User avatar
By Sandbagger
#331858
Published: Thursday, September 16, 2010
By Rose Quinn and Cindy Scharr, Of the Times Staff


Save the date: The 10th Annual “Run for Heroes” will take off from the Springfield Township Municipal Building Sunday, Oct. 10.

Proceeds from the 5K run/walk go to the Delaware County Hero Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships to children of fallen firefighters, police and EMS workers. The annual event has raised $232,000 since 2000.

You can register for the race at delcorunforheroes.com
User avatar
By Sandbagger
#331859
Published: Thursday, September 16, 2010
By Rose Quinn and Cindy Scharr, Of the Times Staff


Volunteer fire and ambulance companies can now apply for the Fiscal Year 2010 Volunteer Fire Company Volunteer Ambulance Service Grant Program.

Volunteer fire companies and volunteer ambulance services may apply for a grant in up to two of the four eligible program categories. The Volunteer Fire Company Volunteer Ambulance Service Grant Program guidelines will be available for download on the Office of the State Fire Commissioner’s web page at www.osfc.state.pa.us. Volunteer fire companies that also provide volunteer ambulance service are eligible to apply for both a volunteer fire company grant and a volunteer ambulance service grant.

The online application will remain open until Oct. 21.
User avatar
By Sandbagger
#331860
Mission of Mercy: Prayers answered for injured coed from Lansdowne
Published: Thursday, September 16, 2010
By LINDA REILLY
Times Correspondent


EAST LANSDOWNE — Three hero firefighters answered the prayers of the parents of a college coed, who suffered a brain injury and was stranded in Ohio because of a hospital and insurance snafu.

A call circulated by friends to raise the $7,100 needed for an ambulance ride home for rehab prompted the men to help the family and provide the transport themselves.

Samantha Rementer, 21, a senior at Marietta College in Ohio, suffered a severe head injury Aug. 14 when she fell head first from a ledge into a stairwell.

Her parents, Edward and Laura Rementer, received word the same day and immediately made plans to get to Ohio as quickly as possible.

“All we know is, (at) approximately 10:30 p.m. Aug. 13, she was texting people and that she was found at the bottom of the 10-foot stairwell at 6:30 a.m. the next morning,” Laura Rementer said.

Samantha had been airlifted to Grant Medical Center in Columbus, where she was operated on four days later due to swelling of her brain.

“They removed the frontal part of her skull to ease the pain and pressure,” Edward Rementer said.

Once stabilized and ready for discharge to a rehabilitation center, the family was faced with a $7,100 ambulance transport cost to Bryn Mawr Rehab in Malvern.

“We got caught in a catch-22 between the hospital and insurance company,” Laura Rementer said. “She was ready to be discharged and (Keystone insurance) would pay for rehab in Pennsylvania, but wouldn’t pay for transport because the insurance company did not think it was medically necessary.

“The hospital would not release her unless she had medical transport. We worked with the hospital’s social worker, who found an ambulance company that would transport her for $7,100 and would not put her in the ambulance unless we handed them the money right there.”

Samantha’s dad also suggested the family van, a proposal that was also nixed by the hospital.

Laura Rementer then received a call from longtime friend Eleanor Orsborn, with whom she shared the dilemma.

“Before I knew it, they raised all kinds of money,” Laura said.

Orsborn said she’s known the Rementers for years and contacted everyone by phone and e-mail to raise the money, which prompted others to contact their friends and raise money.

“I just figured I’d get it moving to get Samantha back here with her family,” Orsborn said. “We raised the money in a week. Then East Lansdowne Fire Co. stepped in and volunteered to pick her up. Now, the money raised ($11,000) will be used to renovate their basement for Samantha.”

East Lansdowne Fire Co. Chief Thomas Johnson offered to drive the department’s ambulance to Ohio and bring Samantha home instead of using the donated money.

“Many heroes came together on Sept. 11 and brought our daughter home,” Edward Rementer said. “We have a lot to be thankful for.”

Johnson, an Upper Darby police lieutenant, East Lansdowne Fire Co. Deputy Chief Jeffrey Foltz and Upper Darby Deputy Fire Chief James “J.J.” Johnson, Thomas Johnson’s brother, departed Sept. 10 and returned the next day with Samantha and her mother for the cost of gasoline.

“The original e-mail came about paying for her to come home,” James Johnson said. “I forwarded the e-mail to Tom and said, ‘I’ll drive if you go.’ We left at 4 p.m. and drove 950 miles (round trip) to Columbus Fire Co., which housed us for the night. It was worth it just to help the family.”

