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[signal, then music cues up] [music continues] [music continues] [Swenson] The State of Oregon will soon designate a limited number of hospitals as trauma centers. Status-conscious hospitals are scrambling to be included. A young Portland man is dealing trauma to politicians and laughs to the rest of us. We'll meet the youngest syndicated editorial cartoonist in America. And we'll look at some important strategies for parents and children on how kids can protect themselves. Good evening. I'm Jim Swenson. Gwyneth Gamble Booth has the evening off. Beginning next month, a handful of local hospitals will apply to the State for contracts to provide trauma care. Trauma is the leading cause of death for people under age 44,

and state-of-the-art trauma care usually means a region-wide or state-wide system. But fewer than half of the states across America have such a system, and Oregon is just starting to set one up now, dividing the state into 10 regions. Here as elsewhere, trauma care often seems as much a political issue as a medical one, as hospitals increasingly compete. We'll warn you in advance that the next story contains some graphic scenes from operating rooms. Marilyn Deutsch has the report. [ambulence siren] [interviewee] Each year that you go by without a regional system--we're talking about all of Oregon-- approximately 30 percent of those deaths are, are preventable. [background--EMTs, emergency room?] And if the operating room is not ready to go, uh, or the personnel aren't in house, then the delays might need to unnecessary loss of life.

[Deutsch] Trauma is injury caused by external force. There is blunt trauma from a bad fall or car accident, and there's penetrating trauma: a knife or gunshot wound. Major trauma is life-threatening, involving injury to one or more vital organs. [background sounds continue] Trauma care is a medical issue, it is a social issue, and today in Oregon, the idea of the State designating certain hospitals for major trauma care is one hot political issue. [interviewee] And I'm not absolutely sure that designation is in the, uh, in this or in the patient's best interest, or in the community's best interest at this point. [another interviewee] We've designed a system to, uh, to suit the, uh, physicians, and not one to suit the patient. [siren begins again] [Deutsch] But the State Health Division is trying to change that, and it is now in the process of creating formal regional trauma systems throughout Oregon. Eventually, that will mean State contracts for selected trauma hospitals.

Some hospitals that now treat trauma patients will continue to do so. Others will not. Those hospitals the State does not choose will lose out on trauma patients and trauma dollars. [background continues] [background continues] And the State of Oregon could end up with a string of lawsuits from hospitals that feel they were wrongly excluded from the State's brand-new trauma system. Why change then? [interviewee] We still have patients that are, uh, going to hospitals that perhaps are not really, truly ready to take care of the trauma patients. [Deutsch] Health officials here and across America say voluntary trauma systems with no enforced standards do not work well. [Noel] Clint was the, uh, was a victim of a stabbing, and [fades to background] [Deutsch] Clint Noel died 3 years ago, age 24, stabbed by a neighbor in an argument. An ambulance carried Noel to nearby Meridian Park Hospital in Tualatin. 10 days later, Clint Noel died there. Clint's brother, Eric Noel, is a former paramedic. [Noel] They treated that injury as if it were medical in origin, as opposed to traumatic in origin.

[Deutsch] Eric Noel says Meridian Park was not equipped to handle trauma, should have simply stabilized his brother, then transferred him to a trauma hospital. Do you think what happened to your brother could still happen today? [Noel] It does all the time. It does. Yes, uh, it happens because the Emergency Department door is a, uh, for the trauma patients, relatively lucrative. [Deutsch] A 1,000,000-dollar wrongful death suit has been filed. Meridian Park is refusing all comment. Whatever the outcome of this case, stories like Clint Noel's prompted the State to act. The 8-county region in the northwest corner of Oregon will be the first to get the State designated system. That happens next July. Currently, under a voluntary trauma system, 5 hospitals in the Portland metro area treat 99 percent of the region's major trauma patients. All 5 hospitals say they will vie for those prized State contracts and the region's 2,000 trauma patients. The question is, do we need all 5? [interviewee] We're probably getting into too many by the time we get up that high. I'd hate to say any specific number. [Deutsch] The choices Dr. Lester Wright in the State Health Division make could save your life.

