“Elmer Smith: This monster wasn't the kid I once knew - Philadelphia Daily News” plus 1 more |
| Elmer Smith: This monster wasn't the kid I once knew - Philadelphia Daily News Posted: 21 Jan 2011 10:07 AM PST KERMIT GOSNELL was that kid that your mother always said you should be like. He represented the best and brightest in our neighborhood, the kind of boy we all knew was going to make something of himself someday. So, I'm struggling to reconcile that child of promise with the ghoulish fiend whose horrific acts were described in the grand-jury report that led to eight murder charges on Wednesday. The Kermit Gosnell I knew was a junior or senior in high school who worked in the game room at the old West Branch YMCA at 52nd and Sansom streets. He was only a few years older than the boys who shot pool or played pingpong there. But we looked up to him. He was a standout, tall with sandy hair and freckles, an exceptional student who was trusted and respected even by the adults at West Branch Y. I couldn't find any trace of him in the 261-page grand-jury report that describes in disgusting detail what it calls a "butcher of women." It tells of a man driven by greed and so completely devoid of human compassion that he joked with his untrained medical staff about the babies whose lives he literally cut short with his surgical shears. The preamble to this gory account reads like a pitch for a horror movie: "This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women," it begins. "He regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors. "The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels and on at least two occasions, caused their deaths." You might want to stop at the overview. The graphic detail and explicit photographs are so disturbing that the report is hard to read. A grand jury that sat through months of testimony might never be able to erase those images. "We had witnesses who broke down and grand jurors who begged us, 'Please, don't show us that picture,' " said Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore, who presented the case with Assistant District Attorney Christine Wechsler. "It was hard for us, too. We both have given birth to children. It was horrible. You can imagine a woman and a mother listening to this." "He jokes about one of the babies he killed being big enough to walk him to the bus stop," Wechsler said. "The jurors were very offended by that. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
| Keep kids safe in the cold - Denver Post Posted: 21 Jan 2011 11:57 PM PST DAYTON, Ohio — Kids and snow are a natural combination, but whether it's a sled ride, ice-skating party or a snowball fight, parents need to be on the lookout for safety issues that might threaten the good times. "Play is children's work, and kids should definitely be outside," says Lisa Schwing, trauma manager at Dayton Children's Medical Center. She says infants are the exception to the rule. "Extreme hot or cold can affect a tiny baby profoundly," says Schwing, who is a nurse. "Babies should always be bundled up with their heads covered. They should be outdoors in the cold only long enough to go from a house to a car." Older children should be kept inside if the wind chill is less than 10 degrees. "Kids don't need to be outside for hours. You should check on them every 20 minutes or so," Schwing suggests. "Be sure they don't have wet feet because anything that gets wet in the cold is going to get into trouble." To avoid that problem, she says, dress youngsters in waterproof boots and mittens — not gloves — "so that fingers can snuggle with one another." Make sure their heads are covered, and make sure they don't have pain in their nose, ears, fingers or toes — signs they might have frostbite. Last year, Schwing says, the hospital saw 60 kids of all ages in the emergency room as a result of sledding accidents. Bigger children tend to be hurt more seriously because they can go fast on their sleds, and if they do run into something they are hitting it very hard. Schwing says that when she was a kid, she and her friends would throw caution to the wind, pile on a sled, and go down headfirst. "That's the worst thing you can do," she says now. "You should go one at a time and use something you can control rather than a saucer or inner tube that you can't steer and that you can't keep from going backward." Schwing says it's important to go with your head up in a sitting position and never head first. Frostbite risk Dr. Tom Krzmarzick, medical director of the emergency department at Dayton Children's, says frostbite can occur during any outdoor activity, especially fast-moving activities such as sledding or ice-skating. Frostbite may begin with numbness and tingling in the cheeks, nose, ears, fingers and toes. More serious symptoms include skin that has turned red, pale or has developed blisters. Here's Krzmarzick's advice for treating children affected by the cold: • Remove wet clothing, and give children warm, dry clothes. • Soak the area in warm, never hot, water (less than 108 degrees). • Avoid rubbing the area, which could damage tissue. • Do not warm areas of the body affected by the cold by a fire or space heater because it's possible to burn the affected area. • Have your child drink warm beverages, such as hot cocoa, tea or milk. Amelia Robinson and Meredith Moss write for the Dayton Daily News: arobinson@DaytonDaily News.com or mmoss@Dayton DailyNews.com. This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php |
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