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Young Storm Lake girl recognized for helping save mom’s life

November 26, 2010 By

A young Storm Lake girl was honored at the Buena Vista County Sheriff’s Department this week for helping to save her mother’s life earlier this month. Five year old Josie Hernandez called 9-1-1 on the morning of November 14th to tell the operator that she was unable to awaken her unresponsive mother.

The call came in on a cell phone, which made it difficult to pinpoint the location of the call. Josie was able to provide enough information that led authorities to the address, where they discovered that Josie’s mother, Dawn Weiland, was unconscious due to a severe medical condition. Weiland was treated at Buena Vista Regional Medical Center.

Weiland’s life was saved thanks to her having trained her daughter to call 9-1-1 in an emergency situation, and Weiland reminds other parents to do the same. She says she is a severe diabetic and taught her daughter to call 9-1-1 in an emergency, and says all parents should do the same. Buena Vista County Sheriff Gary Launderville also credited Belinda Johnson, the dispatcher who took Josie’s call.

Launderville says these type of things don’t happen very often, but he says when they do, everyone needs to be recognized. He says a team effort among the dispatcher and paramedics and Josie helped save a life. Josie was given several gifts for her effort, including a badge, junior deputy sheriff t-shirt, and a junior lifesaver award.

By Ryan Thompson, KAYL, Storm Lake

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Iowa and UNI have Saturday games in football

November 26, 2010 By

The Iowa Hawkeyes hope to bring home a much needed win and Floyd of Rosedale tomorrow when they close out the regular season at Minnesota. The Hawks are 7-4 after consecutive losses to Northwestern and Ohio State while the Gophers are 2-9 under interim coach Jeff Horton, who took over at mid-season after Tim Brewster was fired.

Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz is concerned about his team’s mental state, but not because of the loss to Ohio State. He says he’d have concerns either way if they were coming off two big wins. Lack of execution down the stretch has been costly for The Hawks who held fourth quarter leads in all four of their losses. The Hawks need a victory to avoid a three game losing streak to end the season.

The U.N.I. Panthers open the FCS national playoffs at home on Saturday against Lehigh. The Mountain Hawks are 9-2 and won the Patriot League title. U.N.I. coach Mark Farley who has been impressed with Lehigh’s offense, as he says they have a great line and two good quarterbacks. He says they have a bend, don’t break defense.

Since the Panthers did not get a first round bye they will need to win five games in the playoffs to win the national title. Farley says he loves the challenge as this is what it is all about. He says anything that’s ever worth achieving has a lot of diversity with it.

It will be Lehigh’s second trip of the season to Iowa. They opened with a 28-14 victory at Drake back on September fourth.

Elwin Huffman,KOEL, Oelwein contributed the U.N.I. portion of this story.

Filed Under: Sports Tagged With: , ,

Knoxville man thrilled to play Iowa with “Mary Poppins” Broadway cast

November 26, 2010 By

Eric Hatch

A Knoxville, Iowa, native will be making his home state debut as the touring Broadway production of “Mary Poppins” opens today in Des Moines.

When Eric Hatch graduated from Knoxville High School about a decade ago, he says he had the urge to perform and to travel. Hatch spent a year at Tokyo Disney and landed in New York, where he worked odd jobs and acting jobs, eventually getting a part on the Broadway version of “Mary Poppins” which brought to Los Angeles and then this nationwide tour.

The 28-year-old Hatch is part of the ensemble cast. “We’re really on stage most of the time,” Hatch says. “We don’t have much down time and when you see us on stage, we’re out there singing and dancing but when we’re not we’re changing clothes and doing a lot of makeup.”

Hatch says he’s having the time of his life playing so many parts in the same night, every night. “One of the first times you see me in the show, it’s Jolly Holiday and I play a pan, which is a half man-half goat,” Hatch says. “Then the next thing is, I take off all that makeup and I come out and am an adult banker, working, doing the daily grind. It’s just funny because there’s so many different things that we play in the show.”

He grew up going to shows at the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, but never dreamed he’d be performing there. “To be at the Civic Center is really neat because now I get to be on the other side of it,” Hatch says. “I’ve never been on the stage at the Civic Center. I’m excited to play Iowa so all my family and friends can come and see what I do every night. They always thought it was kind of a hobby for me and some people still don’t know that I made this a career and this is what I do for a living.”

The show runs through December 12th. For details, visit www.civiccenter.org

Filed Under: Human Interest

Company created to sell carbon credits will shut down

November 26, 2010 By

An Iowa-based company that helps farmers buy and sell agricultural carbon credits is making plans to shut down, following the closure of the Chicago Climate Exchange. Dave Miller is Chief Science Officer for Agragate Climate Credits Corporation, based at the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation.

 Miller says the company is winding down operations as the market for voluntary carbon credits never took off as expected with congress failing to take steps to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. “Congress did not pass that legislation, and the current political climate does not provide any optimism or foresight if you would, that a program that would be regulating carbon in a cap and trade scenario is any time in the near future,” Miller says.

