Brig. Gen. Steve Jones.
If Tripler had admitted Roth on either of two instances in December 2006 when he went to the hospital emergency room seeking help, he would have been hospitalized for a short period, said Rick Fried, the family’s attorney.
He would have had his antidepressant medication adjusted and would have been OK, Fried said.
Instead, Roth, frustrated after waiting about three hours without being seen by a psychologist on the second visit, told hospital personnel that he planned to commit suicide by jumping from the top floor of Tripler, according to Army records and Fried. Several days later he did precisely that.
On his first visit, Roth waited more than five hours and never saw a psychiatrist, only a physician training to be one, records show. He told medical personnel he planned to jump off a Makapuu cliff, but his request to be admitted was ignored, Fried said.
Fried said Roth’s depression started to worsen in late 2006, his antidepressant medication was improperly adjusted by his Tripler physician and twice he showed up at the ER wanting to be admitted. Both times he packed an overnight bag thinking he would be.
The second time he left the ER angry — and against the advice of medical personnel — because he wasn’t being treated and had been told patients more sick were being seen before him, according to his family and Fried.
Fried said Tripler did not have a written policy for dealing with suicidal patients.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Army general to investigate recruiter suicides
Date: 11/7/2008
By MICHELLE ROBERTS
Associated Press Writer
SAN ANTONIO (AP) _ The Army has agreed to investigate a disproportionate cluster of suicides among recruiters in an East Texas battalion, as well as allegations by other soldiers and family members that they were pressured to cover up serious problems in the battalion, Army Secretary Pete Geren said.
Seventeen Army recruiters have committed suicide nationwide since 2001, but four of them were from the Houston Recruiting Battalion, which recruits soldiers from East Texas. A fifth Houston-area soldier killed himself, but he was assigned to the Army’s Future Soldier Training Program.
There are 38 recruiting battalions nationwide with 8,400 recruiters.
The Army’s suicide rate has been climbing as the war in Iraq has forced multiple and longer deployments.
Last year, the Army’s suicide rate was 18.1 per 100,000, the highest since the service started keeping records in 1980. That’s still lower than the U.S. civilian rate of 19.5 per 100,000.
The investigation was sought by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who heard from soldiers and family members after the Houston Chronicle reported the cluster of suicides earlier this year.
Brig. Gen. Frank Turner has been assigned to investigate the recruiter suicides and the cover-up allegations, Geren told Cornyn in a letter dated Monday.
A chaplain, psychologist and equal employment officer talked to members of the Houston battalion in mid-October, said Douglas Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command. Their report is not yet complete, but Smith said Friday he doesn’t know of any obstruction.
Cornyn noted in an interview Friday that the all-volunteer service is under heavy pressure to sign recruits and retain soldiers during two wars.
Many recruiters are soldiers with recent combat experience who may be suffering from stress and now must persuade high school students and other young people to join an Army at war.
The hours can be long and many work in offices in shopping malls or elsewhere far from Army posts. Cornyn said those conditions isolate soldiers, particularly ones who have recently returned from combat, and may make many of the Army’s support services out of reach.
Cornyn, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained to Geren in a letter that current recruiters and family members felt some battalion leaders were “working to cover up serious problems that evidence a toxic command climate and poor unit morale.”
Cornyn told The Associated Press on Friday that he’s concerned about the Houston battalion but noted “it also has implications militarywide.”
Cornyn has questioned the policy that places recruiting commanders without combat experience over hardened combat veterans.
Geren acknowledged in a letter dated Nov. 3 that some recruiting commanders don’t have combat experience, but he said Army officials don’t believe the lack of experience makes them ill-equipped to mentor and supervise combat veterans assigned to the recruiting command.
Geren said he directed Army officials to ensure recruiters have full access to the Army’s mental health services.
Cornyn had hoped for an independent investigation rather than one directed by the Army, but he said he is willing to give commanders a chance to handle it themselves.
“I’m hopeful they’ll take the matter seriously,” he said. “We’ll see whether the product is something that’s credible and demonstrates that they’ve taken it seriously.”
The senator said he also plans to seek a Senate hearing on the issue.
___
On the Net:
Houston Recruiting Battalion: http://www.usarec.army.mil/5thbde/4ebn/
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn: http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By MICHELLE ROBERTS
Associated Press Writer
SAN ANTONIO (AP) _ The Army has agreed to investigate a disproportionate cluster of suicides among recruiters in an East Texas battalion, as well as allegations by other soldiers and family members that they were pressured to cover up serious problems in the battalion, Army Secretary Pete Geren said.
Seventeen Army recruiters have committed suicide nationwide since 2001, but four of them were from the Houston Recruiting Battalion, which recruits soldiers from East Texas. A fifth Houston-area soldier killed himself, but he was assigned to the Army’s Future Soldier Training Program.
There are 38 recruiting battalions nationwide with 8,400 recruiters.
