Upsetting News: tornado at the Boy Scout camp

[cookie]

I've grown to be a pretty tough cookie. Usually I take in the news with a jaded heart and mind, but man, the story about the tornado that hit the Boy Scout camp is really upsetting me. I think it's because I have my own 14 year old Boy Scout. I've been crying, even. What a horrible thing to happen to these kids and their families. I just can't stop thinking about them. It must have been absolutely terrifying. I hope the injured recover well and wish strength and comfort for the families who lost their little boys to this crazy-ass weather.

[Scott Dolan]

Yes, I saw that yesterday. Horrifying news, indeed.

I had nightmares that tornadoes kept hitting our house last night.

Oy...

[Gentle Giant]

My heart sank this morning reading a more local story about a 2-year-old who drowned in her family's pool, the first day the pool was opened for the summer. Both parents were home at the time, but as I well know from my almost-two-year-old, it only takes a minute taking your eye off your toddler for something bad to happen.

Kids are so vulnerable as it is, and the helplessness that many parents feel when their kids are in the path of danger is very difficult to handle.

I wish all kids everywhere could be happy and healthy all the time, but nasty shit happens and all we can do is hit our knees every day we get by unscathed.

[jesus marion joseph]

I still have vivid memories of the day in school when the principal came into the classroom to tell us that one of my classmates had died the previous night in a house fire. I was in the first grade at the time, 6 or 7 years old. I used to play with the kid on the playground during recess every day. I also remember bringing a donation of canned goods to school for his surviving family. They were a poor black family and they probably lost literally everything they had in the world in that fire.

[Gary Sisco]

Terrible experience.

We had tornado warnings here for day before yesterday. We didn't get one but the thunderstorms that came up were extreme and there was much damage left in their wake, never mind power outages. Which we somehow miraculously escaped. Really violent thunderstorms, all around and right on top of us. At one point we had a lot of hale half the size of a golf ball. They were as extreme as any thunderstorm I've experienced.

[Scott Dolan]

Rootz told me he lost power that day. You lucked out.

[Gary Sisco]

You bet. There are many people without power still.

Ours blinked off ten or twelve times but came back on again.

When that hale started, I told Bronwyn, Oh, great, now I get to go out and yank on the generator to get it started, while being beaten by hale stones.

Thankfully, I didn't have to.

I'd battened down the barn before the storms arrived (our Shetland pony is still here).

The second storm was really fucking intense. I had to give our boxer Lily half a diazepam, she was freaking so. I watched it come out of the west and across the valley Roots and I live in but when it came over us full-force it got so dark and was raining so hard I couldn't see much further than across our deck.

The temperature dropped 30 degrees in half an hour.

There have been a few small tornados here in the past. Nothing like what they've had elsewhere in the country, though, I hasten to say. I remember when one guy's sugar bush (the tended maple groves for syrup making) got demolished by one. Twisted his maples right off at the trunk. It was a strange and frightening thing to look at and imagine.

[Mingus]

my folks (Rootz in-laws) are celebrating their 59th anniversary today. Day 3 without power. (And Showers!)

Oy!

[Scott Dolan]

This Spring has been a violent one, to be sure.

[Gary Sisco]

I didn't mind the temperature dropping, I'll tell you what. I worked my ass off that morning and afternoon, upper 90s, as humid as it could be and not be raining. The three days before were just as bad.

I've really become a spring and fall kinda guy.

[Scott Dolan]

Oh?

Not liking the heat as much anymore?

[rollhead]

Hagee said it was god punishing the scouts for homosexuality.

[Gary Sisco]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

Oh?

Not liking the heat as much anymore?

No, I don't. I don't like the cold, either. Working outside and manually, as I do, I dislike both. It's easier to get warm in winter than cool in summer, but I prefer the transitional seasons to both.

When sweat's running down the inside of my glasses and I still have a long way to go, no. I don't like the heat.

[Scott Dolan]

Originally Posted by Gary

It's easier to get warm in winter than cool in summer

Exactly.

Which is why I'll take the cold any day of the week.

Although, I made a resolution this year not to be pissed off about it being hot.

So far, so good.

[Mingus]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

I didn't mind the temperature dropping, I'll tell you what. I worked my ass off that morning and afternoon, upper 90s, as humid as it could be...

You shoulda' waited until *after* the temperature drop... ;-)

[cookie]

I guess that things at the scout camp, while horrifying, would have been much worse if the boys hadn't had such good first-aid and character training. Those boys saved each others' lives in many cases. Hearing about boys who gave aid to others while injured themselves was inspiring. They are such young boys, but they stepped up for each other. On Nightline last night, they interviewed several boys and their parents. I guess that most of these young men went about the business of survival stoically, only breaking down when finally reunited with their families.

