Media dis&dat

Sunday, November 1, 2009

South Carolina amputee reaches his goal to be a police officer

From WIS-TV:

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Walking across the stage means more to one Midlands man than you could imagine.

Officer Alva Williams has tried to graduate from the Criminal Justice Academy twice, and there's a twist to his story of accomplishment on his third try.

Looking at Williams among his fellow officers, you can't tell at first, but something is different about the new cop.

In 1986, as a senior in high school, Officer Williams lost most of his right leg after a high school football injury became infected. That injury didn't stop him from wanting to accomplish his life long dream.

"Everybody has got challenges," said Williams. "Mine you just happen to see and I get up. I recognize the challenge. I'm constantly thinking how do I maneuver around it and that's what life is about. Get knocked down, get back up, keep on moving. Stay in the fight."

Williams did not pass the required physical agility test his first time at the criminal justice academy, nor did he pass his second time.

Williams' police chief says he didn't even know about the prosthetic until after he was convinced Williams could do the job, and he never doubted this was a hurdle his new recruit could climb.

"He very definitively said he can do everything an officer does," said Chief Lance Crowe.

Williams admits it was hard. There were days he didn't want to go on, and times he worried if he would ever be able to make it. But his heart and will to go on, pushed him to the finish.

"Everyday is a challenge," said Williams. "I get up, got my family. There's nothing else I'd rather do. I enjoy it. Look forward to standing by these guys in blue."

Still humble about his accomplishments, Williams just wants to be one of the guys.

"This is an award for all officers out there who give up their life, day in and day out," Williams said.

Now that Williams has completed his time at the academy, this first ever amputee to do so, will join his home police force in Travelers Rest.

"Cooking Without Looking" TV show back on the air

From the Palm Beach Post in Florida:

The cooking show taping in WXEL’s Studio A seems pretty standard — an amiable kitchen set complete with shiny stovetop and fake window and chatty hosts discussing the chicken broccoli casserole they’re making. The only odd thing seems to be the golden retriever lying under the floor under one of the hosts’ feet.

But don’t worry – just like those hosts, Joanie the golden retriever, is working. And of the three of them, she’s the only one who can see what she’s doing.

Actually, with her excellent vision, seeing-eye dog Joanie is in the minority during this taping of “Cooking Without Looking,” which uses vision-impaired chefs creating delicious meals and sharing important information to make sure that everyone, regardless of impairment, can explore one of the most basic tools of living an independent life.

“You gotta eat,” says Thomas Fox, one of the show’s four hosts, a personal chef who lost his sight six years ago. “It’s amazing — you have to take a step back in your mind. You have to envision cutting, envision how you would de-bone a chicken without cutting yourself.”

The show was created by Emmy-nominated Miami television producer Re’nee Rentmeester, whose work has mostly centered on public service, including spots on youth violence, strokes and Black History Month. A March of Dimes volunteer and one-time board member, she says she began looking for a projects that “would make a difference, something that would be helpful to anyone.”

She originally thought about working with blind children, after researching descriptive audio, where the action on the show is described verbally and is available in the Secondary Audio Program [SAP] option on stereo televisions. But she found that “some people don’t like it. What if I drop my remote [that controls the SAP] and can’t find it? It’s a lot easier for the show to describe [itself].”

She eventually came up with “Cooking Without Looking,” where hosts Fox, Annette Watkins, Celia Chacon and Sabrina Deaton describe, succinctly, what they’re doing with the chicken, for instance, making it easy to understand whether you’re watching or listening to it.

People with vision impairment “need some form of entertainment,” Rentmeester says. “They can’t go to the movies. Being blind is not like it used to be. They aren’t sitting around the house being bored. They’re finding ways to employment, to gaining self-esteem. People who are recently blind, particularly, can get depressed. They have to remember – there’s a lot more to you than your sight.”

For its first two seasons, “Cooking” was sponsored by the state Division of Blind Services, but lost its funding with them. The show took a year off and is now sponsored by lighting manufacturer OttLight, whose products include high-definition lighting. The production has adapted to the abilities of the hosts and guests. The scripts, for instance, are written in 36-point type for those with limited vision, while others with complete vision loss, like Chacon, memorize everything.

That adaptation has taken some time. Fox says that he was once “told ‘Read the teleprompter,’ and I said ‘What teleprompter? You gotta be kidding me!’”

Things move along with good-natured humor. Fox’s guest of the morning, Christina Panczak-Smith, a rehabilitation counselor for the Florida Division of Blind Services and the partner of Joanie the golden retriever, instructs viewers with tips that others might not consider, like measurements.

