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Naked swordsman attacks
London church; 10 injured
By MAUREEN JOHNSON
Associated Press
LONDON — A naked sword-
wielding man burst into a south
London church during Mass
Sunday, slashing and stabbing
members of the congregation.
Ten people were injured, three
seriously.
Six of the injured suffered stab
wounds, including a man who
lost part of a hand. The others
were hurt in a stampede to get
out of St. Andrew’s Roman
Catholic Church in Thornton
Heath, a London suburb.
Two other men armed with
sticks followed the man into the
church, lashing out at some of
the 400-member congregation,
said Canon John Lennon, the
priest.
Several men in the congrega
tion, including an off-duty police
man, wrestled the man to the
ground as he lashed out with the
3-foot-long sword, witnesses said
Police said they arrested a 35-
year-old man. There was no word
of other arrests The motive for
the attack was not clear.
"I had just finished the ser
mon and I looked up and a num
ber of men came rushing in,”
u
“There were at least three
of them. One was naked
and brandishing a
machete or sword, and
the others were slashing
out at the congregation
with sticks while they ran
down the aisle. ”
CANON JOHN LENNON
Priest at London's St. Andrew's Church
Lennon said.
“There were at least three of
them. One was naked and bran
dishing a machete or sword and
the others were slashing out at
the congregation with sticks
while they ran down the aisle."
The most severely injured vic
tim, a 55-year-old man, had his
thumb and index finger severed
and suffered deep slashes in the
jaw and neck, said officials at the
nearby Mayday Hospital, where
the injured were brought.
“It defies description,” said Dr.
Kambiz Hashemi, one of five sur
geons who treated the victim.
Among the other victims —
most of them elderly — two men
had bad shoulder lacerations, but
were in stable condition, said the
hospital’s chief executive, Keith
Ford.
The others had less serious
injuries, including one who suf
fered a broken leg during the
melee to get out.
A trail of blood led from the
church, located in an usually
quiet suburban street.
Police said the arrested man
came from the area, but priests
at St. Andrew's said he was not
known in the parish.
The attack happened
moments before some 100 chil
dren were due to return to the
Mass from an adjoining hall,
where they had separate prayers
and stories.
A churchgoer, Marie Parcou,
66, said she saw her husband
spouting blood and pulled him to
the ground
“I cannot believe this hap
pened in a church,” she said.
“I thought I had seen every
thing over the years, but nothing
as awful as this," said Canon
Lennon. Canon is a rank of priest
senior to Father but below
Monsignor.
U.N. human rights official
denounces U.S. border policy
Augusta hospital removes train*
portions to help prevent seizures
Associated Press
AUGUSTA — In an operating room at the
Medical College of Georgia, 10-year-old Greg West
lies on his left side, his shaved head clamped tight
ly in place.
His doctors — Mark Lee and Yong Park — are
preparing to remove a small wedge from the right
frontal lobe of Greg’s brain, hoping to remove the
tissue that sparks the epileptic seizures Greg has
suffered from most of his life.
It’s a difficult surgery, but Greg is joining a grow
ing number of epileptic children and adults around
the country who will have portions of their brains
removed in an attempt to stop their seizures.
"We’re scared,” said Greg's mother, Lynne West,
a 36-year-old substitute teacher. “But if it will help
him, we want to do it."
The West family, who live in Camden, 8.C.,
agreed to let a reporter and photographer from
The Augusta Chronicle follow Greg for 14 months
to track his progress at the Medical College of
Georgia
The Augusta hospital has performed the surgery
on roughly 800 patients, about 130 of whom are
children, Lee said. The idea of performing the
surgery on epileptic children is still not widely
accepted, but Lee and Park hope to change that.
“As adults, we can treat their epilepsy, but then-
lives have already been ruined,” said Lee, a pedi
atric neurosurgeon.
Greg had his first seizure at age 3 while eating in
front of the television. A few years later, he was hav
ing as many as 120 seizures in 24 hours. His family
went from hospital to hospital, trying one drug
combination and then another.
