Page 8 THE BATTALION
WEDNESDAY, JULY 1, 1981
National
Sick baby survives red tape
United Press International
AUGUSTA, Ga. — A 2-pound
baby born three months prema
turely had a chance to live Tues
day thanks to a hospital staff that
carried a 24-hour battle against in
difference, red tape and mecha
nical breakdowns all the way to
the White House.
“It’s amazing the baby even
made it, it’s beyond belief,” said
Becky Burke, who led the battle to
get Stephanie Marie McElrath the
treatment she had to have.
Alex Vaughn, a spokesman for
Talmadge Memorial Hospital,
said Stephanie was still in critical
condition but “there’s a little bit of
optimism. ’’
Stephanie was born Saturday
night in Southeastern Medical
Center, a small Miami hospital, to
Carleen and Gary McElrath —
who hasn’t had his medical insur
ance long enough to be eligible for
a maternity benefit.
Burke, public relations director
at Southeastern, said the hospital
did not have the facilities to care
for the critically ill infant, who she
said had to have “level three” care
— “the most advanced, most
sophisticated care.”
Nine hospitals in Florida with
such facilities rejected Stephanie.
One in Miami turned her down
when they learned her parents
had no insurance, Burke said.
Others said they had no room.
Still others, she said, gave no
coherent reason.
The staff began calling out-of-
state hospitals with level three
neonatal care. It was Sunday after
noon when they put in a call to
Talmadge Memorial Hospital in
Augusta.
“They were super. They didn’t
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ask any questions, none of the
financial questions we had been
hearing. They said they had a bed
and would hold it for us, and they
would send an ambulance out to
Bush Field at Fort Gordon to
meet us.”
“At that point,” Burke said, “all
we had to do is find a way to trans
port the infant. That’s when the
problems really started.”
A commercial air ambulance
wanted $3,000 to transport the
child, she said, and the McElraths
didn’t have that much money.
For the next several hours the
hospital itself put “about 60 calls”
through to Homestead Air Force
Base in south Florida, Scott Air
Force Base in Illinois — the Air
Force emergency center — the
Pentagon, the White House, the
homes of all Florida congressmen
and senators, and the governor’s
mansion.
Homestead Air Force Base said
they would send a plane to Opa-
Locka airport in North Miami to
pick up the baby. At 5:30 p.m.
Sunday, Burke said, she, three
doctors from the hospital and
Stephanie in an incubator were
waiting at the airport.
But the plane didn’t come. The
Air Force said the mission was
scrubbed because its policy was to
refuse such flights when commer
cial service was available.
At that point, Burke said she
rounded up several maintenance
workers at Opa-Locka and they
began “calling everywhere. Every
place we called thought it was a
prank call. At the White House
they put us on hold.”
“Finally the Pentagon called
back. A Col. Seltzer and a Maj.
Fronzack called. They were abso
lutely wonderful. They said,
‘We’ve heard what trouble you’re
having. We called Homestead and
told them to get that plane in the
air.”
The plane took off with the doc
tors and Stephanie at about 7p. m.
Fifteen minutes after the plane
took off, Burke said, the respirator
providing oxygen to the baby went
dead. For the next two hours, the
doctors took turns squeezing a
hand pump to get oxygen in.
Shortly after the C-130 took off
for Augusta, a man who identified
himself as President Reagan called
the airport and an airport worker
who took the call said the man
“just wanted to make sure the
plane was there and the baby was
going to be all right.”
The White House could not
confirm whether the president
himself or an aide made the call.
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To become a manager of one of our cafeterias is a very special business oppor
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Luby's Cafeterias, Inc. is not restricting interviews to only Business majors; we're
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Researchers’ effort
transfer plant gene>ih
United Press International
WASHINGTON — In a pioneering effort that
may lay the groundwork for agriculture in the
next century, researchers have developed a gene
tic engineering technique for transferring genes
from one plant species to another.
In announcing the development Monday,
Agriculture Secretary John Block said it opened
“a whole new era in plant genetics.”
In the past, sterility barriers between kinds of
plants prevented creation of variations that will
be possible now with gene splicing.
No one is expecting overnight results. John
Kemp, an Agriculture Department biochemist
who worked on the project, said it was "laying the
groundwork for 21st century agriculture.”
Block, who is pushing for more federal spend
ing on agricultural research, said he does not
agree with people who say the United States has
reached its crop production potential and that
greater yields will be harder to achieve in the
future.
Instead, Block said, the new breakthrough “is
the first step toward the day when scientists will
be able to increase the nutritive value of plants, to
make plants resistant to disease and environmen
tal stresses and to make them capable of fixing
nitrogen from the air."
Researchers led by Kemp and Timothy Hall of
the University of Wisconsin at Madison transi!
red agenefromo French bean seed toasui
cell and called the new tissue “sunbean.
The gene, which directs production of
protein, is stable in its new location andsciei
are looking forward next to production of
levels of bean protein in the “sunbean.”
