Dagen

Public release date: 3-Apr-2008
Contact: Laura Mecoy
Lmecoy@issuesmanagement.com
310-546-5860

Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed)
Pioneer of paramedic model to be honored
LA BioMed’s John Michael Criley developed life-saving techniques

TORRANCE (April 3, 2008) – The American Heart Association’s Los Angeles Division today will honor John Michael Criley, M.D., the pioneer of the paramedic model in use around the country and one of the outstanding investigators at Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center (LA BioMed).

The association will present its “Passion of the Heart Awards” to Dr. Criley and William Koenig, Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Agency’s medical director, at the Regent Beverly Wilshire Hotel during the association’s annual Heart Awards Ceremony beginning at 6 p.m. today.

The awards recognize the evolution of advanced cardiac care in LA County, starting with the paramedic program and continuing with recent advancements in which paramedics take patients suffering from a “STEMI” (S-T Elevation Myocardial Infarction) to a hospital providing intracoronary intervention to restore blood flow to the threatened heart muscle.

“Dr. Criley is an outstanding investigator and cardiologist whose work has literally saved tens of thousands of lives,” said LA BioMed President and CEO Kenneth P. Trevett, J.D. “I congratulate him on this much-deserved award and for his many contributions to advancing the pace of discovery and improving human health care.”

Before 1969, when Dr. Criley launched the paramedic program, most heart attack victims received little or no treatment before their arrival at the hospital. Dr. Criley had learned of the improved outcomes when teams of doctors and nurses rushed to the homes of heart attack victims in Belfast, Northern Ireland to provide advanced cardiac care before and during the transport of a patient to the hospital.

Sending doctors and nurses to the homes of patients in far-flung Los Angeles was an impractical solution. So Dr. Criley decided in 1969 to train the professionals who were already responding to emergencies – Los Angeles firefighters.

“The firefighters were already responding to emergency calls to help get cats out of trees or provide first aid in the field,” Dr. Criley said. “But they didn’t have any special tools to deal with heart attacks or special emergencies. We thought if we could bring up the level of training of these firefighters, we could make them essentially a coronary care unit in the field.”

A pilot program was initiated at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in 1969, with classroom and bedside training.

Working side-by-side with nurses and physicians in the medical center’s Coronary Care Unit, these firefighters learned how to recognize and provide emergency care to heart attack victims. They then began to respond to emergency calls, starting with a station wagon called the “Heart Rescue Unit” to bring EKG monitoring equipment, antiarrhythmic drugs and a defibrillator to the victim.

Two-way communication between the field and the base station in the Coronary Care Unit was maintained throughout the rescue. One paramedic and the nurse would then ride in a commercial ambulance to continue to provide advanced care in transit to the hospital.

During the first year of service, a nurse accompanied the firefighters on all their calls because the law didn’t permit firefighters to administer intravenous medications or use a defibrillator.

After numerous trips to Sacramento and the invaluable help of late Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, the Wedworth-Townsend Paramedic Act was passed and signed into law by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan in 1971. Under that law, the firefighters – now called paramedics – could administer intravenous medications and use a defibrillator without nursing supervision.

In an “only in LA” twist, Hollywood executives heard of the service and developed a television show, called “Emergency,” about those early-day paramedic services. The TV show popularized the concept, leading to its widespread adoption by fire departments around the country.

Today, Dr. Criley continues to serve as one of LA BioMed’s investigators, a cardiologist at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and a professor of medicine and radiological sciences at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

###

About LA BioMed

Founded 56 years ago, LA BioMed is one of the country’s largest, not-for-profit independent biomedical research institutes. It conducts biomedical research, trains young scientists and provides community services, including childhood immunization, nutrition assistance and anti-gang violence programs. The institute’s researchers conduct studies in such areas as cardio-vascular disease, emerging infections, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease, dermatology, reproductive health, vaccine development, respiratory disorders, inherited illnesses and neonatology.

LA BioMed is an independent institute that is academically affiliated with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The institute is located on the campus of Harbor-UCLA Medical Center near Torrance.

It contributes to Los Angeles County’s economic viability while inventing the future of health care through its ground-breaking research, its training of the scientists of tomorrow and its service to the local community. Please visit our website at www.LABioMed.org

Remembering the St. Francis Dam - 80 years later
Disaster viewed as worst civil engineering failure of 20th century.

prohit@the-signal.com
661-259-1234 x517
http://newmedia.the-signal.com/news/article/677

Nestled in the peaceful, rolling hills of San Francisquito Canyon is a power plant owned by the Department of Water and Power. There is little evidence of a day that once was anything but peaceful, as a historic disaster roughly one mile away from the power plant claimed approximately 450 lives in 1928.