The Army’s suicide rate has been climbing as the war in Iraq has forced multiple and longer deployments.
Last year, the Army’s suicide rate was 18.1 per 100,000, the highest since the service started keeping records in 1980. That’s still lower than the U.S. civilian rate of 19.5 per 100,000.
The investigation was sought by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who heard from soldiers and family members after the Houston Chronicle reported the cluster of suicides earlier this year.
Brig. Gen. Frank Turner has been assigned to investigate the recruiter suicides and the cover-up allegations, Geren told Cornyn in a letter dated Monday.
A chaplain, psychologist and equal employment officer talked to members of the Houston battalion in mid-October, said Douglas Smith, spokesman for the U.S. Army Recruiting Command. Their report is not yet complete, but Smith said Friday he doesn’t know of any obstruction.
Cornyn noted in an interview Friday that the all-volunteer service is under heavy pressure to sign recruits and retain soldiers during two wars.
Many recruiters are soldiers with recent combat experience who may be suffering from stress and now must persuade high school students and other young people to join an Army at war.
The hours can be long and many work in offices in shopping malls or elsewhere far from Army posts. Cornyn said those conditions isolate soldiers, particularly ones who have recently returned from combat, and may make many of the Army’s support services out of reach.
Cornyn, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, complained to Geren in a letter that current recruiters and family members felt some battalion leaders were “working to cover up serious problems that evidence a toxic command climate and poor unit morale.”
Cornyn told The Associated Press on Friday that he’s concerned about the Houston battalion but noted “it also has implications militarywide.”
Cornyn has questioned the policy that places recruiting commanders without combat experience over hardened combat veterans.
Geren acknowledged in a letter dated Nov. 3 that some recruiting commanders don’t have combat experience, but he said Army officials don’t believe the lack of experience makes them ill-equipped to mentor and supervise combat veterans assigned to the recruiting command.
Geren said he directed Army officials to ensure recruiters have full access to the Army’s mental health services.
Cornyn had hoped for an independent investigation rather than one directed by the Army, but he said he is willing to give commanders a chance to handle it themselves.
“I’m hopeful they’ll take the matter seriously,” he said. “We’ll see whether the product is something that’s credible and demonstrates that they’ve taken it seriously.”
The senator said he also plans to seek a Senate hearing on the issue.
___
On the Net:
Houston Recruiting Battalion: http://www.usarec.army.mil/5thbde/4ebn/
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn: http://cornyn.senate.gov/public/
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Cat soothes post-traumatic stress disorder for vet
Date: 11/5/2008
By MIKE BAIRD
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) _ A Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder received an unconventional prescription in July.
“John McGahey needs a service pet,” his physician wrote. “He plans on using a cat. This pet is allowed to travel with Mr. McGahey anywhere.”
The last part of the prescription has been the toughest to fill. The 53-year-old former medical corpsman has been denied access to some public places with Patch, his 6-month-old white male service cat.
“It’s not like I’m trying to take an alligator with me,” McGahey said. “I just want people to know service animals can be other than dogs.”
McGahey was first diagnosed in the late 1970s after treatment in Philadelphia Naval Hospital. “I have a lot of flashbacks,” he said. “I get paranoid in public, and petting Patch helps keep me calm. When I’m ripping the bed apart at night he licks me.”
Stress disorder such as McGahey’s develops in some people after an event that caused or threatened serious harm or death, according to the National Institute on Mental Health.
The Americans with Disabilities Act defines a disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of an individual.” It defines service animals as “any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability” regardless of whether licensed or certified by a state or local government.
Despite counseling and group treatment, McGahey spiraled downward as he tried to douse his nightmares with alcohol and drug abuse that tore at the fabric of his family. The uncontrolled paranoia alienated his wife and he lost custody of his children, he said. McGahey rode with motorcycle groups “on roads to nowhere” for several years, he said, “until waking up as a wino on the streets of Los Angeles.”
McGahey escaped his self-abuse, he said, on Jan. 3, 1988, by admitting himself into an abuse treatment program in Walla Walla, Wash. There his diagnosis was again confirmed and he was helped to apply for and receive disability income while completing a 12-step abuse program.
He said he has remained sober since.
The past 20 years McGahey has conducted hundreds of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in several states. In Corpus Christi he is known as “Big John” in weekly meetings at Salvation Army, Loaves & Fishes and in the Nueces County Courthouse and Jail.
While passing out hundreds of copies of the “Big Book,” the bible of Alcoholics Anonymous, to help others with sobriety, he has found difficulty helping others learn the rules for service animals, McGahey said. It began at home.
He lives downtown at Sea Gulf Villa Apartments, federally subsidized housing for the elderly and disabled. Manager Wendy Bishop had him fill out paperwork and photographed Patch to allow him to keep his cat without charging a pet deposit.