[Wright] It's, really is a consumer's issue, because if the patient is severely injured enough not to be able to make the decisions for themselves as to what they're going to do or what they're going to receive, then, uh, this, uh, society, where the Oregon State Health Division or the Multnomah County Medical Advisory Board has to provide, uh, those, um, excellent facilities, uh, as a, as a part of the public trust. [background sounds] [background sounds continue] [background sounds continue] [Deutsch] But the question of number is no small matter. Too many hospitals could be an inefficient, expensive proposition. [background sounds continuing] Too few hospitals could be insufficient to treat the region's trauma patients. [background sounds continuing] Trauma care is largely dependent upon skilled 10- to 12-man trauma teams. [background sounds continuing] [background sounds continue] [background sounds continue] Practice makes perfect. [background sounds continue] [background sounds continue] [interviewee] The more a team does, uh, the better results that they get, that the less they do and the more sporadically that they do complex surgery, the less well that they perform. [another interviewee] Uh,

I think the only way to improve on it would be for the hospitals doing it to have a higher volume. And the only way you're going to do that is to, unfortunately, lop off a few of the hospitals. [Deutsch] That would put more patients and more dollars into fewer hands. Trauma care is expensive. Just to keep an anesthesiologist and trauma surgeon on hand around the clock, whether they're needed or not, costs roughly 600 dollars a day. While most hospital officials say trauma does not pay in terms of profits, others may be more candid. [interviewee] It must not be a real financial burden, or there wouldn't be so much competition to provide it. [background?: Somebody had to say it to me] [Deutsch] In fact, certain kinds of trauma may pay very well. Victims of blunt traumas--car accidents and such--tend to be insured. Some require long hospital stays, and even rehabilitation services. [background?: Ear and nose itches? Alright, pretty important thing to be able to let somebody know] Out in the suburbs, St Vincent treats almost only blunt trauma patients. [background: Can you hear me?

He does not speak English] On the other hand, in the city, Northeast Portland's Emanuel Hospital earned its nickname "Knife and Gun Club," because of the high number of stabbing and gunshot victims it cares for. These patients rarely have insurance, and usually cannot pay their medical bills. [background noise continues] The state will not only decide on the number of trauma hospitals, it will divide them into categories, Levels 1 and 2. Besides being more prestigious, Level 1 means more business, perhaps twice as many trauma patients as a Level 2 hospital. Again the question: How many Level 1 hospitals does Northwest Oregon need? Some say, just 1. But 3 hospitals want the gold star: OHSU, St. Vincent, and Emanuel. [background: 4 milligrams of morphine, did you get that, Karen?] By far, Emanuel cares for the most trauma patients now. But another requirement may point to the University. [Dr. Trunkey] The reason the, the medical school is so uniquely qualified is because you have the basic scientists, and the laboratories, the

animal facilities, and the research equipment. [Deutsch] The other hospitals research clinical topics. But Dr. Trunkey says that's not enough. [Dr. Trunkey] If we're going to make inroads into better management of the critically injured, it's going to have to be in head injury, where brain edema, or brain swelling, is the number one killer. [Deutsch] Experiments like this one. [background sounds] In hopes of becoming Level 1 hospitals, in recent years, Emanuel and the University have pulled in some heavy hitters. Both Doctors Trunkey and Long came to Oregon with national reputations. By this summer, we should know how many and which hospitals will serve trauma patients in Northwest Oregon. What the state decides might one day mean the difference to you between life and death. [Swenson] A couple of footnotes. The rest of the State should have trauma systems set up by June of

1988, and a bill just introduced in the U.S. Congress might eventually provide millions of dollars to hospitals for indigent emergency care. Well, our next story tonight is on crime, something that affects us all. Justice Department figures just released show that teenagers are more than twice as likely as adults to be victims of rape, robbery, assault, and other crimes of violence. Tonight, we're not just going to talk about crime, we're going to show you what's being done about it. Specifically, Steve Amen reports on how our children are learning to fight back. [police siren] [Amen] Crime. We know it's going on all around us. We've heard all this before. But what you may not be aware of is that the criminals are targeting more children for their crimes than ever before. In 1985, there were over 7,600 crimes reported involving juvenile victims in the Portland area alone. In just one year, that figure jumped 29 percent, to almost 9,900. The crimes range from obscene phone calls and petty thefts,