On Wednesday, the Santa Clarita Valley will remember those who fell victim to what is considered the greatest civil engineering disaster in the 20th century. On March 12, 1928, the St. Francis Dam in the San Francisquito Canyon collapsed.

The concrete gravity-arch dam was built under the supervision of William Mulholland. The dam’s collapse, failure and subsequent flood killed approximately 450 people as waters rushed from the dam, through the Santa Clarita Valley and into Ventura County before connecting with the Pacific Ocean 54 miles away. The loss of life was the second worst in California history; the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire claimed more lives.

For Mulholland, who at the time was the chief engineer and general manager of the Bureau of Water Works and Supply (now the Department of Water & Power), the dam’s collapse ended his storied architectural career.

Mulholland built the dam as part of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which he designed and built in 1913. At the time, the 233-mile waterway was the longest aqueduct in the world, bringing water from the Owens Valley in Central California to the city of Los Angeles.

Mulholland chose the dam site at San Francisquito Canyon in 1911. The St. Francis Dam, the anglicized version of the canyon it was built in, was constructed in 1926 by William Mulholland as a reservoir for the Los Angeles Aqueduct. The Los Angeles Aqueduct ran alongside the canyon with two generating stations nearby. It was an ideal location for Mulholland to build the dam, as he believed it provided enough water for Los Angeles in the event of a drought, earthquake or other damage to the aqueduct.

Building the dam
In March 1923, a site study was completed and approved. Approximately one year later, work began on the dam, with the first portion of concrete set in August 1924. Two years into the construction, in March 1926, water was diverted into the reservoir from the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

The reservoir’s capacity was set at 38,168 acre-feet. Construction was complete shortly thereafter, as water continued to fill the reservoir.

There were several modifications along the way.

In 1924, the dam’s height was increased by 10 feet, and the capacity was adjusted from 30,000 acre-feet to 32,000 acre-feet. In 1925, with the damn roughly half constructed, Mulholland added an additional 10 feet to the dam’s height and increased the capacity to 38,168 acre-feet.

It was not until March 7, 1928 - five days before the collapse - that warning signs began to surface.

On March 7, 1928, water in the dam reached its maximum height at 1,834.75 feet - approximately three feet below the spillway. It was the first time that the reservoir was filled to capacity.

The damkeeper spotted the leaks and apparently reported them to Mulholland, who allegedly dismissed them as normal.

Over the next few days, there were reports by passers-by that the roadbed adjacent to the dam began to sag. On March 12, 1928, the same damkeeper who noticed leaks five days earlier contacted Mulholland again as he apparently saw more leaks.

Mulholland visited the St. Francis Dam with his assistant, Harvey van Norman. After they both inspected the dam site, Mulholland remained convinced that the leaks were normal for a concrete dam and determined there was no reason for alarm. The inspection occurred at noon on March 12.

Less than 12 hours later, at 11:57 p.m., the dam collapsed and a floodwave stormed through the Santa Clarita Valley, into Ventura County and into the Pacific Ocean. Twelve billion gallons of water emptied from the reservoir into the SCV.

Sixty square miles
In a report compiled on March 24, 1928, by George Newhall Jr., the then-president of Newhall Land & Farming Company, the amount of water at the St. Francis Dam was put into perspective. Newhall described the amount of water in his report: “In other words, sufficient to cover 38,000 acres or approximately 60 square miles with water one foot deep. To picture this amount of water, think of a river or body of water 10 feet deep, 1 mile wide and 6 miles long; or 20 feet deep, 1Ž2 mile wide and 6 miles long.

“Apparently this tremendous volume was almost instantaneously released into a canyon which for the first 3 or 4 miles was probably 200 to 300 feet wide and by the time it has reached our property line had only widened out to about 2500 feet.”

Later in his report, Newhall estimated that the amount of property damage due to the St. Francis Dam’s collapse would exceed $25,000,000.

With 12 billion gallons of water, several communities were hit hard by the disaster. As the waters filled the Santa Clara River, towns such as Castaic Junction, Fillmore, Bardsdale and Santa Paula were hit within hours after the dam’s collapse. The floodwave ultimately reached the Pacific Ocean in Montalvo, a small town in Ventura County 54 miles away from the St. Francis Dam.

‘The Tombstone’
It took over five and a half hours for the waters to reach the Pacific Ocean. As the wave approached Montalvo, flood waters hit speeds of five miles per hour. Bodies were recovered in the Pacific Ocean - as far south as the Mexican border.

