-L Martinsville Bulletin, Thursday, February 26, 1998-Page 3-A Sprinkler recall being considered (AP) A federal agency could decide as early as next week whether to sue the maker of the troubled Omega fire sprinkler head to force a recall of the devices. The Omegas have failed in at least five fires in the past three years, and they have failure rates as high as 35 percent in laboratory tests. About 8 million of them are in use in hospitals, schools, hotels, offices and homes across the country. The sprinkler is faulty in design and construction, Eric H. Singer, a trial attorney for the U.S.
Consumer Product Safety Commission, said in a confidential letter Jan. 6 to the attorneys general of the 50 states. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter. The CPSC staff is asking the Cen- Don't Miss Our Annual Fall and Winter Sale Shoe Sale Women's Men's Reduced Parking Back Of Store I UPTOWN MARTINSVILLE 1 DEDICATION SERVICE Highland Baptist Church welcomes the Gethsemane Singers, with Floyd Penny Andrews, to our Special Dedication and Memorial Service for our beloved former Pastor, Duffy Westmoreland, on Sunday, March 1st. The guest speaker in our 10:30 a.m.
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$1,895 Sale $1,29750 Sale $94750 JACQUES Merchants 2-855 Liberty Fair Mall 632-8435 tral Sprinkler Co. of Lansdale, to stop selling the Omega and to replace all of the heads. Singer wrote that the CPSC "is prepared to sue the firm for a recall if negotiation does not prove fruitful." CPSC spokesman Russ Rader said Wednesday that the staff's position is subject to approval by the CPSC's three commissioners, who could vote as early as next week. Central, in a statement issued Wednesday, said it would seek resolve performance concerns about the Omega but believes its voluntary remediation program addresses the issues raised by the CPSC. "The Omega has an excellent track record," the company's statement said.
"In 15. years of use, the sprinklers have operated effectively in hundreds of fires." A negotiated settlement appears unlikely. "At this point I regret to inform our industry that we have been unable to reach a reasonable understanding of the issues with this federal agency," Central president George G. Meyer wrote in a letter to the industry Feb. 17.
If Central is sued for a recall, the company "will continue to seek a reasonable solution during the extended formal legal process which will ensue," Meyer said. Central, the nation's secondlargest manufacturer of fire sprinklers, makes several hundred models. But its Omega became a top seller because it activated so swiftly generally in 14 seconds instead of the 90 seconds other heads took. The 8 million put in buildings from 1983 to 1996 represent about 2 percent of all sprinklers installed in the United States during that period. The Omegas had a 31 percent failure rate in Underwriters Laboratories tests and a 35 percent failure rate in tests conducted last year for the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department.
"This contrasts with automatic fire sprinklers' historical rate of proving 99.5 percent effective," Singer said. Central disputed those failure rates, saying results of laboratory tests cannot predict sprinkler head failures in actual site conditions. Since May 1995 Omegas have failed to activate in fires at a Marriott hotel in Michigan, a Veterans Affairs hospital in upstate New York, an Indiana juvenile detention home, a Maryland bed and breakfast and a California apartment. No injuries resulted. Central said all five of those castoes involved sprinklers that had been contaminated or abused rather than a defect.
"Moreover, on each of these occasions, the spread of fire was controlled quickly, and in most of these fires, by the adjacent Omega sprinkler heads," Central's statement said. Central Sprinkler says Omega heads have operated suc'cessfully in hundreds of fires but that some Omegas equipped with rubber 0-rings have failed because installers and nance workers improperly used pipe cutting oils or chemicals that stop leaks. The compounds clog the heads or cause rubber 0- rings to swell, requiring high water pressure for the head to activate. The company says it replaced rubber 0-rings with stronger silicone rings beginning in June 1996. The CPSC staff, however, does believe the silicone rings will improve the reliability of Omegas.