to sexual assaults and murder. Lieutenant Weber of Portland's Juvenile Services Unit, uses the analogy of life in the wild to help explain just why it is criminals are going after the children. He says street criminals are like hungry wolves, and children are the defenseless, wounded animals limping behind the herd. [Weber] Yeah, what you do that is equivalent to a limp--maybe to carry yourself in a very timid and weak manner, to keep your eyes on the ground and not look at people. And these are the kind of things that draw out, if there's someone watching you that is a criminal type that is looking for something weak, this may draw them right to you. And then when they get to you, they, they approach you, they do things to further examine your weakness. And if your further actions show the, confirm their estimation of your weakness, then it's all downhill from there, and pretty soon you're victimized. Whereas our programs try to, try to teach you to walk without that so-called limp: to, to look where you're going, to look about you, to have a look, uh, a look in your eye that you're, that you're confident, that you, you're in your familiar surroundings, you know what you're doing, and

that you can deal with it if anybody messes with you. [Amen] Jennifer Wise is one of the people who does the teaching. She is the Director of Portland's Youth Sexual Assault Prevention Program. The Program was started in April of '86 by the Crime Prevention Unit of the Portland Police Department. [Wise] The ultimate goal is just to instill kids, um, between the grades of, of 4 and 12 with some basic problem-solving skills on what to do if they get into a dangerous situation, the ways that they can figure it out for themselves. [Amen] Today, Jennifer is working with a Girl Scout troop made up of third, fourth, and fifth graders. The topic is personal safety, and the subjects range from how to handle a bully to sexual abuse. [Wise] Eventually, you may have a friend who's being abused by somebody that, that, that, that, she knows, or he knows, and you're going to need to know what to do. So it's important to kind of think about what if, you know, what would I do if? Or, just be aware of what's going on around you. If somebody's doing something that's making you feel uncomfortable, then it's

time to become assertive and say, Knock it off, or, I don't like what you just said to me, or, I don't like the way you're looking at me. [Amen] For the next hour, Jennifer and the kids openly discuss the "what ifs" and how they can deal with them. The girls I talked with seem to have a very good understanding of the sensitive topics, but were a little nervous in front of the camera. What did you learn from the day? [Girl Scout] That I should have, I should think about things, like before it might happen so that I can be safe. [another Girl Scout] You should plan things before they happen. [Amen] There are those who feel a 9-year-old is just too young to deal with subjects like incest and sexual abuse. Jennifer disagrees. [Wise] You know, in a 9-year-old, they're articulate, they're, they're able to understand, um, the concept of, of their body and of, you know, of having rights over it and being able to say "no" to somebody who'd want to take advantage of that situation. [Amen] Dr. Albert Greenwood has been a child psychologist for the past 12 years. He encourages programs like Jennifer's, but says there are dangers involved. [Dr. Greenwood] In guise

of education, sometimes we have a tendency to overeducate. And while we need these kinds of programs to educate people to very real things, uh, I, I think there's a, there's a point that we get where with kids we can over educate them to where it becomes either alarming to them or not useful to them. [Amen] Dr. Greenwood says there are signs we can look for in our children that tell us when this is happening. [Dr. Greenwood] If a child becomes preoccupied with the information, or, or it seems to have a bigger part of their life than you'd expect in a normal day-to-day routine of a child. If strangers, the word "strangers" comes up more than, than you'd think would be normal in a day-to-day situation. If dangers are talked about more frequently. I think that's a point where we might say again, we might be into an alarm situation. [Amen] The Police Department is aware of this, and it makes a point of constantly reevaluating the programs offered. [Weber?] We have turned down or steered away from techniques that were suggested to us by other people or programs, that seem to be appropriate in other places, because we

felt that they were, pretty much along the line of what you were saying, more inflammatory than was called for by the circumstances. And, and we're, we try to be very careful not to create problems where none exist. [background sounds] [Amen] The Department has designed another program that centers on honest and open communication between the kids and their parents. It's billed as a self-defense class for mothers and daughters, but the emphasis is on communication. [interviewee] My Mom and I didn't talk a lot about sexuality or sex, you know, at all. It was just kind of, she left it up to me to find out at school or, you know. Every time something sexual would come up, she'd turn red in the face and, and immediately switch the subject. Have you guys ever experienced anything like that? [another] My mother never told me anything about sex. I could probably sum it up in 2 sentences what she told me, and so I, I always said to myself, when I grew up and I became a mother, if I had a daughter, that I'd try to be more open. [Amen] That seemed to be the desire of most of the families we saw. When the subject turned to peer pressure and sex,