McGahey first melted the myth that service animals are dogs-only at an H-E-B. Executive staff contacted store managers where he shops to arrange for him to carry Patch in a pouch the cat has been trained to stay inside.
McGahey and his feline also regularly ride Regional Transportation Authority buses, but only after he asked permission, which prompted RTA administrators to look up the Department of Transportation’s stance on service animals for people with disabilities. Federal Transit Administration regulation 49 C.F.R. Part 37 provides that public and private entities, such as taxis, buses and trains, permit service animals to accompany people in their vehicles and facilities.
The first time McGahey toted Patch with him into the Veterans Administration medical clinic, he encountered some resistance. He was required to show a copy of the ADA definition of service animals and his doctor’s prescription, which were photocopied for his file, before he was permitted to keep Patch with him.
Bayfest organizers allowed Patch entry this year after a gate attendant first told McGahey he couldn’t bring in his cat. McGahey said he has not been permitted to take Patch into local restaurants, and he understands that it’s often because of owners’ misunderstanding of federal regulations.
He wants to take Patch to AA meetings, but has been told he can’t bring the feline into the courthouse. And deputies at Nueces County Jail have refused Patch entrance. McGahey understands the jail is not a public place and agrees it may not be allowed because the ADA ruling is specific to “places the public is allowed.” But Nueces County Judge Loyd Neal defended McGahey’s right to courthouse access with his service animal.
“Sometimes bureaucracy gets in the way of common sense,” Neal said. “As long as (McGahey) meets the criteria for ADA, he can carry his cat.”
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
By MIKE BAIRD
Corpus Christi Caller-Times
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) _ A Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder received an unconventional prescription in July.
“John McGahey needs a service pet,” his physician wrote. “He plans on using a cat. This pet is allowed to travel with Mr. McGahey anywhere.”
The last part of the prescription has been the toughest to fill. The 53-year-old former medical corpsman has been denied access to some public places with Patch, his 6-month-old white male service cat.
“It’s not like I’m trying to take an alligator with me,” McGahey said. “I just want people to know service animals can be other than dogs.”
McGahey was first diagnosed in the late 1970s after treatment in Philadelphia Naval Hospital. “I have a lot of flashbacks,” he said. “I get paranoid in public, and petting Patch helps keep me calm. When I’m ripping the bed apart at night he licks me.”
Stress disorder such as McGahey’s develops in some people after an event that caused or threatened serious harm or death, according to the National Institute on Mental Health.
The Americans with Disabilities Act defines a disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of an individual.” It defines service animals as “any guide dog, signal dog, or other animal individually trained to provide assistance to an individual with a disability” regardless of whether licensed or certified by a state or local government.
Despite counseling and group treatment, McGahey spiraled downward as he tried to douse his nightmares with alcohol and drug abuse that tore at the fabric of his family. The uncontrolled paranoia alienated his wife and he lost custody of his children, he said. McGahey rode with motorcycle groups “on roads to nowhere” for several years, he said, “until waking up as a wino on the streets of Los Angeles.”
McGahey escaped his self-abuse, he said, on Jan. 3, 1988, by admitting himself into an abuse treatment program in Walla Walla, Wash. There his diagnosis was again confirmed and he was helped to apply for and receive disability income while completing a 12-step abuse program.
He said he has remained sober since.
The past 20 years McGahey has conducted hundreds of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in several states. In Corpus Christi he is known as “Big John” in weekly meetings at Salvation Army, Loaves & Fishes and in the Nueces County Courthouse and Jail.
While passing out hundreds of copies of the “Big Book,” the bible of Alcoholics Anonymous, to help others with sobriety, he has found difficulty helping others learn the rules for service animals, McGahey said. It began at home.
He lives downtown at Sea Gulf Villa Apartments, federally subsidized housing for the elderly and disabled. Manager Wendy Bishop had him fill out paperwork and photographed Patch to allow him to keep his cat without charging a pet deposit.
McGahey first melted the myth that service animals are dogs-only at an H-E-B. Executive staff contacted store managers where he shops to arrange for him to carry Patch in a pouch the cat has been trained to stay inside.
McGahey and his feline also regularly ride Regional Transportation Authority buses, but only after he asked permission, which prompted RTA administrators to look up the Department of Transportation’s stance on service animals for people with disabilities. Federal Transit Administration regulation 49 C.F.R. Part 37 provides that public and private entities, such as taxis, buses and trains, permit service animals to accompany people in their vehicles and facilities.
The first time McGahey toted Patch with him into the Veterans Administration medical clinic, he encountered some resistance. He was required to show a copy of the ADA definition of service animals and his doctor’s prescription, which were photocopied for his file, before he was permitted to keep Patch with him.
Bayfest organizers allowed Patch entry this year after a gate attendant first told McGahey he couldn’t bring in his cat. McGahey said he has not been permitted to take Patch into local restaurants, and he understands that it’s often because of owners’ misunderstanding of federal regulations.