“I feel in my hand how much I want to use,” she says. “And if you have some vision, you can see [the dish] bubbling. You can hear it.”

Meanwhile, Fox cracks jokes during breaks, like, “You know when I know my wife’s mad at me? She moves all the furniture in the house,” he says at one point. “What did the fish say when he swam into the wall? ‘Dam!’”

Approaches to cooking among the vision-impaired vary as much as the causes and degrees of blindness.

“I knew TV, but I had to learn about blindness,” Rentmeester says. “You learn that everyone is an individual. Every person’s blindness is different.”

Panczak-Smith, for instance, was born with a congenital vision issue, while Chef Fox could see until six years ago when, at the age of 52, he contracted viral meningitis from a child he was working with as a neo-natal respiratory therapist at St. Mary’s Hospital. Within 48 hours, the virus “had knocked out my optic nerve,” he says.

Fox had started a personal chef business, Fox Culinary Productions, part-time with wife Patty, before losing his sight, and “after we went to everybody and his brother in the country to be told that nothing could be done, I thought ‘Now, what do I do?’” he says.

What he did was go to culinary school at Indian River State College — formerly Indian River Community College — where he found a culinary teacher named William Solomon, the only instructor who “wanted a blind person in the kitchen.”
After his training, he took up Fox Culinary Creations as a career.

“I do the same thing [everyone else] does, just a little slower,” says Fox, who was a frequent guest on “Cooking Without Looking” during its first two seasons before becoming one of its hosts. The Foxes teach at a kid’s cooking camp at the Treasure Coast YMCA, and recognize that some parents are nervous “when [their children] tell them there’s a blind guy teaching it. But after a while, they think it’s cool.”

If people who have their vision are surprised by the capabilities of those who don’t, they’re no different from people “who are newer to vision loss,” says Panczak-Smith, a married mother of two and a marathon runner. “They’re shocked that there is life after vision loss. But it’s very important for the independence, for them not to have to rely on someone to get them a cup of coffee.”

And that independence can make all the difference.

“The thing about the show,” Rentmeester says, “is that [the blind] feel needed. Often, when you’re blind, people try to figure out their way around you. But on this show, they have something to do. They’re needed.”

Walgreens receives "Productive Lives" award from NARSAD

From Business Wire:

NEW YORK -- Randy Lewis, the SVP of supply chain and logistics for Walgreens, the nation`s largest drugstore chain, received the first ever Productive Lives Award from NARSAD Oct. 30 at its 22nd annual New York Awards Dinner at the Pierre Hotel.
Today show contributor Gail Saltz, MD, associate professor of psychiatry at New
York-Presbyterian Hospital, Weill-Cornell School of Medicine, emceed the event. NARSAD (www.narsad.org) is the world`s leading charity dedicated to funding mental health research.

Lewis is being honored for his commitment to providing an inclusive workplace for people of all abilities, including those with mental illness. More than 30% of the workforce has a disability at Walgreen`s newest distribution centers in Anderson, SC, and Windsor, Conn. The company`s goal: 10% of its entire distribution center workforce differently abled by 2010. Presenting the award will be Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico who has been instrumental in helping pass one of the most significant mental-health bills in U.S. history-The Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.

Says Sen. Domenici: "The workplace is the critical last barrier to overcome the last great discrimination in this country-the stigma associated with being mentally ill. No American company has done more to break down this barrier and create unprecedented inclusive opportunity than Walgreens. Our hope is that Walgreens will serve as a model and catalyst for other employers to see the workplace in a new way and recognize the potential of those who have been denied opportunity-and life dreams-for so long. Walgreens is truly the cutting edge of what is possible."

Says Stephen Lieber, NARSAD Chairman, "With the remarkable progress in psychiatric treatment and the new development of rehabilitation practices, the time is ripe to help build productive lives for those suffering from mental disabilities. Many who were kept out of the workforce by disabilities are finally being recognized as potentially productive workers. This is a win-win situation for society as a whole, as people who were dependent become independent, as people who are isolated become members of the working community, earners and taxpayers. When the question is raised as to whether people with mental illness are employable, Walgreen`s proves unequivocally, yes! The company`s success belies the prejudice and stigma; people with all types of disabilities have demonstrated outstanding performance, team effort and sincere loyalty."

Randy Lewis` own experience as a father of a child with autism was what first propelled him to make workplace changes."People with disabilities die a death of
a thousand cuts," he says. "They may talk differently, they may look differently
and they suffer the unkindest cut, which is the belief by most of us that people with disabilities can`t do the job. Our latest distribution centers, which each have a workforce of more than 30% people with disabilities, are both 20% more efficient than any of our other facilities. I know team members with disabilities who provide 150% of our standard expectation. People discover their gifts, harness their abilities and, in turn, realize their contributions. We went into this project wanting to change the work environment. But we soon discovered we were the ones who changed in dramatic and wonderful ways."