In the wake of the dam’s collapse, the center section of it remained standing and was nicknamed “The Tombstone.” Two months later, the section of dam was demolished by dynamite, with the remaining pieces destroyed by bulldozer and jackhammer in order to prevent harm and to discourage souvenir hunters.

Other portions of the dam - which were found as far as a half mile away from the dam site -were also destroyed.

The dam was never rebuilt, though there were two replacement dams built - Bouquet Reservoir (built in 1934) and Castaic Dam (built in 1973).

It was determined by the Los Angeles Coroner that a paleomegalandslide caused the collapse of the St. Francis Dam. The rock formations were determined to be too unstable for a dam site, according to Stanford University geologists.

The Coroner conducted an inquest, where it determined that it would have been impossible for geologists of the 1920s, with the available technology, to detect the instability of the rock formations.

For Gladys Laney, 97, it was difficult to fathom that a flood struck the SCV. A Newhall resident who attended UCLA at the time of the disaster, the 17-year-old Laney was asleep at the time the dam burst. Moments later, she heard yells of the local newsboys (similar to a town crier), who claimed that the was a flood in Saugus.

“I thought, how can that be so,” Laney said.

“There was no water in Saugus.” After hearing the newsboy, she went back to sleep, only to wake up the next day to find muddy streets and a town crowded with crew workers, sheriff’s deputies and plenty of “looky-loos.”

“It was such a strange scene for a small town,” she said. “The streets were muddy, the poor workers were muddy, it was very strange.”

‘Just fasten it to me’
Immediately after the disaster, Mulholland was reported to take full responsibility. He admitted to inspecting the dam the day of the collapse, saying he noticed nothing out of the ordinary and there was no need for alarm. Mulholland added that, in his opinion, the leaks he observed were normal for dams the size of St. Francis.

“Don’t blame anyone else, you just fasten it on me,” Mulholland told reporters. “If there was an error in human judgment, I was the human, and I won’t try to fasten it on anyone else. I envied those who were killed.”

While responsibility of the accident was placed upon Mulholland and the government entities that over saw the construction, Mulholland himself was cleared of all charges, as they claimed that there was no way he could have been aware of the rock formation’s instability.

The Coroner’s inquest also recommended that Mulholland should bear no blame for the incident, saying “the construction and operation of a great dam should never be left to the sole judgment of one man, no matter how eminent.”

Mulholland retired shortly after the inquest, and went into self-imposed isolation before dying at the age of 79 in 1935.

Eighty years later
Wednesday will mark the 80-year anniversary of the St. Francis Dam collapse. A pleasant drive up San Francisquito Canyon Road shows little to no evidence of the historic dam break and flood, save for a commemorative rock and sign about one mile south of the dam, which marks the area surrounding the dam as a historical landmark. The exact death toll was never determined, with the official report at 450 deaths.

But there were unofficial reports of the death toll reaching almost 600.

Though a disastrous event, Laney pointed out that the Santa Clarita Valley recovered rather quickly.

http://newmedia.the-signal.com/news/article/677

Harbor-UCLA emergency room patients are in jeopardy, state inspectors say L.A. County will be required to come up with a plan to ease overcrowding.
By Rong-Gong Lin II; Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

February 6, 2008

Overcrowding in the emergency room at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center is placing patients in immediate jeopardy, according to state inspectors working on behalf of the federal government.

The Los Angeles County Department of Health Services expects to receive a formal citation based on last week’s inspection, another blow to the county’s fragile emergency room system.

In August, the county was forced to close most of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital in South Los Angeles after its federal funding was revoked because of lapses in care.

The federal government has also threatened to pull funding from another hospital in the county system, Olive View-UCLA Medical Center in Sylmar, because of deficiencies in care.

The expected citation for Harbor-UCLA, located in an unincorporated part of the county near Torrance, will require the county to establish a plan of correction or risk losing its federal funding.

The investigation was prompted by the Dec. 22 death of William Harold Jones Jr., an emergency room patient who left the hospital before treatment was finished and was found dead in a parking lot across the street.

Jones, 56, was admitted to the emergency room about 1 a.m. complaining of generalized body pain, according to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office.

At 6:20 a.m., he told the staff he was going to use the restroom, but he never returned, the coroner’s office said. The hospital realized a little after 9 a.m. that he had not returned.

Shortly after noon, a passerby found Jones dead on the sidewalk across the street from the hospital.

The coroner listed Jones’ death as accidental and found that he was suffering from diabetes and end-stage renal disease. He also had cocaine in his system.

State officials launched the inspection of Harbor-UCLA last week on behalf of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Los Angeles County health services Director Dr. Bruce Chernof said in a statement Tuesday that inspectors told the county to expect a citation that would say Harbor-UCLA placed patients in “immediate jeopardy.”