both generations spoke out. [another] I asked them about if there was peer pressure at their school about that, and they said no. [another] It's open. Like, some of my girlfriends talk about what they do, but, you know, there's no pressure to go out and do anything. It's just, you know, you're on your own. [laughs; agreement from others] [another] Any questions that I thought was, when I was quite a bit younger, and once I got really into high school, they're just, it just went away. [Amen] Sessions like this show the girls they don't have to resort to any kind of peer pressure, that any decision they make is theirs and theirs alone. But there may come a time when someone may try to make that decision for them, and that's when the self-defense training can come in handy. [self-defense training sounds] [interviewee] And there's an increased crime rate in the community, and I, I worry about her safety. And so if she is, uh, attacked or runs into some problems, I want her to, to know what options she has available. [self-defense training sounds] [another] At first I was kind of nervous, but then I thought it was a good idea to learn how to defend myself. [self-defense training sounds]

[another] I think it's important that all females know how to defend themselves, and I especially wanted my girls to know that. [another] It makes us more confident. We know we can do it. [self-defense training sounds] [Swenson] Well, these programs aren't designed just to teach our kids how to fight, but rather how to avoid becoming victims in the first place. And you can find out more about the many programs available for youth and adults in your community by calling your local police department administration number. Well, next up, cartoonist Jack Ohman. Politicians rarely forget the sting of his wit. Ohman's job is to make sure it hurts. He's the editorial cartoonist for The Oregonian. Words like remarkable, brilliant, controversial are used to describe this 26-year-old. Reporter Rod Minot caught up with Ohman, who was on deadline. [Minot] Presses wait to roll. There's another deadline to beat.

For Jack Ohman, it's time to turn tyrant. Caution: cynic at work. [Ohman] You've got to be kind of careful, because being a political cartoonist is like, sometimes, you know, may be giving a 7-year-old a loaded gun. I'm not an angry person, uh, you know, I'm not a Type A. I'm not sitting around [?], you know, I'm more of a, uh, I'm pretty laid back a lot of the time, actually, um, but I, I don, I don't hate anybody. [Minot] But with that biting brush, he does know how to make others flush with hate. 26-year- old Ohman is The Oregonian's editorial cartoonist, a job he's held for almost 4 years. He's the youngest syndicated cartoonist in America, his work appearing in 175 newspapers, including Newsweek and Time. You know, I would like to be known more as a humorist than just a political cartoonist. And I think the best political cartoon is the kind of cartoon that can make people laugh and to make them think simultaneously, if you, uh, have some sort of a political point you want to make, uh, and somebody gets it,

and it's funny, and they can remember it, they remember it a long time afterwards. I mean, that's, that's the successful political cartoon. [Minot] Ohman should know. At 20 years of age, he became something of a media darling when he took over Jeff MacNelly's client list, making Ohman the second most syndicated cartoonist in the world. He knew life would never be the same when the likes of People Magazine came knocking. [Ohman] It made me feel like I was a better cartoonist than I actually was, see, because at that time I was, I was really good for a 20-year-old, but I wasn't really mature as a national cartoonist. [Minot] A self-described journalistic anarchist, anyone and anything is fair game for Ohman. There's his Ronald Reagan, lazy and out-of-touch. [Ohman] In caricature, what you want to do is, you want to take the most obvious feature and make it very grotesque. I think that there is some power on a local level, to, you know, if I wanted to pick on Politician X and make him look stupid, I could do that, and I think that I could uh, hurt him. But, you know, that's not what I think

when I sit down at the drawing board every day. [Minot] 6 cartoons must be cranked out a week. That's about 300 a year. Ohman does them in one draft. Those who know say a good cartoon reduces something complex into a clear idea. This, they say, Ohman does very well. Draftsmanship is also important, but some critics have called Ohman's work a clone of Jeff MacNelly's. [Ohman] I think it was perfectly justified in 1981, when, when I first took over from MacNelly's client list, I think it was absolutely, uh, true. I, everybody's got their influence, and he was mine. And now, I think I've, particularly in the last 2 years, really, you know, moved away from that style. [Minot] Many seem to agree. Ohman and Ohman watchers have seen a maturing in style. [Ohman] It's not as funny as it used to be in the "ha ha" funny sense. I've, I think that it, it makes more of a, a statement. I think that the drawing is