Farmers earn the credits by adopting conservation practices. Miller says the company can’t wait any longer for the situation to change. “For many of us in the program it’s been nothing but expenses for the last year and a half, two years. There’s been very little revenue generated out of carbon credits in the last 18 months,” Miller says.

 Miller says most farmers’ contracts with Agragate will run out by the end of this year. The Chicago Climate Exchange has announced plans to pull out of the cap-and-trade business by the end of the year. Carbon credits on the exchange are tied to voluntary reductions in greenhouse gas emissions by industry and agriculture.

Filed Under: Agriculture, Business, Environment & Conservation

Logan man dies in Thanksgiving day accident

November 26, 2010 By

Thanksgiving Day began with a deadly accident about in western Iowa’s Harrison County. The Iowa State Patrol reports 22-year-old Colton Richard Bertelson, of Logan, died when the pickup he was driving went out of control and rolled into a farm field about three miles east of Magnolia.

Officials say Bertelson was traveling southeast on Highway 127 in his 2004 Chevy Silverado pickup, when he failed to negotiate a curve around 5 a.m. The truck left the road and partially entered the southeast ditch. Bertelson tried to steer the truck back toward the highway, but it slid across the road and through the intersection with Morgan Avenue, before entering the northwest ditch and sliding into a farm field, where the vehicle rolled over.

Bertelson was ejected from the pickup as it rolled, and was pronounced dead at the Missouri Valley Hospital. Officials say he was not wearing a seatbelt.

By Ric Hanson, KJAN, Atlantic

Filed Under: Fires/Accidents/Disasters

Iowa accused of breaking promises on anti-smoking efforts

November 26, 2010 By

A national anti-smoking activist says Iowa’s government leaders should -again- strive to raise the state’s tax on cigarettes. Carter Steger, a senior director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, says Iowa isn’t following through on its promises to invest a certain percentage of its winnings from the landmark 1998 tobacco court settlement in prevention programs.

Steger says, “Iowa currently is spending $7.3-million annually on tobacco prevention and unfortunately, that’s only 20% of what the Centers for Disease Control recommends which is $36.7-million per year.” She says Iowa had agreed to spend significantly more money on programs to help smokers quit and on keeping kids from taking up smoking — but the state’s not under any legal obligation to do so.

Steger says Iowa is seeing many positive returns from the 2008 state law that banned smoking in most public places, in addition to the state’s dollar-a-pack cigarette tax increase in 2007.

“For every 10% increase in the price of tobacco, you see a 7% decrease in youth smoking rates and a 4% decrease in adult consumption,” Steger says. “In addition, you get the revenue at the state level that could help fund tobacco prevention programs.”

Iowa’s cigarette tax increase more than three years ago took the amount of state taxes per pack from 36-cents to a dollar-36. Steger says that was effective, for a while, but the tax now needs to be raised again.

“The thing about a tax increase is that you have to keep doing them every so often so you continue to see that reduction in youth (smoking rates),” Steger says. “The highest tax in the country is at $4.35. New York state has that tax, so you can see that Iowa has some room to move to even come close to $4.35.”

She says a new study from the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, called “Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids,” finds states have cut tobacco prevention funding to the lowest level since 1999, the first year they received settlement funds. It says states cut prevention funds by 28% in the last three years, despite receiving huge amounts of revenue from the tobacco industry.

Steger says tobacco use is the nation’s number-one cause of preventable death, killing more than 400,000 Americans every year and costing nearly $100 billion in health care bills. Learn more at: www.acscan.org

Filed Under: Health & Medicine

Drug Control Policy director proposes mandatory Prescription Monitoring Program

November 26, 2010 By

The state’s Drug Control Policy director says education is key to reversing a dramatic increase in prescription drug abuse in Iowa. Gary Kendell says there’s a perception that recreational use of prescription and over the counter medicines is “safer” than drugs like methamphetamine or heroin. “That’s our big challenge with alcohol as well,” Kendell said. “It’s a socially acceptable substance and we have a difficult time regulating it and convincing people it’s dangerous to use.”

Iowa treatment centers have also reported a dramatic increase in clients abusing prescription drugs – particularly painkillers like hydrocodone and oxycodone. The state has a voluntary Prescription Monitoring Program, but only 10 to 12 percent of the providers in the state are currently taking part in the program. Kendell would like to make participation in the program mandatory for doctors and pharmacists. He believes that would prevent people from stockpiling prescription drugs. “They’ll go to see multiple doctors and multiple pharmacies and they end up with many, many prescriptions for the same drug,” Kendell said. “That just provides an incredible supply onto the market for drug users with particular regard to prescription pain killers.”

By October of this year, investigations into stolen or misused medications in Iowa exceeded the entire number of cases in 2009. Kendell says prescription drug abuse is the fastest growing form of substance abuse in Iowa.

Filed Under: Health & Medicine Tagged With:
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