He wants to take Patch to AA meetings, but has been told he can’t bring the feline into the courthouse. And deputies at Nueces County Jail have refused Patch entrance. McGahey understands the jail is not a public place and agrees it may not be allowed because the ADA ruling is specific to “places the public is allowed.” But Nueces County Judge Loyd Neal defended McGahey’s right to courthouse access with his service animal.
“Sometimes bureaucracy gets in the way of common sense,” Neal said. “As long as (McGahey) meets the criteria for ADA, he can carry his cat.”
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Tests start on US-backed drug stress disorder
Date: 11/3/2008 2:50 PM
Tests start on US-backed drug stress disorder
BASEL, Switzerland (AP) — Clinical trials have begun on a new U.S-backed drug to treat the debilitating feeling of heightened vigilance experienced by veterans with post-traumatic stress, Swiss-based pharmaceutical company Synosia said Monday.
The study is funded with $1.4 million from the U.S. Defense Department and will focus on veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Synosia said.
The company said it hopes the drug, called nepicastat, will help patients who have lost the ability to accurately assess danger, resulting in a constant sense of alertness.
The condition, known as hyperarousal, is one symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. Others include sleeplessness, anger and withdrawal from friends and family.
Post-traumatic stress disorder affects people from all walks of life, but is particularly common in veterans. Some 40,000 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with the disorder since 2003.
Synosia said the clinical trial will be conducted by researchers at veterans medical centers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Houston; and Charleston, South Carolina.
Officials at the U.S. Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs could not immediately be reached for comment.
Initial results about the effectiveness and tolerability of nepicastat are expected next spring, said Synosia spokesman Jan Gregor. Synosia is conducting separate trials to test whether nepicastat is effective as a treatment for cocaine abuse.
Nepicastat works by inhibiting the conversion of the brain chemical dopamine into an adrenaline-like compound called norepinephrine.
____
On the Net:
Synosia: http://www.synosia.com
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Tests start on US-backed drug stress disorder
BASEL, Switzerland (AP) — Clinical trials have begun on a new U.S-backed drug to treat the debilitating feeling of heightened vigilance experienced by veterans with post-traumatic stress, Swiss-based pharmaceutical company Synosia said Monday.
The study is funded with $1.4 million from the U.S. Defense Department and will focus on veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Synosia said.
The company said it hopes the drug, called nepicastat, will help patients who have lost the ability to accurately assess danger, resulting in a constant sense of alertness.
The condition, known as hyperarousal, is one symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder. Others include sleeplessness, anger and withdrawal from friends and family.
Post-traumatic stress disorder affects people from all walks of life, but is particularly common in veterans. Some 40,000 U.S. troops have been diagnosed with the disorder since 2003.
Synosia said the clinical trial will be conducted by researchers at veterans medical centers in Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Houston; and Charleston, South Carolina.
Officials at the U.S. Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs could not immediately be reached for comment.
Initial results about the effectiveness and tolerability of nepicastat are expected next spring, said Synosia spokesman Jan Gregor. Synosia is conducting separate trials to test whether nepicastat is effective as a treatment for cocaine abuse.
Nepicastat works by inhibiting the conversion of the brain chemical dopamine into an adrenaline-like compound called norepinephrine.
____
On the Net:
Synosia: http://www.synosia.com
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Sex offender in Vermont seeks state Senate seat
Date: 11/3/2008 7:10 AM
By JOHN CURRAN
Associated Press Writer
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Larkin Forney doesn’t have the most conventional background: He’s a convicted sex offender and drunken driver, a head injury victim and a marijuana legalization advocate.
But that hasn’t stopped him running for state Senate.
Forney, 31, of Milton, who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a minor and has three driving under the influence convictions, said he’s running to bring public attention to flaws in the criminal justice system — and to let the world know he’s no pedophile.
He knows his background may scare off some voters, but he figures honesty might win him some votes in the race for one of six at-large seats representing Vermont’s most populous county.
“All my skeletons are out in the open, while other people continue to deny theirs,” he said.
Vermont law has no ban on people with criminal records running for office. If you live in the district you want to represent and you gather enough signatures from people — in state Senate races, that’s 100 — you can get on the ballot.
Forney did.
His name appears with 13 others on Tuesday’s ballot, under the “Justice for Vermonters” party label. In his campaign literature, he says diagnosed sexual predators and pedophiles should be sent to prison for life, marijuana should be legalized and U.S troops withdrawn from Iraq.
“We haven’t had situations where anybody with that kind of record’s been elected,” said Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz. “We’ve had people with criminal records run for office, usually at the local level, for constable or lister. At the end of the day, the voters make a choice.”
In any election, Forney probably would face an uphill battle. Running this year makes his candidacy especially unlikely.
The abduction, rape and murder of 12-year-old Brooke Bennett — allegedly by her sex-offender uncle, Michael Jacques — has badly shaken people in Vermont, and prompted a vigorous election-year debate over how best to prevent sex crimes and punish those responsible.