In addition to the inaugural Productive Lives Award, NARSAD will present its
22nd annual prizes for psychiatric research to eight scientists. Please visit
http://www.narsad.org/ for this year`s list of prizewinners along with additional background on how their contributions in the areas of schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, and childhood mental illness are leading to significant breakthroughs for diagnosis and treatment.

Two disability-friendly buildings opened in Kathmandu

From the Himalayan News Service:

KATHMANDU -- Two disabled-friendly buildings for Special Education Programme and Vocational Training unit for cerebral palsy children got inaugurated here at Dhapakhel on Oct. 29.

Bimal Shrestha, CEO, Cerebral Palsy- Nepal (CP-N), hoped that the disabled-friendly buildings would help create a conducive environment for cerebral palsy children to adopt to new environment.

The buildings, he said, could accommodate more than 40 children in their age brackets 10 to 12 years.

"Cerebral palsy children are completely ignored in our society. This is why we have launched the vocational training so that they could come up in the society on their own," Shrestha said, addressing the inaugural of the buildings.

The organisation is currently providing education and training to an estimated 1,500 cerebral palsy children, annually, in 13 districts, he added.

British government launches internships for people with learning disabilities

From Personnel Today in the UK:

A pilot scheme offering internships to those with learning difficulties to help them find employment has been launched by the government Oct. 30.

Project Search provides a series of internships with employers, allowing interns to gain valuable social skills which will help them secure work.

The project has initially been launched in Leicester and Norwich, with Leicester College, Leicester City Council and Norfolk and Norwich hospital offering internships.

Jonathan Shaw, minister for disabled people, said: "We realise that only a small number of people with learning disabilities who receive adult social services are in work, and we know that many more want real jobs.

"Project Search is a great opportunity to provide valuable internships, and the real possibility of a job, for people with learning disabilities. This is a vital programme to help people overcome barriers to work."

Project Search is based on a US model which succeeded in getting 80% of students who completed the programme in 2006-07 into full-time employment.

Under the American model, up to 40% of the interns were offered permanent work with the employer initially offering the internship.

The interns taking part in Project Search will be unpaid, but will be able to continue receiving government benefits while on the programme.

Doctors in Cambodia say "jungle woman" has a mental illness

From The AP:

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — A woman dubbed the "jungle woman" after emerging naked and unable to speak from the wilds of northeastern Cambodia two years ago is sick and apparently suffering from mental illness, a doctor said Friday.

Hing Phan Sokhunthea, chief of Rattanakiri province hospital, said the woman, believed to be 28-year-old Rochom P'ngieng (pictured), was taken home Friday after four days in a hospital even though she remained weak and the cause of her nervous distress remained unclear.

She was brought from the jungle in early 2007 after being caught trying to steal food from a villager. Her case attracted international attention after a local family claimed she was their daughter, who was 8 years old when she disappeared in 1988 while herding buffalo in a remote area.

However, the relationship was never proven, and it was never established how she could have survived in the wild for 19 years. Some villagers suspected she was not Rochom P'ngieng, but someone else suffering from mental problems who had been lost in the jungle for a much briefer time.

The man who claims to be her father, Sal Lou, said Friday by telephone that the woman still does not speak any intelligible language.

He said his daughter was hospitalized Monday after she refused to eat any rice for almost a month.

"She was very sick and her condition looks worse than when she was first found," he said. "She is very skinny now."

He said he decided to take her back home after her condition didn't improve and she kept trying to run away.

The Rattanakiri doctor said a preliminary diagnosis found she suffered from a nervous condition.

"We wanted her to stay longer in the hospital, so that we could learn more about her mental state, but her father took her back home without letting us know," said Hing Phan Sokunthea.

VSA Arts sponsors international "What is disability?" postcard project

From the VSA Arts Web site about the project:

Collaborative art project - What is Disability?

What’s the Art Project?
Join people from around the world and send in a postcard documenting your interpretation of disability. All languages accepted. Tear off the postcard and create a visual representation of your experiences, impressions, and perceptions. We’re taking a creative approach to investigate how many different ways people will interpret the same word. The deadline for receipt of postcards is February 5, 2010.

Who Should Participate?
You! We’re looking for people of different cultures, ethnicities, geographic locations, and abilities. This is for anyone. You do no have to consider yourself an “artist” to participate.

What’s the cost?
The cost of a stamp! We’ll be creating an exhibition–both online and in Washington, D.C.–to represent your submissions as part of the 2010 International VSA arts festival.