Chernof said in the statement that the county is already working on submitting a plan of correction to the inspectors.

Overcrowding in Harbor-UCLA’s emergency room and delays in patient treatment were expected to be highlighted in the citation, according to Chernof’s statement.

Chernof was not available for further comment.

The expected citation is the most recent in a series of problems at county emergency rooms.

In June, the federal government cited King-Harbor Hospital after a May incident in which a woman writhed in pain for 45 minutes on the floor of the emergency room lobby without receiving medical attention; she later died. Most of the hospital was shut down in August.

In October, a 33-year-old patient complaining of chest pains died of a heart attack several hours after arriving at Olive View-UCLA. He was never given a test to check if his heart was functioning properly.

The incident prompted a federal investigation of the Sylmar facility and in December, the federal government threatened to terminate the hospital’s Medicare funding unless it showed evidence that the problems have been fixed.

As the county struggles with its public hospitals, other facilities have felt the strain.

Downey Regional Medical Center, which is close to King-Harbor, had 211 patients about 10 days ago, even though the facility is licensed for 199 beds, said Robert Fuller, the facility’s executive vice president.

“It’s not unusual to hold 10 or more patients in the emergency room waiting for rooms upstairs, and we never used to do that,” Fuller said. “It’s a daily battle to try to find the beds and the nurses to take care of all the patients.”

Jim Lott, executive vice president of the Hospital Assn. of Southern California, said it’s a tragic situation any time a patient dies after seeking treatment at a hospital.

“But patients leaving hospital emergency rooms, unfortunately, is not all that rare,” Lott said. “Our emergency rooms are on overload, our hospital beds are filled to the brim.”

ron.lin@latimes.com

Times staff writer Charles Ornstein contributed to this report.

ISBN#: 0-385-48752-5
- Page 184

“We are not like solitary billiard balls, as materialism sees us; from the very beginning we are related to everything. Every drop of water in me has been in every spring, stream, river, lake, and ocean in the world during our earth’s billions of years of existence. We are related to every other self in the universe. In such a world, we no longer know the limits of the possible. Therefore we pray for whatever we feel is right and leave the outcome to God. We live in expectation of miracles in a world reenchanted with wonder. Intercessory prayer is a perfectly rational response to such a universe.”

Love is patient,
Love is kind.

It does not envy,
It does not boast,
It is not proud.
It is not rude,
It is not self-seeking,
It is not easily angered,
It keeps no record of wrongs.

Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Love never fails.
1st Corinthians 13:4-8

Brett Fadgen grew up down the street from a fire company in Shaler. He chose the station’s lot as a frequent meeting place with friends and enjoyed watching firefighters work.

“I couldn’t get enough of being around there,” Fadgen said. “Every kid loves fire trucks, but it’s what those people did that amazed me. I always knew I would have a career where I’d get to help people and make a difference.”

Now a paramedic with Ross/West View Emergency Medical Services, he is doing just that. On Saturday, the Pennsylvania Emergency Health Services Council recognized Fadgen as Paramedic of the Year at its annual conference in Lancaster.

Fadgen, 31, began emergency medical technician training at age 16. He took his first paramedic position in Erie after graduating from college. He took a paramedic’s job with Ross/West View in 2003 and moved back to Shaler.

Janette Kearney, the Pennsylvania Emergency Health Services Council’s executive director, said judges selected Fadgen from more than 20 finalists.

“I take my job very seriously,” Fadgen said. “But I could never have imagined I’d receive an honor like this.”

His application did not mention that he was born without a right forearm and wears a prosthesis, which requires him to perform complicated medical procedures using one hand.

Fadgen said he does not consider it a handicap.

“It made training a lot harder for me, but I do everything that any other paramedic does, and I am good at what I do,” he said. “I’m glad the judges were not made aware, because now I can know I received this award because of ability and not disability.”

Belinda Barnett, who wrote Fadgen’s nomination letter, was one of his trainees.

“He is an extraordinary teacher,” said Barnett, a Ross/West View volunteer emergency medical technician. “He’s also so great at what he does, especially at keeping people calm during their worst moments.”

Fadgen recently accepted a full-time registered nursing position at UPMC Presbyterian in Oakland, but will continue part time with Ross/West View.

“We’re going to miss him in a full-time capacity, but we’re very happy that he’s going to continue to serve here,” Ross/West View Executive Director Bryan Kircher said. “He’s helped a lot of people over the years, and has served as a great mentor and role model.”

Fadgen is a part-time flight paramedic for STAT MedEvac and volunteer firefighter in Shaler.