Electing a sex offender? It could happen, Forney says.
“I don’t think I have that bad of a shot,” he said. “The government can put the sex offender label on someone, but it doesn’t make them a pedophile or a dangerous person.”
Forney, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as an 8-year-old boy when he was hit by a car, blames the injury for some of his troubles, which include a suicide attempt in which he set himself on fire.
The sex charge stemmed from a 2002 incident in which he had sex with a 14-year-old girl. He says the sex was consensual, and that the girl lied about her age. Attempts to reach her for comment — through the Chittenden County victim’s advocate’s office — were unsuccessful.
Forney, who pleaded guilty to the charge in 2005, served 19 months in prison. He claims he was pressured into the plea.
Whatever the truth, his candidacy was a surprise.
“It’s a little odd that in this political climate, he’s willing to run,” said state Sen. Diane Snelling, a Republican. “To some extent, you have to give the guy credit. If he wants to take his case to the people, great. But his argument will only reach certain people.”
Pearse Corcoran, 22, of Burlington, who cast his vote last week at Burlington City Hall, said he didn’t vote for Forney.
“I had heard about him. I heard it was circumstantial and all that, but I think that’s irrelevant. Plus, there’s the DUI thing,” he said.
Should Forney win, he would not be subject to a state Constitution article that gives the House and Senate the authority to expel a member. Such expulsion can’t be for causes known to voters before the election, according to David Gibson, secretary of the state Senate.
“That sounds like it would exclude him,” said Gibson.
___
On the Net:
http://www.justiceforvermonters.org
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary
By JOHN CURRAN
Associated Press Writer
BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — Larkin Forney doesn’t have the most conventional background: He’s a convicted sex offender and drunken driver, a head injury victim and a marijuana legalization advocate.
But that hasn’t stopped him running for state Senate.
Forney, 31, of Milton, who pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a minor and has three driving under the influence convictions, said he’s running to bring public attention to flaws in the criminal justice system — and to let the world know he’s no pedophile.
He knows his background may scare off some voters, but he figures honesty might win him some votes in the race for one of six at-large seats representing Vermont’s most populous county.
“All my skeletons are out in the open, while other people continue to deny theirs,” he said.
Vermont law has no ban on people with criminal records running for office. If you live in the district you want to represent and you gather enough signatures from people — in state Senate races, that’s 100 — you can get on the ballot.
Forney did.
His name appears with 13 others on Tuesday’s ballot, under the “Justice for Vermonters” party label. In his campaign literature, he says diagnosed sexual predators and pedophiles should be sent to prison for life, marijuana should be legalized and U.S troops withdrawn from Iraq.
“We haven’t had situations where anybody with that kind of record’s been elected,” said Secretary of State Deborah Markowitz. “We’ve had people with criminal records run for office, usually at the local level, for constable or lister. At the end of the day, the voters make a choice.”
In any election, Forney probably would face an uphill battle. Running this year makes his candidacy especially unlikely.
The abduction, rape and murder of 12-year-old Brooke Bennett — allegedly by her sex-offender uncle, Michael Jacques — has badly shaken people in Vermont, and prompted a vigorous election-year debate over how best to prevent sex crimes and punish those responsible.
Electing a sex offender? It could happen, Forney says.
“I don’t think I have that bad of a shot,” he said. “The government can put the sex offender label on someone, but it doesn’t make them a pedophile or a dangerous person.”
Forney, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as an 8-year-old boy when he was hit by a car, blames the injury for some of his troubles, which include a suicide attempt in which he set himself on fire.
The sex charge stemmed from a 2002 incident in which he had sex with a 14-year-old girl. He says the sex was consensual, and that the girl lied about her age. Attempts to reach her for comment — through the Chittenden County victim’s advocate’s office — were unsuccessful.
Forney, who pleaded guilty to the charge in 2005, served 19 months in prison. He claims he was pressured into the plea.
Whatever the truth, his candidacy was a surprise.
“It’s a little odd that in this political climate, he’s willing to run,” said state Sen. Diane Snelling, a Republican. “To some extent, you have to give the guy credit. If he wants to take his case to the people, great. But his argument will only reach certain people.”
Pearse Corcoran, 22, of Burlington, who cast his vote last week at Burlington City Hall, said he didn’t vote for Forney.
“I had heard about him. I heard it was circumstantial and all that, but I think that’s irrelevant. Plus, there’s the DUI thing,” he said.
Should Forney win, he would not be subject to a state Constitution article that gives the House and Senate the authority to expel a member. Such expulsion can’t be for causes known to voters before the election, according to David Gibson, secretary of the state Senate.
“That sounds like it would exclude him,” said Gibson.