If this had been a less prepared group, the casualties would likely have been worse.

[Gary Sisco]

The outside thermometer at the barn stores high and low temps. The day of the huge storms, here, the high was 99 F and the low after the storms passed over us was 48. That's a pretty crazy day. Very unfortunately, I did all of my day's work in the 99 F part. :-0

[Scott Dolan]

A 51 degree temperature swing!

No wonder those storms were so fucking intense!

[Gary Sisco]

I told you, man. They were as violent as any t-storms I've experienced. We were very lucky, for once.

[Gentle Giant]

How's this for an incredibly sad story?


Divorced parents battling, a child fights for his life
By John R. Ellement and Carey Goldberg, Globe Staff | July 2, 2008

PEABODY - Eric J. Fraser wrapped his burly arms yesterday around the slight figure of his 8-year-old son, Jeremy, who doctors say will soon die, allegedly because the autistic child's mother failed to get him needed cancer treatment.

"He's declining," said Fraser, who is seeking hospice care for Jeremy. "I feel like my son already has his wings."

Fraser spoke one day after his former wife and Jeremy's mother, Kristen A. LaBrie, was arraigned in Salem District Court on one count of child endangerment.

LaBrie, 36, who pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance, could not be reached for comment yesterday.

In a report filed in court, Salem police alleged that LaBrie delayed chemotherapy appointments a dozen times, disrupting a carefully scheduled treatment plan.

She also failed to administer home doses of the chemotherapy and to collect prescriptions at the drugstore, police said.

"Due to Ms. LaBrie's failure to provide Jeremy with his life-saving cancer medication, his cancer has returned," police wrote.

"His cancer has returned quicker and stronger than under ordinary circumstances. He now has been diagnosed with a 10 percent chance of survival."

According to Fraser, police reports, and records in Essex Probate and Family Court, Jeremy Fraser was diagnosed with cancer in 2006 and was to be treated at Massachusetts General Hospital, where doctors told Fraser his son had a good prognosis.

The child now has fully developed leukemia, said Fraser, who was given full custody after his son's medical plight was discovered.

The couple divorced in 2005, with LaBrie receiving physical custody; Fraser had visitation rights every other weekend.

But Fraser said he was not part of his son's life between March and December 2007, a decision he said he made to protect Jeremy after his relationship with LaBrie had disintegrated after months of what he said were threats, both verbal and physical, to him and his family.

It would be better for his son, he determined, if he were to step aside.

"It just never stopped, so to continue to basically support my child, I basically had to withdraw from my son, because I knew something bad was going to happen," said Fraser, who reappeared in his son's life last Christmas. "It was a very hard decision for me to make, to walk away for that period of time."

LaBrie contended in probate court papers that Fraser willingly chose to abandon his son long before the cancer was discovered. In court papers filed in 2004, 2006, and last year, LaBrie said that Fraser was a chronic no-show for visitation.

"Father consistently does not see his child," LaBrie wrote in April 2007. "No contact with school or doctors during child's chemotherapy, no assistance with care."

LaBrie demanded an end to Fraser's parental rights, which was denied by a judge last December when she failed to show up in court, records show.

In mid-February, when LaBrie brought Jeremy to MGH for a routine appointment, doctors determined that he was not getting the care he needed and was in danger if he was allowed to return home with his mother. MGH alerted both Fraser and the Department of Social Services.

A DSS spokeswoman said yesterday that the child protection agency had been involved with the family in the past, but terminated its involvement in 2005. DSS became involved again after MGH stepped in.

Fraser said he has no idea why his former wife allegedly decided not to get her son medical care.

Dr. Robert Sege, medical director of the child protection team at Boston Medical Center, said there may be many reasons why a parent does not make sure a child gets treatment.

The parent may simply not understand how serious the consequences can be, said Sege, who played no role in Jeremy Fraser's case.

Also, he said, "people have real issues with the logistics of life - with transportation, with child care. Life doesn't stop just because you have a chronically ill kid."

Caring for an ill child is no easy job, he said.

"Families with healthy kids and working parents are stressed out as a baseline, and add to that going to multiple doctors' appointments, keeping track, being on time, making a child take a medication they may not want, and sometimes with chemo, the child is uncomfortable. All the chronic diseases of childhood are really difficult for families."

But ultimately, Sege said, "the bottom line is that the child needs to get lifesaving care."

Now that Fraser has been given full custody by the courts and LaBrie has been ordered to stay away, Fraser said he wants to spend as much time with his son as he can, given the demands of daily life.

"It comes down to quality of life," the father said.

Fraser added that he recently told LaBrie: "If you ever get a chance to see that little boy again, pick him up and tell him you're sorry."