Mail to:
Disability Postcard Project
c/o VSA Arts
818 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Suite 600,
Washington, D.C. 20006 USA

UIC students found disability studies magazine

From the Web site of Collective Voices, a student disability studies magazine:

Begun in 2009, Collective Voices is the latest contribution to disability studies from Chicago and provides an outlet for original and thought provoking material, including: essays, poetry, and art. We aim is to push the envelope of disability studies by opening up new vistas of thought and dealing with traditional disability issues in unconventional ways. Through this we hope to bolster a sense of community among scholars within disability studies at UIC and beyond, and to ensure that disability studies at UIC remains an active voice in the field.

The magazine's mission is building disability consciousness & community through creativity.

Saturday, October 31, 2009

With more funding going to AIDS, other more prevalent killers of children in the developing world go untreated

From The New York Times:

JOHANNESBURG — Diarrhea kills 1.5 million young children a year in developing countries — more than AIDS, malaria and measles combined — but only 4 in 10 of those who need the oral rehydration solution that can prevent death for pennies get it.

“All the attention has gone to more glamorous diseases, but this basic thing has been left behind,” said Mickey Chopra, chief of health at UNICEF, which is trying to put diarrhea back on the global health agenda. “It’s a forgotten disease.”

His observation lies at the heart of a wider debate over whether the United States and other rich nations spend too much on AIDS, which requires lifelong medications, compared with diarrhea and the other leading killer of children, pneumonia, both of which can be treated inexpensively.

The debate is flaring at a time of great opportunity and risk. Recent data has documented remarkable progress in reducing child mortality and treating people with AIDS. Foreign assistance, which has often delivered disappointing results, is helping save millions of lives, the new figures show.

But as the United States and other rich nations hit by the global financial crisis face their own daunting challenges, there is heightened competition for foreign assistance. President Obama has proposed a 2 percent increase in spending on H.I.V. and AIDS for 2010 and a 6 percent rise for maternal and child health, according to the Global Health Council, but the disparity in American spending on AIDS and the big child killers remains stark.

In Africa’s two most populous nations, Nigeria and Ethiopia, the number of people who died of AIDS in 2007 — 237,000 — was less than half the 540,000 children under 5 who died of pneumonia and diarrhea. But this year, the $750 million the United States is spending on H.I.V. and AIDS in the two countries not only dwarfs the $35 million it is spending there on maternal and child health, but is also more than the $646 million it is spending on maternal and child health in all the world’s countries combined.

“AIDS is still underfunded, no question,” said Jeremy Shiffman, a political scientist at Syracuse University who has documented global health spending patterns. “But maternal, newborn and child mortality is a tremendous tragedy and gets peanuts.”

Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel — a bioethicist, White House official and brother of Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama’s chief of staff — has contended that international aid for health is limited and would save more lives if increases focused on maternal health and the “mundane but deadly diseases” that kill young children. Such choices are necessary, he and a co-author wrote in the Journal of the American Medical Association in April, “if the United States is going to shoulder the burden of choosing which lives to save in the developing world.”

Jeffrey D. Sachs, the Columbia University economist, countered that wealthy donors still spent far too little on global health and rejected what he called the wrong-headed idea that “we need to make a terrible and tragic choice between AIDS or pneumonia.” The United States has invested heavily in the fight against AIDS, and other wealthy nations should pick up more of the cost of other global health priorities, he says.

“Rather than tearing down what’s working, we should continue to invest in what’s needed,” he said.

Mr. Obama has promised to put greater focus on child and maternal health and proposed a 53 percent increase next year in money to fight malaria, a major killer of African children, the Global Health Council estimated. But he has also committed to major increases in money to fight AIDS in coming years that, if enacted, would ensure that AIDS remained America’s global health priority, constituting over 70 percent of its global health spending, he said.

International commitments to combat HIV and AIDS rose at an average annual rate of 48 percent from 1998 to 2007, reaching $7.4 billion and making up almost half of donor financing for global health, according to Professor Shiffman’s analysis of data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Still, more than half the people with the disease who need drug treatment still are not getting it. Two million died in 2007, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS.

The toll of women and children who die of easily preventable or curable conditions is even higher. Pneumonia alone killed 2 million children under age 5, and diarrhea 1.5 million more, out of the almost 9 million young children who died last year.

Dr. Olivier Fontaine, who described himself as the only person at the World Health Organization working full time on childhood diarrheal diseases, said health ministry managers in poor countries knew diarrhea was a crucial cause of child mortality, but focused on other diseases that have gotten more attention and financing from abroad.