___
On the Net:
http://www.justiceforvermonters.org
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary
Wounded Warriors
Date: 11/2/2008 5:21 PM
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press Writer
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — In a rush to correct reports of substandard care for wounded soldiers, the Army flung open the doors of new specialized treatment centers so wide that up to half the soldiers currently enrolled do not have injuries serious enough to justify being there, The Associated Press has learned.
Army leaders are putting in place stricter screening procedures to stem the flood of patients overwhelming the units — a move that eventually will target some for closure.
According to interviews and data provided to the AP, the number of patients admitted to the 36 Warrior Transition Units and nine other community-based units jumped from about 5,000 in June 2007, when they began, to a peak of nearly 12,500 in June 2008.
The units provide coordinated medical and mental health care, track soldiers’ recovery and provide broader legal, financial and other family counseling. They serve Army active duty and reserve soldiers.
Just 12 percent of the soldiers in the units had battlefield injuries while thousands of others had minor problems that did not require the complex new network of case managers, nurses and doctors, according to Brig. Gen. Gary H. Cheek, the director of the Army’s warrior care office.
The overcrowding was a “self-inflicted wound,” said Cheek, who also is an assistant surgeon general. “We’re dedicating this kind of oversight and management where, truthfully, only half of those soldiers really needed this.”
Cheek said it is difficult to tell how many patients eventually will be in the units. But he said soldiers currently admitted will not be tossed out if they do not meet the new standards. Instead, the tighter screening will weed out the population over time.
“We’re trying change it back,” to serve patients who have more serious or multiple injuries that require about six months or more of coordinated treatment, he said.
By restricting use of the coordinated care units to soldiers with more complex, long-term ailments, the Army hopes in the long run to close or consolidate as many as 10 of the transition units, Cheek said during an interview in his Virginia office near the Pentagon.
In the past, a soldier with a torn knee ligament would have surgery and then go on light duty, such as answering phones, while getting physical therapy. But last October, the Army began allowing soldiers with less serious injuries such as that bad knee to go to the warrior units.
The expansion came in the wake of reports about poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., including shoddy housing and bureaucratic delays for outpatients there.
Brigade commanders began shipping to the transition centers anyone in their unit who could not deploy because of an injury or illness. That burdened the system with soldiers who really did not need case managers to set up their appointments, nurses to check their medications and other specialists to provide counseling for issues such as stress disorders.
The Army’s goal now, as spelled out in a recent briefing given to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is to screen out those who do not need the expanded care program, shifting them to regular medical facilities at their military base or near their homes.
Jon Soltz, an Iraq war veteran and chairman of VoteVets.org, said the Pentagon is making a fair argument. He acknowledged that some soldiers with less serious injuries might not need the units’ services.
But he said commanders need to be able to move their soldiers who cannot deploy due to an injury to the units because that is the only way they can get a replacement before going to war. Otherwise, the brigade goes to battle without the forces needed.
“The larger concern here is that the problem that is driving this is the manpower problem,” said Soltz. “The Army is overextended. We don’t have enough guys.”
It is vital, he said, that the medical system care for all the solders who need help and that any changes should not threaten that care.
Raymond F. DuBois, a former acting undersecretary of the Army and manpower adviser under then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said the units address “a problem that was not made aware at the highest levels” and do it well. But he has worried for months that the units were overstretched.
“Guess what? They did it so well everybody wants in,” said DuBois, now an adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Cheek stressed that the new more stringent screening process will not deny care to soldiers in need or limit the treatment units to those with battle wounds.
“We don’t really care about the source of the wound, illness or injury. We really care about the severity of the wound, illness or injury,” said Cheek. “So if it’s a severe, very acute condition that needs rehabilitation and a lot of management and oversight, regardless of where it comes form, that soldier needs to be in this program.”
The latest data shows that it is working: The patient load is starting to inch down, from the peak of 12,478 in June to less than 11,400 in October.
Cheek estimates that the screening process will reduce the number to between 8,000 and 10,000.
As those numbers come down, the Army is also reviewing which units get more use. The list of potential closings include warrior transition units at Fort Rucker and Redstone Arsenal, in Alabama; Fort Leavenworth in Kansas; Fort Dix in New Jersey; and Fort Irwin in California. According to Army data, many of them either have only a dozen or so patients now, or can be combined with another nearby facility.
At Fort Campbell in Kentucky, however, more than 600 soldiers are in the treatment program. Staff there are bracing for a surge of patients when the three 101st Airborne Division brigades start returning home in the coming months.
Gen. Peter Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, toured the unit in late October. He gathered more than two dozen staff around a long table to hear their concerns about how the program is operating. Afterward he marveled that they talked not about their own administrative complaints, but about specific problems they were trying to solve for their patients.
In a small office down the hall, Lisa Gaines was blunt about what the unit meant to her.
“It’s done wonders for our family,” said the mother of five.
Seated next to her, Spc. Sean Gaines nodded quietly as his wife talked about the strains his injury had on the family and how the staff worked to heal all wounds — physical and emotional.
