Bulletin Daily Paper 09/14/11

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Rescuers use Taser on South Sister hiker

A TOUCHING, IF TEMPORARY,

HOMECOMING

By Dylan J. Darling The Bulletin

Rescuers preparing to load a disoriented climber into a helicopter Tuesday morning on South Sister ended up shooting him with a stun gun to get him off the mountain. Duncan Tyler Maring, 34, picked up two nurses as they tried to tend to him, prompting a Deschutes County Deputy to zap him with a Taser, said Deputy Rhett Hemphill of the Deshutes County Sheriff’s Office. Maring was being “extremely combative,” Hemphill said. It was the second time in a year that rescuers took Maring off South Sister, having found him unconscious in snow near the summit in September 2010. “He wanted to do it again,” Hemphill said. But both times Maring was ill-prepared to hike the mountain alone, he said, noting Tuesday that he was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants. He also wasn’t wearing a jacket. “He was up there overnight,” Hemphill said. Maring told deputies that he started his hike Monday and had summited South Sister, although Hemphill said it’s unconfirmed if he made it to the top. Two hikers called 911 just before 7:30 a.m. Tuesday to say they found Maring showing signs of dehydration and exposure a mile above Moraine Lake, according to the Sheriff’s Office. A deputy, a search-andrescue medic and two flight nurses found Maring about 8,000 feet up the 10,358-foot mountain, Hemphill said. There the scuffle began when the nurses tried to check Maring’s condition and ended when the deputy used the Taser on him. See Hiker / A4

TOP NEWS INSIDE AFGHANISTAN: Insurgents fire rockets at U.S. Embassy, NATO compound, Page A3

The Bulletin

Rob Kerr / The Bulletin

U.S. Army Sgt. Ryan Craig, of Madras, leaves the Redmond Airport with his mother, Jennifer Miller, as veterans salute him Tuesday afternoon. Craig was awarded the Purple Heart after being shot in the head while on duty in Afghanistan on Nov. 18.

Shot in the head in Afghanistan, soldier returns for rehabilitation trial run By Nick Grube The Bulletin

U.S. Army Sgt. Ryan Craig might be back in Central Oregon after a stint in Afghanistan, but he’s not home yet. While providing cover fire for two wounded soldiers, the 24-year-old Madras man was shot in the head by a sniper on Nov. 18 in the Logar province near the Pakistan border. Since then, he has lived in various hospitals along the East Coast, undergoing surgeries to repair the shrapnel damage to his frontal lobe and enduring bouts of rehabilitation that taught him to walk and talk again. On Tuesday afternoon, Craig flew into the Redmond Airport on his first trip home since his injury. But while the reception of more than 30 flag-waving friends

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“He’s walking and talking, and he probably shouldn’t even be standing.” — Jennifer Miller, Craig’s mother

and veterans nearly made him cry, he knows this homecoming is temporary. “I’d prefer to be here,” Craig said. “I was homesick before I left Afghanistan.” Next week Craig, who was awarded a Purple Heart, will fly back to Tampa, Fla., where he will continue his rehabilitation at James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital. He’s here now as part of a rehabilitation test run to see if there’s anything else he needs to practice or learn before he can be discharged. It’s part of the hospital’s strategy to help him cope with daily life. Between now and when his flight leaves, Craig will live with his mother, Jennifer

Miller, in Prineville. Miller says her son still needs constant supervision as a result of his brain injury, and the time he spends at home will be used to see if he is ready to live outside of a controlled hospital setting. “We’re looking for specifics in how he emotionally adapts and how he physically adapts,” Miller said. “At this point he still needs 24-hour care to make sure he’s taking all his medicine and to remind him it’s mealtime.” See Homecoming / A6