Two days after her month-old son’s bout of diarrhea began, Marcia Mankense (pictured), 23, took him to a hospital here in Johannesburg where a doctor administered fluids through an intravenous line threaded into his scalp.

Before his birth, she said, no one told her she should give him oral rehydration salts — known as O.R.S. — as soon as he got diarrhea, though she was counseled on the need to get tested for H.I.V. Nor did anyone give her a packet of the salts to take home.

“He’s my firstborn and I know nothing about kids,” she said, exhausted next to his crib after days of vigil. “I just feel like I need to be here for him. What if he’s crying?”

Public health experts agree there is tremendous potential to lower child deaths from diarrhea and pneumonia substantially. New methods of distributing rehydration salts and cheap zinc tablets, also recommended for diarrhea, are being tested, including giving them away during national campaigns to hand out antimalarial bed nets and to vaccinate children against measles.

“Everyone should have O.R.S. at home like we have Band-Aids,” Dr. Fontaine said.

For an extra $3 billion to $4 billion in coming years, children in poor countries could be inoculated against pneumonia and the rotavirus that causes about a third of diarrhea deaths, according to the GAVI Alliance, a broad group of donors.

On the diarrhea ward at the hospital here, most of the babies and young children had mothers patiently sitting next to their cribs, comforting them. But one little boy, just 2 months old, was alone. His mother, a 10th grader, was at school. He had come in dehydrated, with sunken eyes, too enervated to even cry. But after being given fluids intravenously, life flowed back into him.

When he howled, a nurse or one of the mothers would look into his eyes. He would fall quiet, his cries muting to soft mewling, his eyes widening curiously.

“He wasn’t even crying when he got here,” Mrs. Mankense said happily. “Now we can hear his voice. He’s naughty!”

DC took two years to act on quality of care issues at group home

From The Washington Post:

The group home provider was under the gun. The District was unhappy with the quality of care at Individual Development Inc.'s home on Edson Place NE. Effective immediately, the city said in 2007, it was taking steps to relocate its developmentally disabled residents.

Except it didn't.

A letter released this week makes clear that the city waited almost two years to take decisive action against IDI, a nonprofit group run by three prominent D.C. lawyers, and then did so only after questions were raised about the deaths of three IDI residents.

In the months before the city moved, the fragile, disabled people living in IDI's homes on Edson Place and 53rd Street SE endured a litany of indignities and mistakes, which are catalogued in a confidential report prepared by a federal court monitor and provided to the District.

At the 53rd Street home, a resident was slapped by an employee this year and was hospitalized last year with a head wound after the staff failed to secure the disabled person's seat belt in the shower, according to the report. Over three months last year, the same resident did not leave the home for a single documented community outing, the report said.

At Edson Place, one resident went without a recommended Pap smear or necessary dental treatment last year, according to the report. A wheelchair for the same person, promised for months, still hadn't arrived earlier this year, leaving the resident to use a wheelchair with inadequate support.

Details of the problems fill 16 pages of the report, which was released this week by the District under the Freedom of Information Act with names of residents redacted. Eleven more pages of the report detail the care of seven IDI residents who have died since 2004, including the three from Edson Place and 53rd Street.

The federal monitor's report spurred the city to act this month and laid the groundwork for a settlement finalized this week that requires IDI to improve its performance or face tough penalties.

Critics of IDI have been waiting for the District to act since October 2007, when it vowed to start pulling people out of Edson Place. Advocates asked repeatedly why the city wasn't keeping its promise, said Sandy Bernstein of University Legal Services, which represents many IDI residents.

"We never got a clear answer," she said.

The problem, said D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles, was that officials needed the consent of the residents, their families or their attorneys to move them, and none would provide it. But the city did not take more aggressive steps, such as revoking IDI's license or going to court, as it did this time around.

On Oct. 5, the attorney general's office asked a D.C. Superior Court judge to appoint a receiver to run the Edson Place and 53rd Street group homes. A day later, the District's disability services agency suspended referrals to IDI's 11 group homes, which care for about 70 profoundly disabled people.

The dramatic action led to weeks of negotiations between the District and IDI, and to the settlement announced Wednesday night. Under the terms of the agreement, IDI must make significant improvement to all its homes over the next year or face the loss of its licenses. An outside monitor, selected by the city and IDI and paid by IDI, will oversee the nonprofit agency's compliance and will have the power to impose fines and other sanctions.

IDI's homes are funded solely through Medicaid. Many residents require round-the-clock medical attention.