a lot stronger. Uh, I just feel more comfortable with anatomy, I think my caricatures are a lot better. [Minot] Ohman is also known as a witty writer. Much of that displayed in his recently published book "Back to the '80s", a satiric look at how this decade just seems to be a rehash of bygone eras. [Ohman] And I don't see that, um, necessarily that, you know, what I'm saying is, uh, uh, you know, tremendously cynical about our generation or anything like that. But I, I think you would have to admit that in a lot of ways that, you know, people our age are not, uh, probably not as committed as they were to, uh, social progress, or politics, or anything like that as they were 20 years ago. I mean, there's just no central unifying, uh, event in the country that can get them to coalesce around this, uh, problem that they have, which is the fact that there's no direction in this country. You're probably talking about, um, 10, 20, 30,000,000 people seeing your cartoon on any given day, I mean, they're [fades to background] [Minot] Speaking

before a group of college journalism students, Ohman looks like a classmate, clean cut and brainy. There are questions on his salary, on job stress, on whether he worries about burning out at age 26. All answered probably for the millionth time. But Ohman is patient, and takes aim at some of his fans--the ones that hate him. [Ohman] What I don't like is people who are vitriolic in their letters. Uh, the kind of letters, "What does this stay about, say about the state of American journalism when, you know, 26-year-old blah-blah-blah-blah-blah," you know, or, you know, "You communist, fascist pig, you ought to be taken out and horsewhipped," you know, type of a thing. I, I don't get in there. They're usually in purple crayon or something like that. [Minot] Ohman is especially proud of this cartoon on the Challenger disaster. It's the kind of work he hopes will someday bring a Pulitzer Prize. [Ohman] I don't think I should have won it yet. I don't really worry about whether or not I've won the Pulitzer. If I win the Pulitzer now, I'd be the third youngest Pulitzer winner in American history, so I, you know, I got, I think I got plenty of time. [background sounds]

[Minot] Enough time, perhaps, to become one of the great cartoonists. Some say it's within Ohman's reach. And so this young cynic keeps on inking a little anarchy. [Swenson] Ohman's book is already in its second printing, and he's not slowing down: he's planning another one on the 1988 Presidential race. Well now, an update of some previous Front Street Weekly stories. You may recall a story broadcast several weeks ago on Union Carbide's attempts to build a toxic gas plant in Washougal, Washington, near Portland. Well, last week, Carbide announced it's scrapping those plans and will not move to the southwest Washington town. The company blames a slump in the computer market for its decision. Citizen activists in Washougal claim their efforts forced Carbide's reversal. [?The gas is carbide, one of the manufacturer, used in the semiconductor industry.?]

Union Carbide's plant stirred public outcry in Washougal, many residents fearing a Bhopal-like disaster. The company says it's looking at several other sites for its gas plant, but won't identify those cities. Company officials say the location will probably not be in the Northwest. And you may recall the story that we aired last February on GWEN towers, the communication towers the Air Force wants to build across America. The towers would be used during a nuclear attack to relay retaliatory messages to U.S. forces. The Air Force wants to build 2 GWEN towers in Oregon. This one is in Spokane, Washington. But a proposed site near Eugene sparked so much protest, the military backed off. Still, the Air Force is going ahead with a tower near Klamath Falls, though community activists have now organized in that community. And now the Air Force says it's looking for a second site out in Eastern Oregon, in Grant or Harney counties. Air Force representatives say they'll be in Harney County on April 8th for a public meeting on the subject. GWEN critics say they fear the towers will make their

communities targets in the event of nuclear war. Next time on Front Street Weekly: His name was Silas Bissell, award-winning poet, teacher, and heir to the Bissell carpet sweeper fortune. But Vietnam changed all that. In 1970, Bissell was arrested for alleged violence in protesting the War. He jumped bail and disappeared. For years, he lived among us in Oregon, not as Silas Bissell, but as a physical therapist named Terry Jackson--until someone saw his face on an FBI wanted poster. Well, next week on Front Street Weekly, we'll meet Terry Jackson and find out how times changed for him in his 17 years as a fugitive. With the passage of the Victim's Rights Bill, many Oregon voters believe they put clout behind their concerns for victims of crime. But how effective are victims' rights in our court system? And all over America, it was an era of afternoon rock 'n roll dance shows:

we'll take a peek back in time to Portland's answer to American Bandstand. And that's Front Street Weekly for tonight. Gwyneth Gamble Booth will join us again next week. We'll see you next time. Good night. [music; music ends] [silence]