Cancer killer? Engineered T-cells may do the trick New York Times News Service

Abby

District may require fewer credits By Patrick Cliff

By Denise Grady

INDEX

BEND-LA PINE

PHILADELPHIA — A year ago, when chemotherapy stopped working against his leukemia, William Ludwig signed up to be the first patient treated in a bold experiment at the University of Pennsylvania. Ludwig, then 65, a retired corrections officer from Bridgeton, N.J., felt his life draining away and thought he had nothing to lose. Doctors removed a billion of his T-cells — a type of white blood cell that fights viruses and tumors — and gave them new genes that would program the cells to attack his cancer. Then, the altered cells were dripped back into Ludwig’s veins. At first, nothing happened. But after 10 days, hell broke loose in his hospital room. He began shaking with chills. His temperature shot up. His blood pressure shot down. He became so ill that doctors moved him into intensive care

and warned that he might die. His family gathered at the hospital, fearing the worst. A few weeks later, the fevers were gone. And so was the leukemia. There was no trace of it anywhere — no leukemic cells in his blood or bone marrow, no more bulging lymph nodes on his CT scan. His doctors calculated that the treatment had killed off two pounds of cancer cells. A year later, Ludwig is still in complete remission. Before, there were days when he could barely get out of bed; now, he plays golf and does yard work. “I have my life back,” he said. Ludwig’s doctors have not claimed that he is cured — it is too soon to tell — nor have they declared victory over leukemia on the basis of this experiment, which involved only three patients. The research, they say, has far to go; the treatment is still experimental,

University of Pennsylvania via New York Times News Service

Researchers have found that altered T-cells shown in orange) reintroduced back into a body can fight and kill cancer cells. not available outside of studies. But scientists say the treatment that helped Ludwig, described recently in The New England Journal of Medicine and Science

Translational Medicine, may signify a turning point in the long struggle to develop effective gene therapies against cancer. And not just for leukemia patients: Other cancers may also be vulnerable to this novel approach — which employs a disabled form of HIV1, the virus that causes AIDS, to carry cancer-fighting genes into the patients’ T-cells. In essence, the team is using gene therapy to accomplish something that researchers have hoped to do for decades: train a person’s own immune system to kill cancer cells. Two other patients have undergone the experimental treatment. One had a partial remission: His disease lessened, but did not go away completely. Another had a complete remission. All three had had advanced chronic lymphocytic leukemia and had run out of chemotherapy options. See Gene / A4

Bend-La Pine Schools may reduce the number of credits required to earn both the district’s standard and honors diplomas. The district must take some action because the current honors diploma requires more credits than are now available in a four-year course of study. That’s because the district adopted a seven-period schedule for Bend, Mountain View and Summit high schools this year, a move that reduced the number of available credits from eight to seven per year. Under current requirements, students must earn 27 credits for the standard diploma and 31 for an honors diploma. If the new policy passes, students will need 26 credits for a standard diploma and 27 for honors. Bend-La Pine changed most high school schedules this year because of budgetrelated pressures. Facing a $15 million shortfall for 201112, Bend-La Pine made several cuts, including 49 teaching positions. By changing the typical high school day, the district was able to keep class sizes from ballooning. Bend-La Pine School Board member Tom Wilson wondered if the proposed requirements would water down the accomplishment of earning an honors diploma. “What does that mean for students? Does it really mean anything? It almost feels like it’s a little ‘feel good’ for us,” Wilson said after the board heard a first reading of the proposal at a Tuesday meeting. See Bend-La Pine / A5

Poverty hits 50-year high By Don Lee, Noam Levey and Alejandro Lazo McClatchy-Tribune News Service

WASHINGTON — In a grim portrait of a nation in economic turmoil, the government reported that the number of people living in poverty last year surged to 46.2 million — the most in at least half a century — as 1 million more Americans went without health insurance and household incomes fell sharply. The poverty rate for all Americans rose in 2010 for the third consecutive year, matching the 15.1 percent figure in 1993 and pushing many more young adults to double up or return to their parents’ home to avoid joining the ranks of the poor. Taken together, the annual income and poverty snapshot released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau underscored how the recession is casting a long shadow well after its official end in June 2009. See Poverty / A5


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