Deployed to Iraq in 2004 with the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, cavalry scout Gaines was shaken but not bloodied by the blasts of several car bombs and a house explosion. Yet when he returned home, he began having pain and his body went numb. The medical diagnosis was a crushed cervical disc — an injury he got either in Iraq or in training, only to surface later.
After surgery in October 2007, he came to Fort Campbell’s warrior transition unit — but he needed more than physical therapy. He had been told he could no longer serve as a scout.
“He loves the Army, he loves the military. For them to tell him he could no longer be a scout, it was difficult. It was a strain,” recounted Lisa Gaines. He was agitated, angry and withdrawn, she said.
In response, the warrior unit gave him underwater training as therapy for his injury, coupled with family counseling, budget management and career help.
“I realized I had options, I could continue to serve,” said Sean Gaines, who soon will leave the transition unit and take on a new Army job doing transportation management.
The counseling gave him time to figure out his options, come to terms with the change, and understand that he could either “drive on or prepare to exit,” he said.
He decided to go on, saying, “I am not going to be a scout, but I will still be part of a team.”
According to Army data, the key struggle is keeping the transition units fully staffed. In many of the more remote locations, Army leaders have trouble finding enough nurse case managers. As of the end of September, 12 of the units based at military posts were short those case managers.
Other locations, such as Fort Drum, N.Y., do not have enough behavioral health specialists.
Closing some of the locations may help ease those shortages, Cheek said.
“It shouldn’t be too surprising,” he said. “We’re 18 months old here, so now it’s time for us to relook at how we’re doing this, and where we can gain some efficiencies.”
He added that an order coming out in December will further refine the screening criteria for the transition units. In particular, it will call for the Army to identify other ways to provide care for reservists so they can receive the treatment they need closer to their homes, which often are far from large military bases.
The Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, has made it clear that any soldier who needs the coordinated care must get it, regardless of how many soldiers end up in the program.
Meanwhile, officials are building permanent care centers at the main bases over the next several years, at a cost of more than $1 billion. Annual operating costs are about $270 million, with the staff of about 3,000 consuming most of that expense.
Nearly 40,000 service members have been wounded in action in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as of Friday, although more than 18,000 returned to duty within 72 hours of their injuries, according to Defense Department data.
___
On the Net:
Warrior Care: http://www.warriorcare.mil/
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary
By LOLITA C. BALDOR
Associated Press Writer
FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. (AP) — In a rush to correct reports of substandard care for wounded soldiers, the Army flung open the doors of new specialized treatment centers so wide that up to half the soldiers currently enrolled do not have injuries serious enough to justify being there, The Associated Press has learned.
Army leaders are putting in place stricter screening procedures to stem the flood of patients overwhelming the units — a move that eventually will target some for closure.
According to interviews and data provided to the AP, the number of patients admitted to the 36 Warrior Transition Units and nine other community-based units jumped from about 5,000 in June 2007, when they began, to a peak of nearly 12,500 in June 2008.
The units provide coordinated medical and mental health care, track soldiers’ recovery and provide broader legal, financial and other family counseling. They serve Army active duty and reserve soldiers.
Just 12 percent of the soldiers in the units had battlefield injuries while thousands of others had minor problems that did not require the complex new network of case managers, nurses and doctors, according to Brig. Gen. Gary H. Cheek, the director of the Army’s warrior care office.
The overcrowding was a “self-inflicted wound,” said Cheek, who also is an assistant surgeon general. “We’re dedicating this kind of oversight and management where, truthfully, only half of those soldiers really needed this.”
Cheek said it is difficult to tell how many patients eventually will be in the units. But he said soldiers currently admitted will not be tossed out if they do not meet the new standards. Instead, the tighter screening will weed out the population over time.
“We’re trying change it back,” to serve patients who have more serious or multiple injuries that require about six months or more of coordinated treatment, he said.
By restricting use of the coordinated care units to soldiers with more complex, long-term ailments, the Army hopes in the long run to close or consolidate as many as 10 of the transition units, Cheek said during an interview in his Virginia office near the Pentagon.
In the past, a soldier with a torn knee ligament would have surgery and then go on light duty, such as answering phones, while getting physical therapy. But last October, the Army began allowing soldiers with less serious injuries such as that bad knee to go to the warrior units.
The expansion came in the wake of reports about poor conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., including shoddy housing and bureaucratic delays for outpatients there.
Brigade commanders began shipping to the transition centers anyone in their unit who could not deploy because of an injury or illness. That burdened the system with soldiers who really did not need case managers to set up their appointments, nurses to check their medications and other specialists to provide counseling for issues such as stress disorders.
The Army’s goal now, as spelled out in a recent briefing given to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, is to screen out those who do not need the expanded care program, shifting them to regular medical facilities at their military base or near their homes.