“(Samantha’s) parents were frantic and wanted her here, and she could not fly,” Thomas Johnson said. “Several options were discussed, and we decided to drive to Ohio and bring her home. People worked together, and we did what we do. Three senior guys made the trip. I was excited to be a part of it.”

Johnson expressed his gratitude to the Columbus Fire Co. for allowing them to stay overnight in their firehouse before the return trip to Upper Darby.

“Tom and his brother, J.J., said we can make it happen and jumped in the ambulance with Deputy Chief Foltz,” borough Councilman Vincent Berry said. “She was under Tom’s care the whole time.”

“On Sept. 11, they brought her all the way back to Pennsylvania,” Laura Rementer said. “How amazing was that? They were awesome. I can’t thank them enough.”

The Rementers said Samantha is on the mend and may be released from rehab sooner than expected, possibly this weekend, to continue rehabilitation at home.

“Her prognosis right now is she’s looking good,” Edward Rementer said. “We have a lot to be thankful for and a lot of people to thank.”
User avatar
By Sandbagger
#331861
Whooping cough making a comeback in Delco
Published: Monday, September 20, 2010
By ALEX ROSE
arose@delcotimes.com


With incidents of whooping cough on the rise, one Boothwyn woman is hoping medical personnel will keep an eye out for symptoms in an unlikely age group: Adults.

According to Jane Doe, whose name was changed for this story, her husband “John” started presenting cold-like symptoms in the last week of July.

John was coughing “nonstop, night and day,” but thought it was just allergies, said Jane.

By the time he got back from a business trip in California Aug. 11, Jane had to take her husband to the emergency room. He had called her during the trip gasping, struggling to breathe.

“It was a violent, choking cough where he actually would stand there trying to get a breath,” she said.

The emergency room doctor diagnosed John with bronchitis. But when he was later admitted to Riddle Memorial Hospital, Jane said his chest X-ray looked great. A pulmonologist agreed, she said.

“So they sent him home with inhalers, antibiotics, cough medicines, steroids,” said Jane. “I mean, all these hundreds of dollars of medicine that (were) doing absolutely nothing.”

John was still coughing, sometimes so bad he stayed up nights pacing for fear that if he fell asleep he might never wake up again.

So they went back to Riddle, where John was admitted, again, and had more tests performed. At one point, they thought it was acid reflux, said Jane, so John simply stopped eating. He lost 20 pounds, but he never got better.

The thing is, John felt absolutely fine throughout the whole ordeal, as long as he didn’t cough.

Last week, he went back to his pulmonologist, who did some blood work and sent it off to the labs at the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

A nurse there called Jane Thursday and confirmed what she had long suspected: John had pertussis, better known as whooping cough.

“That phone call I got from the Department of Health was the best news, because we finally got a diagnosis,” said Jane. “It was so good just having a diagnosis, and to know that he’s not contagious to anybody with this because he’s had so much antibiotics (treatment) … There’s nothing that can be done to help him at this point, it’s got to run its course.”

Jane said her husband is happy with the diagnosis and the couple doesn’t plan to try to recoup any money spent on doctors or treatment.

She just hopes his story will open some eyes to the possibility of adult pertussis when patients present respiratory problems, which can often go overlooked.

“Physicians, hospitals, emergency rooms — I want them to be more aware of the possibility of whooping cough,” said Jane. “It has to start with these doctor’s offices where people go first for help.”

Dr. Steven Ostroff, the acting physician general for the Pennsylvania Department of Health and director of the Bureau of Epidemiology, said misdiagnosis in adults is not uncommon.

“I think that many people have the impression that this is only an issue for kids and that’s not true, and the fact that it’s not true has implications in a couple of different ways,” said Ostroff. “One of them is that when adults become ill, it’s very uncommon for your health care provider to consider a diagnosis like pertussis in an adult, and the second is that … the signs and symptoms of pertussis in adults are not the same as they are in children.”

In adults, whooping cough can look like a cold or any of a wide variety of other respiratory infections, said Ostroff, and is very likely to be treated as such.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta said between 8,000 and 25,000 cases have been reported each year for the past five years, but most cases are likely unreported due to misdiagnosis.

And symptoms can linger long after the bacteria has been flushed from the system, said Ostroff, making it even harder to spot.

Jane said she was told John might have the cough for 100 days or more. Ostroff said that will vary by patient, depending on factors like underlying lung health.

“Usually, it doesn’t hang around very long, but the damage that it causes does, so you may be very symptomatic even though your body’s immune system has, for the most part, gotten rid of the bug,” he said. “The problem is that not getting diagnosed and not getting proper treatment increases the likelihood that that ill person spreads pertussis to others, some of which are kids and who will get the bad disease.”