The episode has been a striking reminder of the problems that plague the city's care of residents with profound developmental disabilities. For decades, many were housed at Forest Haven, a city-run institution in Laurel. But abysmal conditions there led to a class-action lawsuit in 1976 and to a court-ordered closure of the facility in 1991. Many residents were moved to group homes of four to eight people, typically operated by private entities under contract with the city.

Led by lawyer and lobbyist David W. Wilmot, ID emerged in 1996 to take over several group homes whose operator was foundering. Wilmot serves as IDI's president and is chairman of a three-member board that includes two other politically connected lawyers, A. Scott Bolden and Frederick D. Cooke Jr. Wilmot is paid $300,000, an unusually large salary at a nonprofit group such as IDI, and he has borrowed $300,000 from the organization.

Wilmot, who did not respond to a phone call seeking comment for this article, has, in a previous interview, defended his salary, IDI's performance and the loan he received from the organization. The attorney for IDI, Nicholas G. Karambelas, did not respond to a phone call seeking comment.

For years, Bernstein said, IDI has avoided meaningful sanctions by making promises that it doesn't keep. With IDI's leadership running the homes, Bernstein said she's not convinced that she will see lasting change, even with this week's agreement.

"How many chances does this provider get?" she asked.

Nickles said that past efforts to improve IDI had fallen short but that Wednesday's settlement was a step forward. "I thought more dramatic and pointed action was needed," he said, "and, very happily, the folks at IDI came to the table."

New Jersey women face charges of neglecting disabled people in group home

From the Hunterdon County Democrat in N.J.:

Two women face numerous charges for allegedly neglecting the disabled people they were supposed to be taking care of in a group home in Hunterdon County.

Debra Sloan, 55, of Bloomsbury and Bridget Grimes, 52, of Philipsburg are named in the grand jury indictment which was handed up on Oct. 28. It charges them with two counts of aggravated assault, second degree; six counts of official misconduct, second degree; three counts of neglecting and elderly or disabled person, third degree; two counts of violating a law to protect public health and safety, third degree; two counts of theft by failure to make required disposition, third degree and two counts of criminal restraint, third degree.

The charges follow an investigation into the death of a 28-year-old developmentally disabled woman living in a state- licensed and funded care home in Alexandria Township.

According to published reports, Tara O’Leary was removed from the home in September 2008 following a tip to officials regarding the quality of care she and the home’s two other residents were receiving.

The 4-foot-10-inch woman, who died at Hunterdon Medical Center on Nov. 10, reportedly weighed just 48 pounds when she was removed from the home.

Both women allegedly caused serious bodily injury to O’Leary between December 2006 and Sept. 11, 2008. They allegedly also hurt Erin Germaine between March 2007 and Sept. 11, 2008.

Starting in 2002, Grimes allegedly abused her position as a habilitation planning coordinator for the Division of Developmental Disabilities to steal money and merchandise from O’Leary, Germaine and Lydia Joy Perry, restrain them, assault them and otherwise refrain from doing the duties of her job, for the benefit of herself and Sloan on several occasions.

Besides allegedly allowing O’Leary and to starve, the two defendants allegedly kept her in her room and denied her family members access to the home.

They allegedly also kept Germaine confined in her room, failed to provide proper nourishment and failed to seek medical treatment in a timely manner.

Sloan and Grimes allegedly put Perry in charge of taking care of O’Leary and threatened to remove Perry from the home. Sloan and Grimes also allegedly failed to provide medical care to Perry and kept her family from accessing the home.

Wounded servicemen get new Segways

From Stars & Stripes:

ARLINGTON, Va. — As he prepared to receive his Segway on Thursday morning, Spc. David Mayer reflected on what he expects it to add to his life.

“Ease of mobility,” said Mayer, who uses prosthetics after losing his legs to a mine in Iraq in March 2008. “I don’t walk very fast. I’m very slow, very meticulous when I’m in my [prosthetic] legs. With something like this, I’ll be able to get to and from appointments with a lot less stress on myself, on my legs. It’s going to make everything just faster, quicker and easier.

“Once I’m on it,” he added, “I’m just as good as anyone else, two legs or not.”

Twenty-seven other wounded servicemembers received Segways at a ceremony at the Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial. These, and another group scheduled to get theirs in San Antonio on Veterans Day, bring the total of the personal mobility devices donated through Segs4Vets in the past four years to more than 400.

“You go to Walter Reed, you’ll see Segways all up and down the hall, guys using them to come to therapy,” said Jerry Kerr, founder and president of Disability Rights Advocates for Technology (DRAFT), a non-profit group that sponsors the program. “They can leave it all on the table there; they know they’ve got the energy to get back. It’s allowing them to really work hard in their physical therapy, knowing they don’t have to preserve as much energy to get back to their quarters or their home.”

