Budget balanced County council still talking cuts, expenditures BY ADRIENNE SARVIS adrienne@theitem.com
75 CENTS
FRIDAY, JUNE 5, 2015
SERVING SOUTH CAROLINA SINCE OCTOBER 15, 1894 2 SECTIONS, 22 PAGES | VOL. 120, NO. 196
Further discussion of the Sumter County 2016 fiscal year budget continued Thursday evening during a special called budget workshop for Sumter County Council. Sumter County Administrator Gary Mixon presented council with a proposed balanced budget for 2016 based on figures from the current 2015 budget with expenditures and revenues totaling $48.2 million. He said the budget had a few
slight increases and decreases in some departments and could be used as a starting point to consider more significant increases and cuts and additional items for the 2016 budget. The first expenditure item discussed was the addition of a seventh ambulance to the Sumter County Emergency Medical Services fleet, and changing the departments shift schedule from 24 hours working and 48 hours off to 24 hours working and 72 hours off. The ambulance and new schedule,
which would require about 15 personnel, would add about $403,000 to the county’s budget for 2016. Mixon said the 24/72 schedule could help with retention in the department. He said the 48 hours off is not an adequate enough recovery period for EMS personnel, and the additional ambulance would help to spread out the responsibility of call responses which have increased during recent years.
SEE BUDGET, PAGE A9
Hope 4 Hoge takes the field 1st partial skull, scalp transplant Texas doctors step in to help man with head wound from cancer treatment A3 CHINA ACCUSED IN BREACH
Officials say hackers accessed 4M federal workers’ data A9 DEATHS, B5 and B6 Mattie P. Brown Archie M. Reames Willie Thompson Jr. Carrie Mae Sinkler Ulysses Francis William Gregg Sr. Alford D. Grayson Jr. Uvette P. Wyche Gladys Jones Troy D. Wells Christine M. Dicks Churchill B. Wortherly Jr.
KEITH GEDAMKE / THE SUMTER ITEM
Andrew Wrenn, center, dove into a pool to pull Michal Hoge out after Hoge dove in and cracked three vertebrae in his neck. Wrenn then performed CPR on his teammate. Members of the Dalzell-Shaw Jets alumni wore black uniforms with “Hope 4 Hoge” and played an exhibition game against the current team, which raised about $8,200 for Hoge’s medical expenses on Wednesday.
Community raises awareness, support for injured athlete
WEATHER, A14
BY MICHAEL CHRISTOPHER michaelc@theitem.com
KEEP THE UMBRELLA HANDY Partly cloudy and humid. A thunderstorm in spots. HIGH 84, LOW 66
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Michal Hoge never left the side of his buddy, Andrew Wrenn, when he was caught underneath a Polaris Ranger utility vehicle last summer after their ride flipped while taking a sharp turn at a high rate of speed. Wrenn needed two stitches in his face and tore the right tricep in his shoulder just a day after his 18th birthday. On Sunday, May 17, Wrenn was there for Hoge when he needed him the most. Hoge suffered an injury which left him with three broken vertebrae in his neck while diving into a swimming pool. Wrenn performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on his former teammate with the Dalzell-Shaw Post 175 and Thomas Sumter Academy baseball teams, saving his life. “That’s a life-changing event in all of this, that we have an oppor-
tunity to go forward and deal with whatever is in front of us because Michal is alive, and he’s only alive because Andrew Wrenn practiced CPR,” said Laura Hoge, Michal’s mother.
FUN TURNS SERIOUS Hoge and several friends were at a friend’s house swimming on May 17. Hoge dove into the shallow end of the pool and made a splash, then another. “Knowing Michal Hoge, if anyone knows him, he’s a big jokester, and he kids around so we thought he was kidding around,” said Wrenn who played in a fundraising game on behalf of Hoge on Wednesday at Thomas Sumter Academy’s General Field between the current Dalzell team and former Jets. “After about a minute and a half, then my friend said, ‘Andrew, jump in the pool and see what’s wrong with him.’ “I jumped in the pool and pulled him up to the top, and his face and
lips were as blue as could be. At that moment I told myself, ‘I have to get him out of the pool and get him to the side.’” After several friends helped Wrenn pull Hoge out of the pool, Wrenn began to perform CPR on him. For a minute and half nothing happened. Then, slowly but surely, progress could be seen. Hoge began to vomit, and water came up, and Wrenn said he could hear him breathe on his own. Yet his friend was still unconscious. Wrenn, who learned CPR in a class as a student at TSA, said he continued CPR until medical personnel arrived and took Hoge to Tuomey Regional Medical Center about midnight. Hoge was then transferred to Palmetto Health Richland in Columbia where friends and family waited from 2:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. while he had surgery done on his neck.
SEE HOGE, PAGE A10
Haley: New domestic violence law 1st culture-changing step BY JEFFREY COLLINS The Associated Press COLUMBIA — South Carolina’s new domestic violence law marks a first step in changing a culture that has quietly ignored abuse, Gov. Nikki Haley said Thursday, just before she signed the bill. The law increases penalties for repeat domestic violence offenders based on the severity of the attack, the number of prior offenses and other factors, such as whether the victim was strangled, is pregnant or was abused with children nearby. It replaces an old system that based punishment mostly on the number of offenses. It also imposes a lifetime gun ban on the worst abusers and an automatic three- or 10-
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signs the state’s new domestic violence bill into law on Thursday. The new law increases penalties for domestic violence and has a gun ban for batterers. year ban in other cases. Haley said the new law works well with the task force
she created to fight the longignored problem in South Carolina. The state often
ranks at the top of the nation for the number of domestic violence deaths, a statistic advocates blame as much on a culture that tries to hide domestic violence problems as on lenient laws favoring abusers. “We are working hard to make sure domestic violence is no longer a whisper — that it is something we actively talk about on a daily basis,” Haley said, surrounded by more than 50 lawmakers and supporters of the new law. Rep. Shannon Erickson helped guide the bill through the House. She said its comprehensiveness was critical. Along with increased penalties, it gives victims more options to get financial and other help escaping from bad relationships and offers coun-
seling and help for first-time offenders. Erickson, R-Beaufort, joined the governor and others in thanking The Post and Courier of Charleston for its Pulitzer-Prize winning 2014 series on domestic violence, which put pressure on lawmakers and officials to stop ignoring studies about South Carolina’s high domestic violence rate. Erickson said the newspaper gave a voice to the bravest people — victims willing to tell their stories publicly. “We can thank the media all we want for giving them a voice, but it is a hard thing to do to talk about what happened in those very, very, very difficult situations. They spoke from their heart for months,” Erickson said.