In a complicated process, the gene was
into a bacterium, called agrobacterium t
ciens, which transmits crown gall diseaseinvt
plant species. Hie normal infection mechar
was used to transfer the bean protein gene to
sunflower plant tissue.
The next step, for which technology isnrt t .
availahle, will be to regenerate a sunflower^ <v
from the “sunbean” cells. »‘ *EH|
V ientistN s.nd the\ did not know
effect the bean gene will have on the regen
sunflower plants.
The development was the second majorH^B
cultural research breakthrough announced
public this month Block announced earlier
genetic engineering had produced an impn
vaccine effective against foot-and-mouth cltse
which affects livestock.
That genetic engineering developmeat
promise for fighting other diseases such asnfci
and hepatitis.
Man mugged, stripped,
electrocuted in New Yo
United Press International
TORRINGTON, Conn. — Mugged and robbed of
everything hut the dungarees he was wearing.
Gerard Coury telephoned his mother from Grand
Central Station in New York City.
“He was really, really upset," Mary Coury recal
led Monday. "He said, ‘Get me out of here, Ma.
It was the last time she ever talked to her 26-year-
old son, a former Fairfield University honor student
and athlete.
About eight hours later—just before dawn Satur
day — a teenage mob stripped Coury naked and
chased him through Times Square to a subway sta
tion, where he leaped in desperation onto the tracks,
and grabbed the electrified third rail.
The crowd howled with laughter.
“I was stunned,” said transit officer Edwin Cassar.
“They (the mob) thought it was a big joke.”
Mrs. Coury, who couldn’t wire money Friday
night as her son asked, picked up a local newspaper
Sunday morning and read about an unidentified
young man — described by police as a vagrant —
who had been electrocuted in a New York subway.
“I felt certain it was our Gerry,” said Mrs. Coury.
“I don’t know why. I hoped it wouldn’t be but I was
afraid it would be. ”
That night she and her husband, Namir, identified
their son’s body in New York City’s borough of
Brooklyn. He was the youngest of their seven chil
dren.
Mrs. Coury said her son, who did not live at home,
was “a good clean kid” who “had never been arrested
for anything.”
“He was an excellent student,” she said. "He was
in many of the clubs in Torrington. He was president
of one or two of them. He was very active in sports
and played football.”
He attended Fairfield University, a Catholic liber
al arts college, for three years, where he made the
dean’s list in his first two years. But Mrs. Coury said
his junior year “wasn’t so good. He came through,
but he decided not to go back for awhile. ”
Currently out of work, Gerard had calkd]
day to say he was heading ”to points south,”
to visit a close friend in New Jersey or to'
ton, D.C., to get a ^ob.
She said she didn't know why he stoppdil
York.
He called her about 8 p.m. Friday frouiij
police telephone in Grand Central.
Police in Grand Central confirmed Mo
helped Courv, who they described as ‘c_
coherent and polite." phone his mother.
A Con rail spokeswoman said Coury toldth
ers he had been mugged in the city a week pn
hut was vague about the details. They saidh' This c
his mother to wire him money. one o
Mis. Coury doesn’t drive and her husban: pei im
\ ision in one eye so she said she didn't waB!!U n j ve
drive to New York City at night. The local' xhe g;
LTnion office was closed and she tried ton- —
son’s friend in New Jersey.
When she called Grand Central back, poip^
Gerard had gone. 1-^
Her son’s ordeal in Times Square beganabp-
a.m. Saturday, when the area is given uptoC^
drug addicts, pimps, prostitutes, gangs ofyoi .^
petty criminals . A V.
Cassar and his partner, Fred Ehlers, were
ing up a fight when they saw Coury running Unj(
down the street with about 15 youths in; WASH
People joined the chase until a mob of Id , n e Coi
were chasing Coury. Cassar said they tossedj- leewa'
and cans at the fleeing man. ; C ts of
Cassar said he managed to catch Coun irn ing”
subway entrance, but Coury broke away andnenmina
the sprawling station. Over t
Coury stopped briefly and tried to grabi-es, thi
jacket in an apparent effort to clothe himse:- U ck dc
fled to a dingy lower-level platform on tb r0 wii c
Flushing Line and leaped onto the tracks, urder c(
Cassar watched as Coury touched his hanc ls no t j
third rail and shrieked. He then touchedbotbfit to h
to the third rail and screamed again. ThenKring po
A state
rsed th
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ly for a i
ty police
But the
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SPECIAL
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Salisbury Steak
Mexican Fiesta
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Two Cheese and
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One Corn Bread and Buffer
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EVENING SPECWl—Dealt
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Chicken Fried Stea' v f r ' liner
w cream Gravy
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Choice of one oW Hanc
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Italian Candle Light Spaghetti Dinner
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Served with r /z(
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Giblet Gravy
And your choice of ai
One vegetable