He credits his family, friends and colleagues with providing motivation and support.

“You have to be able to do your job knowing that whatever happens, you still have to go out later and handle the next call,” Fadgen said. “There are some things we see on a daily basis that a lot of people could not handle, and I’m fortunate to have people who provide me with the strength to do it.”

We were saved, and we have this hope.
Romans 8:24

You know the old saying, that where there is life there is hope. But I know a better one. Just turn it around: Where there is hope there is life. You’re never defeated, you’re never beaten down as long as you have hope.

And true hope. Hope that saves, is hope in God. It isn’t blind hope, or egotistic hope, but hope in God. It is God who fives power. God is the great renewing force. Get God in your heart. If he comes in, hope comes in. Keep this thought in mind as difficulties and sorrows and sickness and trouble come upon you. Jeep in mind that, like spring, hope always comes back.

Hope! What a word it is! Say it to yourself the last thing before you go to bed; say it the first thing in the morning. Let it permeate your subconscious. Hope will solve all your problems. It will solve world problems. Hope will guarantee that you stay alive all your life. Go out and spread hope all up and down the streets as you walk them - hope for the world, hope in God, hope in the future.

by Norman Vincent Peale

Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might.

Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness,

and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace;

withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one.

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints,

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

Look up! Look up! The Perseids are coming!

Meteors will be racing across the sky from the dusty fragments of an old comet this weekend and, with no moon out at night, should enchant patient sky watchers who’ve never seen them before, and give astronomers delightful work.

The Perseid meteor shower happens every August, and although it’s not unusual at this time of year for nighttime fog to obscure the spectacle for everyone in San Francisco, the problem can be overcome by heading for the hills outside the city. Other good spots for viewing include Bay Area parks and meadows where city lights can’t pollute the dark sky.

The best time to view the Perseids should be from Sunday after 10 p.m. until well before dawn Monday, but a few meteors will already be flying across the sky before midnight tonight and dawn Sunday, astronomers say.

Peter Jenniskens, an astronomer at the Carl Sagan Center of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, calculates that by 11 p.m. Sunday, about 15 streaks of light every hour will be flaring like falling stars across small segments of the sky. But by 5:14 a.m. Monday - just before dawn - the count could rise to nearly one every minute, Jenniskens said.

Most Perseids are likely to be somewhat faint, but now and then a single streak could shine as brightly as a star, he said.

The Perseid meteors are named after the region in the constellation Perseus known as the radiant where, to those watching, they appear to originate. They are, in fact, the dusty debris of a comet named Swift-Tuttle that orbits the sun and flies through the inner solar system roughly every 120 years.

The comet was discovered in 1862, and astronomers last observed it in 1992. But each year Earth’s orbit carries it through the trail of particles from the comet - some are even as large as pebbles - that the sun’s violent energy has stripped away. When those particles pass through the Earth’s upper atmosphere they vaporize by friction into short-lived white-hot streaks.

At the end of this month, a truly rare and perhaps even more spectacular meteor shower called the Aurigids will also be visible briefly over Northern California skies, Jenniskens said.

About 2,000 years ago, a comet now called Kiess passed by the sun and flew back beyond the solar system before returning again in 1911, leaving behind a thin stream of dust particles that only occasionally encounter Earth’s orbital path. The dusty meteors appear to originate in the constellation Auriga, hence the shower’s name.

This year the Aurigid meteors will flare for only about an hour and should peak around 4:36 a.m. on Sept. 1. Sky watchers should be able to count almost 160 of the “falling stars” in that brief period, according to Jenniskens. Some could be colorful and some even brighter than starlight, he said.

Amateur astronomers - and professionals, too - will use this weekend’s Perseid shower to practice their observation skills in preparation for the peak appearance of the Aurigid meteors.

Jenniskens will be flying out of the NASA Ames Research Center this weekend to practice observing and counting the Perseids, and then will lead two NASA planes on a rare all-night airborne mission to observe the Aurigids.
Online resources
Astronomer Peter Jenniskens has created a “Fluxtimator” applet that enables computers users with Java software to calculate the approximate meteor count each night for both showers. It can be found at: links.sfgate.com/ZOQ

Meteor viewing tips

Andrew Fraknoi, chairman of astronomy at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills, offers these recommendations:

1. Get away from lights as much as possible.
2. Allow 15 minutes for eyes to adapt to the dark.
3. The meteors can appear anywhere in the sky, so try to have a full sky view away from trees and don’t use binoculars.
4. Be patient. A shooting star may appear every few minutes.
5. Take someone with whom you like to sit in the dark.

E-mail David Perlman at dperlman@sfchronicle.com. article