It’s more than a tool for therapy, though.

“It’s going to give me a way to chase my kids around the grass, stuff like that,” said Staff Sgt. Jason Letterman, who was wounded in an bomb attack in Iraq in May 2008. “You can be a really good walker with prosthetics, but unless you’re a [below-the-knee amputee], you’re not going to be able to keep up with everybody else.”

Letterman went through the one-day training course on Wednesday, but wasn’t ready to ride off on his Segway. He’ll get additional training at Walter Reed.

First Lt. Joseph Guyton, who lost his legs to an IED in Afghanistan in August, knew he wanted a Segway soon after his arrival at Walter Reed.

“One of the first things I saw when I got to Walter Reed, some of the other amputees riding around on Segways,” he said, adding that a Segway was preferable to a wheelchair. “I’m building up to where I can stand on my legs for short periods of time, but as far as being able to go out with family and friends and do something on weekends or at the end of the workday, you need something else.”

Segways aren’t classified as a medical device, so funding has to come from projects like Segs4Vets. There were over 600 applicants this year, and Kerr believes that points to a need for some outside help.

“There’s really no good reason for our organization to exist,” he said. “If the government gave the men and women who served the nation the tools they need, the right tools — that would be a Segway. And not just [recently disabled veterans] — the guys from Vietnam, all those folks who don’t have access to this device and know it would change their lives. Whether they’re 18 or 80, they ought to have it and they deserve it. Then we can move on to something else. We’d be delighted. It wouldn’t hurt our feelings at all.”

Illinois disabled man champions tae kwon do for other disabled people

From The State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill. In the picture, Danny Hicks practices a wheelchair-specific move that his teacher, Bill Auvenshine, showed him. Auvenshine, right, opened his tae kwon do school after he became a paraplegic.

In tae kwon do, age doesn’t factor into where you rank in the classroom. What you’ve achieved does.

Danny Hicks has a front-row position at the Auvenshine School of Tae Kwon Do in Auburn. His hard work over the past decade has made him one of the highest-ranking students in the school: a first-degree black belt.

And he got there in a manner few, if any, have: from the seat of a wheelchair.

Hicks, 37, of Springfield suffered a spinal cord injury when a vehicle he was traveling in went off West Lake Shore Drive and into a grove of pine trees in 1990, just weeks after he graduated from Lanphier High School. Factors in the accident included alcohol, high speed and the lack of safety belts. One passenger died. Hicks spent a month in a coma and 4 1/2 months at Memorial Medical Center undergoing rehabilitation.

His injury left him paralyzed from the chest down and with short-term memory loss. The day of the accident was the worst day of his life, he said, and the days that followed were challenging, embarrassing and scary.

But Hicks has never been the type of guy who lets much get in the way of what interests him, and that philosophy didn’t change.

Today, he’s a full-time employee for Southern Illinois University School of Medicine’s Think First program — an injury prevention program funded by the Illinois Department of Transportation that teaches students to make safe decisions; a member of the Land of Lincoln Barbershop Chorus; host of his own public-access cable television show; a speaker for drunk-driving Victim Impact Panels; an Elvis Presley impersonator and a shepherd for his church, East Keys Baptist.

“I like to think of myself as someone that a person with a disability can look up to,” he said. “Lots of people shut themselves up in their houses and are afraid to do anything with their lives. That’s not the case for me — I’m living proof of it.”

‘If he could do it, I could do it’

Every time he attends class at the Auvenshine school on the east side of Auburn, Hicks brings along two apples for his teachers: a yellow one for schoolmaster Bill Auvenshine and a red one for Auvenshine’s wife and fellow schoolmaster, Patty.

“He’s the teacher’s pet,” said Patty, a schoolteacher in Kincaid and a fourth-degree black belt.

Hicks also has proved to be a shining example and inspiration for the other students who practice with him. Bill Auvenshine, a sixth-degree black belt, believes Hicks is one of only a few students — and the only one that he knows of — to achieve black belt status from a wheelchair.

Auvenshine also is wheelchair-bound. A paraplegic, he suffered his injury in 1995 after an old pickup truck he was driving hit a patch of black ice, flipped twice, struck a telephone pole and landed in a frozen ditch. His background as a martial artist and outdoor enthusiast served him well during his rehabilitation process, and he soon had adjusted to his new way of life.

The Auvenshines had planned to open their own tae kwon do school before Bill’s accident. Afterward, he wasn’t sure they should proceed.

“My first thought was, ‘Well, that’s out the window,’ ” Bill said. “It was easy in the early days to feel helpless.”

Patty, however, wasn’t going to let his pity party last for long.