It says it doubts that the oil and stop-leak compounds alone caused Omegas made before 1996 to fail. Singer said the CPSC staff has asked Central to: Immediately cease of Omega heads. Offer free reliable replacement sprinklers to those who request them. Pay for replacing Omega sprinklers. Central already has spent about $5 million to test and replace Omegas and has reserved an additional $13.2 million for future work, expenses that resulted in a net loss in fiscal 1997.
Lawsuit claims man sodomized to death at state hospital ROANOKE (AP) A man is injuries other than a few wrist suing the state for $10 million, bruises from being handcuffed. He claiming workers at a mental hos- said hospital records show that the pital killed his son by sodomizing only complaint McCloskey made him with a "broom-like handle" when he was admitted was that a and rupturing his colon and small police officer pulled a gun on him. intestine. Western State Hospital director John McCloskey, 19, was taken to Len Harding, a defendant in the Western State Hospital i in Decem- lawsuit, declined to comment ber 1994 and was sodomized there Wednesday. He previously said he so savagely that his bowel was torn believes McCloskey was not and his liver was ruptured, accord- injured at the hospital.
ing to a lawsuit filed last week by Three days after McCloskey Carl McCloskey. arrived at Western State, he "There is still somebody walking became feverish and began around who is responsible for what screaming and complaining of happened to my boy," said, stomach pains. He was taken to the McCloskey, a truck driver who lives U.Va. hospital. in Waynesboro.
"It could happen "The trauma surgeon found his to somebody else." abdominal cavity so torn up that John McCloskey became vio- it qualified as one of the worst caslently ill at the mental hospital in es of abdominal injury that he had Staunton and lapsed into a coma. ever witnessed and found He died 14 months later, on Feb. (McCloskey) to have suffered sig. 2A, 1996, during surgery at the Uni- nificant brain damage," according versity of Virginia Medical Center to the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District to reconnect his stomach, one in Court in Roanoke on Friday.
a series of operations performed Besides the state and Harding, on McCloskey, said Jonathan the lawsuit names a doctor at WestRogers, the family's attorney. ern State and two other unknown Last June, the state medical employees as defendants. It examiner ruled the death a homi- alleges that Harding should have cide, and a criminal investigation known the staff was abusing by the state police and the FBI is patients and accused him of covunder way. ering up the assault on McCloskey. John McCloskey was arrested for Rogers said he won't have the indecent exposure in Rockbridge defendants served with the lawsuit County after he "mooned" conve- until he has to in 120 days nience store clerks who refused to because McCloskey's family doessell him beer.
n't want the civil case to interfere Rebecca McCloskey said her son with the criminal probe. had been diagnosed as a bipolar Virginia Department of Mental manic-depressive and had Health spokeswoman Martha stopped taking lithium doctors had Meade said the agency could not prescribed to control his temper comment on pending litigation outbursts. and could not discuss McCloskey's Rockbridge County's sheriff and treatment because of confidenjail director said McCloskey was tiality rules. not injured while he was in their "I don't want a dime from the custody. state, but if a lawsuit is what it Rogers said a physical exam takes to make something happen, McCloskey received when he was that's what it takes," McCloskey admitted to the hospital noted no.
said. Massage costs chiropractor $140,000 PULASKI (AP) A chiropractor who massaged a woman's pubic area, telling her the treatment would relieve her constipation, must pay her $140,000 in dam-. ages after a jury found that he committed malpractice. Glenn Payne, 38, and the chiropractic clinic where he works must pay Tammy Cole $90,000 in compensatory damages, the Pulaski County Circuit Court jury decided Tuesday. Attorneys for Payne and Cole agreed Wednesday on an additional $50,000 in punitive damages.