Jon Soltz, an Iraq war veteran and chairman of VoteVets.org, said the Pentagon is making a fair argument. He acknowledged that some soldiers with less serious injuries might not need the units’ services.
But he said commanders need to be able to move their soldiers who cannot deploy due to an injury to the units because that is the only way they can get a replacement before going to war. Otherwise, the brigade goes to battle without the forces needed.
“The larger concern here is that the problem that is driving this is the manpower problem,” said Soltz. “The Army is overextended. We don’t have enough guys.”
It is vital, he said, that the medical system care for all the solders who need help and that any changes should not threaten that care.
Raymond F. DuBois, a former acting undersecretary of the Army and manpower adviser under then-Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, said the units address “a problem that was not made aware at the highest levels” and do it well. But he has worried for months that the units were overstretched.
“Guess what? They did it so well everybody wants in,” said DuBois, now an adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Cheek stressed that the new more stringent screening process will not deny care to soldiers in need or limit the treatment units to those with battle wounds.
“We don’t really care about the source of the wound, illness or injury. We really care about the severity of the wound, illness or injury,” said Cheek. “So if it’s a severe, very acute condition that needs rehabilitation and a lot of management and oversight, regardless of where it comes form, that soldier needs to be in this program.”
The latest data shows that it is working: The patient load is starting to inch down, from the peak of 12,478 in June to less than 11,400 in October.
Cheek estimates that the screening process will reduce the number to between 8,000 and 10,000.
As those numbers come down, the Army is also reviewing which units get more use. The list of potential closings include warrior transition units at Fort Rucker and Redstone Arsenal, in Alabama; Fort Leavenworth in Kansas; Fort Dix in New Jersey; and Fort Irwin in California. According to Army data, many of them either have only a dozen or so patients now, or can be combined with another nearby facility.
At Fort Campbell in Kentucky, however, more than 600 soldiers are in the treatment program. Staff there are bracing for a surge of patients when the three 101st Airborne Division brigades start returning home in the coming months.
Gen. Peter Chiarelli, Army vice chief of staff, toured the unit in late October. He gathered more than two dozen staff around a long table to hear their concerns about how the program is operating. Afterward he marveled that they talked not about their own administrative complaints, but about specific problems they were trying to solve for their patients.
In a small office down the hall, Lisa Gaines was blunt about what the unit meant to her.
“It’s done wonders for our family,” said the mother of five.
Seated next to her, Spc. Sean Gaines nodded quietly as his wife talked about the strains his injury had on the family and how the staff worked to heal all wounds — physical and emotional.
Deployed to Iraq in 2004 with the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, cavalry scout Gaines was shaken but not bloodied by the blasts of several car bombs and a house explosion. Yet when he returned home, he began having pain and his body went numb. The medical diagnosis was a crushed cervical disc — an injury he got either in Iraq or in training, only to surface later.
After surgery in October 2007, he came to Fort Campbell’s warrior transition unit — but he needed more than physical therapy. He had been told he could no longer serve as a scout.
“He loves the Army, he loves the military. For them to tell him he could no longer be a scout, it was difficult. It was a strain,” recounted Lisa Gaines. He was agitated, angry and withdrawn, she said.
In response, the warrior unit gave him underwater training as therapy for his injury, coupled with family counseling, budget management and career help.
“I realized I had options, I could continue to serve,” said Sean Gaines, who soon will leave the transition unit and take on a new Army job doing transportation management.
The counseling gave him time to figure out his options, come to terms with the change, and understand that he could either “drive on or prepare to exit,” he said.
He decided to go on, saying, “I am not going to be a scout, but I will still be part of a team.”
According to Army data, the key struggle is keeping the transition units fully staffed. In many of the more remote locations, Army leaders have trouble finding enough nurse case managers. As of the end of September, 12 of the units based at military posts were short those case managers.
Other locations, such as Fort Drum, N.Y., do not have enough behavioral health specialists.
Closing some of the locations may help ease those shortages, Cheek said.
“It shouldn’t be too surprising,” he said. “We’re 18 months old here, so now it’s time for us to relook at how we’re doing this, and where we can gain some efficiencies.”
He added that an order coming out in December will further refine the screening criteria for the transition units. In particular, it will call for the Army to identify other ways to provide care for reservists so they can receive the treatment they need closer to their homes, which often are far from large military bases.
The Army chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, has made it clear that any soldier who needs the coordinated care must get it, regardless of how many soldiers end up in the program.
Meanwhile, officials are building permanent care centers at the main bases over the next several years, at a cost of more than $1 billion. Annual operating costs are about $270 million, with the staff of about 3,000 consuming most of that expense.
Nearly 40,000 service members have been wounded in action in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars as of Friday, although more than 18,000 returned to duty within 72 hours of their injuries, according to Defense Department data.
___
On the Net:
Warrior Care: http://www.warriorcare.mil/
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.
Summary