“She said, ‘I know if you open a school and you fail, you’ll move on.’ She knew I couldn’t play the ‘what if?’ game forever.”

With the help of a grant from the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Auvenshines opened their school in Auburn. The financial boost, along with strong support from the community, has kept the couple in the black the entire 12 years the school has existed. Last year, they opened a second school in Taylorville.

Hicks learned about the Auvenshines’ school in 1997 while speaking at Auburn High School as part of his then part-time role with the Think First program. The Auvenshines’ son, Harold, introduced himself to Danny after the presentation and told him about his father.

“When he said his dad had opened a school and he’s in a wheelchair, I thought, ‘You gotta be kidding me,’ ” Hicks said.

A year or so later, Hicks was invited by another friend in a wheelchair to join him and his rugby teammates — all quadriplegics — in a special tae kwon do class at the Auvenshines’ school. It was then that Hicks saw what Auvenshine was able to achieve from his wheelchair.

“I thought, hey, if he could do it, I could do it,” he said.

Soon after forming the wheelchair-only class, Auvenshine realized he was doing the members a disservice. Because he focuses so much on self-defense techniques, he feared they weren’t learning how to protect themselves from the people most likely to approach them: able-bodied people.

So he told them he’d never charge them a fee for taking classes, a policy he still offers today for any disabled student. But they had to integrate with the other students.

A month later, only Hicks remained on board.

Tae kwon do relies heavily on kicking. When a participant is paralyzed from the chest down, some improvisations are necessary.

For Hicks to move up the ranks in the sport, Auvenshine created modifications or substitutions — often a hand strike in place of a kick. Hicks also was expected to learn the same rules and credos as other students, and learned each group of forms (a series of movements) required for each colored belt.

“I made it very hard for him,” Auvenshine said. “I did not make it easy. But he didn’t give up. He wouldn’t give up.”

Hicks suffers from short-term memory loss. For the first three months he was a student of Auvenshine’s, he required written directions to ensure he made it back home. He’s constantly posting reminders on sticky notes and has a calendar in nearly every room of his house to keep him on track. Memorizing the tae kwon do forms — upward of 400 different movements — proved to be a challenge.

The Auvenshines made movies of the forms, and Danny took them home and watched them repeatedly.

“He knew them all,” Bill Auvenshine said. “He didn’t just memorize the wheelchair moves I created. He also learned the forms for able-bodied students. That was important to him.”

Keven Krone of Springfield, who began taking classes with his son several years ago and is now a fourth-degree black belt and substitute instructor at the school, learned Hicks’ adapted moves so the two could spar, further aiding Hicks’ training.

It took five years for Hicks to move from a white belt to black belt, a feat that led him to be inducted into the USA Martial Arts Hall of Fame three years ago. He’s owner of at least 15 five-foot-tall trophies and nearly 50 smaller ones, some of which he’s loaned to the Auvenshines to display at their Taylorville school.

Though he’s no longer actively training, which requires two nights of classes per week, he still attends classes when he can and often travels with the school to judge competitions or help emcee.

When he does compete, he does so against other black belts. Auvenshine often will loan the competitor his wheelchair, though Hicks also has the option to spar a competitor who is standing. It’s not something he prefers to do, however.

“I enjoyed it, but I was getting kicked in the head more than anything,” he said, laughing. “It’s more entertaining to have them fight in a chair.”

At a tournament this summer, Auvenshine said he watched as Hicks knocked a high-ranking black belt and the wheelchair he was in to the ground with two consecutive punches. The whole room erupted.

“I was laughing so hard, I almost fell out of my chair I was sitting in,” Auvenshine said.

JoAnna Magelitz of Virden has been taking her two oldest sons to Auvenshine’s School of Tae Kwon Do twice a week, year-round, for six years. The sport appeals to her family because of the respect and self-discipline it creates for students, especially young people.

Having Hicks practice alongside her sons, she said, is “truly inspiring.”

“It shows them there’s plenty of obstacles to overcome — and that there’s always somebody facing a more difficult situation than you are,” she said.

Hicks said he enjoys seeing how tae kwon do changes a young person for the better, just as it did for him.

Through his job with SIU, Hicks has had the chance to speak to more than 100,000 teenagers about the dangers of drinking and driving. He once told Auvenshine that if he’s helped only one of those thousands of young people, it’s been worth it. Auvenshine said he’s pretty sure Hicks has affected more than just one.

“That’s the great thing — that I’m still able to make a difference,” Hicks said. “Not only in my job, but in this activity. Our life is limitless. Whatever you want to do is up to you. The determination is all up to you.”

NFL players, union say they share blame for head injuries