Cole, 28, began working as Payne's assistant at Tuck Chiropractic Clinic in the spring of 1994. Soon afterward, she said, he began rubbing her back, giving her flowers, calling her at home to ask her about her marriage and offering her free spinal adjustments. When she mentioned at work one day that she was constipated, The Bunnies Are Coming! Payne claimed he could cure it, Cole testified. She said he took her into an exam room, closed the door and shut the blinds, and began alternating between rubbing her pubic area above her clothes and adjusting her spine. Payne massaged her pubic area again in several subsequent sions, at one point sliding his hand beneath her panties but never touching her genitals, Cole testified.
When her constipation persisted after several sessions, she concluded the treatment was Bloody RICHMOND (AP) Two men charged with spraying the inside of a Richmond bank with semiautomatic rifle fire and killing a teller during a holdup entered the bank intending to kill everyone inside, a prosecutor said Wednesday. "These men, ladies and gentlemen, walked in that bank to wreak havoc," assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Melson said in his opening statement in the trial of Lafawn D. Bobbitt and Rashi T. Jones.
Melson pointed to the two men and continued: "They came in prepared to kill, to maim, to wound." actually sexual misconduct. "She wanted to believe that he was trying to do some good for her," said Terry Grimes, Cole's attorney. Payne denied ever touching Cole under her clothes and said the technique is legitimate. Jurors, however, found that he had inappropriately touched Cole's pubic area without a medical reason. One chiropractic expert said Payne's technique may actually have been legitimate, but not his bedside manner.
NationsBank robbery Bobbitt and Jones, both 20, are being tried on federal bank robbery charges in the Jan. 30, 1997, holdup of a NationsBank branch on the east side of Richmond. Prosecutors said Bobbitt and Jones entered the bank carrying three guns, more than 250 rounds of ammunition, curtains to cover the windows, electrical cords, lighter fluid and matches. Lori Robinson, a 23-year-old teller, died of a gunshot wound to the chest. Two other bank employees survived multiple gunshot wounds, and a customer was grazed by a bul- FOR 30 YEARS WE HAVE SOLD BEDDING BY BemCo BEMCO COMFA-PEDIC We talk back.
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9-4 PHONE: 647-7444 no "There are reflex points in the pelvic They're very close: to areas related to the valve: between the small intestine and: the large intestine, which is where: a lot of constipation problems. stem from," said Dr. Jerry: Hochman, a professor at Life Uni-: versity in Marietta, which teaches chiropractics. But if he were to do such a procedure, Hochman said, he would ensure that the door remained: open and a female. assistant: observed the treatment.
case opens let in the bloodiest bank robbery in Richmond history. Bobbitt and Jones each face five: counts relating to murder, bank rob-: bery and firearms violations and: could be sentenced to death if con-: victed. Melson told jurors that Bobbit and Jones walked in and pulled semi-: automatic weapons. Bobbitt, he said, walked up to the tellers and a third bank employee and opened fire without warning, killing Robinson and hitting Bobbie Jo White several times in the upper body. Meanwhile, he said, Jones was tryring to shoot the bank guard, Floyd Dean, but his gun jammed, allowing Dean to exchange fire with Bobbitt.
Dean and a customer then ran out of the bank, and Bobbitt chased them, firing as he0ran, Mels During the chase, Dean was shot several times in the upper body and then once in the head. He survived, but is now nearly blind, Melson said. "Floyd Dean is the real hero in this case," he told jurors, who listened attentively and took notes during the statement. "He drew Bobbitt out of the bank and when gunfire was exchanged outside, police were alerted." Jones and Bobbitt then fled through an adjacent cemetery, broke into a neighboring house to steal clothes and dump evidence, and eventually met up with co conspirators nearby, Melson said. In an opening statement for Jones, attorney John McGarvey blamed the robbery on Bobbitt and one of the friends Bobbitt and Jones allegedly met later, Jermaine Sims.
Prosecutors say Sims was involved in the conspiracy but did not enter the bank. He will face lesser charges in a separate trial. Get Connected, Fast Easy Get INTERNET Get kimbonet FREE Installation, Unlimited Access 666-9209.