Luckily, pertussis is bacterial, so a dose of antibiotics like the one John received isn’t the worst thing for it.

Department of Health spokeswoman Holli Senior said there have been 59 identified cases of pertussis in Delaware County this year, 31 of which occurred since June 30.

That spike prompted two recent public vaccination clinics at the county State Health Center in Chester and at Penn State Brandywine.

“The issue with whooping cough is once you begin to see it, it spreads so easily and so quickly,” said Senior.

Infants and children are recommended to receive five doses of the DTaP vaccine — which covers diphtheria, tetanus and acellular pertussis — at 2, 4, and 6 months, between 15-18 months, at 4-6 years and at age 11 or 12.

Senior said the effectiveness of the immunity tends to wane over time, which is why most cases appear in children ages 8 to 12.

But the danger in misdiagnosis comes when someone isn’t aware they have whooping cough and don’t know to stay away from children. Contracting pertussis can be fatal, usually due to complications from a secondary infection, like bacterial pneumonia.

At the very least, Jane said her husband certainly wouldn’t have gotten on a flight to California had he known what he was carrying.

“Even though they can’t do anything, you’ll stay away from little kids and old people,” she said. “You’ll stay away from people period, at least until you’re not contagious any more.”

The department is recommending adults receive an extra booster shot at least once in their adult lives in conjunction with regular tetanus and diphtheria inoculations.

Ostroff said the department has also put out alerts to health care providers and public health agencies to raise awareness about the uptick of pertussis activity in different parts of the state, including Delaware County.

“We’re hoping that we don’t continue to see an upward climb in the number of identified cases,” he said. “It’s floating around, so if you’re not up to date on your vaccinations, get vaccinated. It doesn’t occur just in kids.”
User avatar
By Sandbagger
#331862
Pileggi proposes changes to open records
Published: Wednesday, September 22, 2010
By MARK SCOLFORO, Associated Press Writ
er

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Proposed revisions to Pennsylvania's 2-year-old Right-to-Know Law — with provisions that would expand access to some government records and restrict it for others — passed a legislative committee unanimously Wednesday and could get a full Senate vote next week.

The 16-page bill sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-9 of Chester, attempts to address procedural problems that have arisen since the law's passage, and would give the state Office of Open Records legal standing to be a party in court proceedings when one of its decisions is appealed.

"There have been, literally, thousands of cases decided by the Office of Open Records, many appealed to Commonwealth Court or to county courts," said Pileggi spokesman Erik Arneson. "A lot of what we're doing here is trying to clarify issues that have raised concerns."

The bill would require county 911 agencies to disclose the time of calls they receive and the location of the incident, an issue that is currently being litigated by the York Daily Record/Sunday News. It also would narrow the law's applicability to government contractors and force school boards and other bodies to produce more of the material they review at public meetings.

It would specify that records that exist in a computer format must be released, if requested, in that format. That would prevent, for example, an agency that has a spreadsheet from providing the information in a PDF format instead.

The law currently applies to volunteer fire companies and similar institutions, but Pileggi wants to narrow that. His bill would provide access only to their financial records and only if they have a services contract with a government agency.

Pileggi is open to suggestions about how the bill might be refined, Arneson said. The State Government Committee approved it and the Senate may vote on it next week. The Senate has just seven scheduled voting days left this year.

Pennsylvania Newspaper Association lobbyist Deb Musselman said she was reviewing Pileggi's bill.

"We hope to be making a case (against) some of the changes that we would prefer not to see," she said.

Kim de Bourbon of the Pennsylvania Freedom of Information Coalition said she welcomes the narrowing of "noncriminal investigation" records that don't have to be released. Pileggi's bill would let people obtain violation notices and results of regular inspections.

Pileggi's bill is likely to renew interest in other proposed changes to the law, including fees for information that is used for commercial purposes, and eliminating access to dates of birth or home addresses of public officials and employees.
User avatar
By Sandbagger
#331863
Cop Shop: Memorial Garden central for healing
Published: Thursday, September 23, 2010
By ROSE QUINN and CINDY SCHARR, Of the Times Staff


There is something amazingly special, perhaps even spiritual, about the Parents of Murdered Children’s Living Memorial Garden.

Saturday, it will once again provide the backdrop as the Delaware County chapter of POMC observes the annual National Day of Remembrance, beginning at 7 p.m.

Barbara DiMario, chapter leader, said Wednesday she expects the garden, located on Furey Road in Upper Chichester, to be filled with surviving family, friends — and an abundance of love.

There are now gardens memorializing 52 individuals. One of the newer gardens recognizes the life of 15-year-old Deanna Wright McIntosh of Yeadon. She was murdered in December 2004.

DiMario, who spends much of her time at the courthouse as criminal cases wind their way through the justice system, was pleased to announce Deputy District Attorney Michael Galantino would be the guest speaker. Assistant District Attorney Joseph Lesniak is expected to appear on behalf of D.A. G. Michael Green, a great supporter of POMC who is unable to attend this year’s event.

Galantino, who was still at the office long after 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, said he’s honored to be part of the event hosted by an organization that has helped so many people over the years.

The message he planned to convey is the support offered by the D.A.’s office as a whole.

“We in the criminal justice system always try to remember the impact of violent crime on those left behind,” Galantino said.

While it is important for him to remain professional in his working role, he said he and others in the office can’t help but become close to those involved on some of their cases.

“We feel what they are going through,” he said.

He also understands that the legal process, which is designed to ensure a defendant has a fair trial, isn’t always easy on the survivors.

Galantino especially praised DiMario, who co-founded the chapter 15 years ago but whose name has become synonymous with the group and its mission.

“She has been there, and her organization has been there, at all hours of the day and night, and at all stages of the cases,” he said. “Even for cases that are still unsolved, or a determination made that it would not be a criminal case.

DiMario’s 26-year-old daughter, Hope Popoleo, and Hope’s friend, Richard Pepe, 36, were murdered 17 years ago. It took the heartbroken mother, and grandmother, two years to find the strength to begin working to start the group.

It’s almost time to pass the mantle, she said Wednesday.

No definite date has been set, but DiMario said she will be stepping down from the leadership role when she and her husband finalize plans to move to Michigan.

“I will be coming back a couple times a year,” DiMario said. “You won’t be getting rid of me that easy.”
User avatar
By Sandbagger
#331864
Pa. teachers' union loses address privacy case
Published: Friday, September 24, 2010
By MARK SCOLFORO,Associated Press Writer


HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A state appeals court says Pennsylvania's largest teachers' union doesn't have legal standing to sue the Office of Open Records in an attempt to prevent disclosure of the home addresses of public school employees.

Commonwealth Court ruled Friday against the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which sued the state Office of Open Records.

The court majority says the union will have to sue school districts if it wants to launch a court challenge over whether the addresses should be made public.

A union spokeswoman says they're looking at the decision.

The Office of Open Records had put a freeze on the disclosure of all public employee addresses while the case was pending.

Office director Terry Mutchler calls the ruling "a huge one for us, and for citizens and open government."
User avatar
By Sandbagger
#331865
Aston commissioners approve development
Published: Saturday, September 25, 2010


ASTON — Commissioners recently approved an amended final land development plan for The Residences at Star Hill, an assisted living complex to be constructed by the J. Grace Company at the terminus of North Manor Drive between Pennell and Old Pennell Roads.

The estimated $3 million project, which will be built on 9.6 acres and total 76,757 square feet, is scheduled to open in 2012.

The plans call for the construction of three assisted living and one skilled nursing building. Of the 224 units, 199 will be continuous care, 45 assisted living and 40 skilled nursing.

Grace has partnered with Crozer-Keystone and the Neumann University nursing program to provide services for residents.

The roof top will be solar and “green” with the majority of the wooded area to remain undisturbed.

The base rent will cost $900 -$1,100 per month depending on the unit selected
By Mountain Dew Guy
#331866
Sandbagger wrote:Aston commissioners approve development
Published: Saturday, September 25, 2010


ASTON — Commissioners recently approved an amended final land development plan for The Residences at Star Hill, an assisted living complex to be constructed by the J. Grace Company at the terminus of North Manor Drive between Pennell and Old Pennell Roads.

The estimated $3 million project, which will be built on 9.6 acres and total 76,757 square feet, is scheduled to open in 2012.

The plans call for the construction of three assisted living and one skilled nursing building. Of the 224 units, 199 will be continuous care, 45 assisted living and 40 skilled nursing.

Grace has partnered with Crozer-Keystone and the Neumann University nursing program to provide services for residents.

The roof top will be solar and “green” with the majority of the wooded area to remain undisturbed.

The base rent will cost $900 -$1,100 per month depending on the unit selected



What are they going to do about Old Pennell? Do they plan on widening it as portions of the road can barely fit two cars when they meet? If so, how? By taking away people's land?
  • 1
  • 609
  • 610
  • 611
  • 612
  • 613