Not even sleep offered escape. As he slept on the
top bunk of his bed, his mother would sleep on the
bottom waiting for the tremors to begin. “The
whole bed shakes," West said.
The damage was becoming obvious. At age 7, his
IQ was 80; only a few years later it had dropped to
46. Instead of being in a normal fourth-grade class
room, Greg gets special instruction in a smaller 1
class. n>
“They're losing the really good time for learn
ing," said Park, a pediatric neurologist. With suc
cessful surgery, “they can be free of medication,
they can be free of surgery, they can enjoy their
lives.”
Surgery was not the first option for the Wests*
They looked into a high-fat, low-pfotein diet thaC
has eliminated seizures in some children. They also
checked out a kind of pacemaker that sends elec
tric signals to the brain
But in March 1998, the Wests realized medica'; K
tion and diet were not controlling the seizure.*
They chose the Medical College of Georgia, and
Park suggested Greg might be a candidate fdK
surgery. -**■
The surgery, which Park says has a 60 percent-
cure rate, takes two operations. In August 1998,
Lee and Park openeti Greg's skull and placed aff
electrode grid on his brain to pinpoint the source of
the seizures. Then they sewed him up and monT-'
tored his brain activity. ™
Five days later, doctors defined an area on the-
right frontal lobe where the seizures begin. Left"
carefully removed a wedge of brain tissue 2 inches
at the bottom, tapering to less than an inch at the
top. L.
“There goes most of the epilepsy right there,T"
Lee said in the operating room after less than half
an hour of cutting. m
Greg had 62 stitches in his head and an angry:
red scar that looked like a zipper. He made a lop
sided smile after the surgery because of some tern*
porary paralysis on the left side of his body.
Cuba: U.S. responsible for deaths
U.S. Coast Guard notified of lost boat, claims Cabal
By MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY — The U.N.’s highest human
rights official says she wants the United States to
explain why it polices the safest border crossings,
forcing immigrants to risk their lives in the most
dangerous areas.
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary
Robinson said Saturday she will ask for consulta
tions with the United States on that policy. Two
days earlier, Robinson visited the bor^- city of
Tjjuana and saw hundreds of markers ®nmemo-
rating those who died trying to get into me United
States. She made the comments on the final day of
a five-day fact-finding tour of Mexico.
Some 455 people have died since the beginning
of Operation Gatekeeper, a 5-year-old program that
increases the number of Border Patrol agents along
the southern California border. Migrant rights advo
cates say the program has forced imrmrants to
take more dangerous routes through draerts and
mountains to avoid the patrol.
Robinson said her impression was that
Operation Gatekeeper was “deflecting people (from
normal routes), at risk to their lives, when they
decide to immigrate."
Robinson said she would discuss the issue in pri
vate with U.S. officials.
While migrant rights advocates say the policy
has led to immigrants dying of sunstroke, dehydra
tion, drowning or hypothermia, U.S. immigration
officials say without it the border region would be a
lawless, dangerous place. The U.S. government has
launched public information campaigns warning
prospective illegal immigrants about the dangers of
mountain and desert crossings.
But the California Rural Legal Assistance
Foundation said the billion-dollar border policy has
reduced illegal immigration only slightly — perhaps
by as little as 2 percent — while causing a six-fold
increase in the number of immigrant deaths.
Robinson’s criticism was not saved for the
United States. She said immigrant activists had
expressed “deep concern" about abuses committed
against Central American immigrants in Mexico.
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By JOHN RICE
Associated Press
HAVANA - Cuba said
Sunday that it warned the U.S.
Coast Guard that a boat carry
ing 13 people was heading for
the United States coast — three
days before survivors of the
doomed voyage were found.
The Coast Guard began
searching for survivors from the
small power boat on Thursday
after fishermen two miles off
Fort Lauderdale, Fla., found 5-
year-old Elian Gonzalez clinging
to an innertube. Coast Guard
officials said the boat capsized
Tuesday.
Two adult survivors and
seven bodies had been found by
the time the search was called
off on Saturday.
“The entire responsibility for
these new and painful deaths
falls on the government of the
United States because of the
senseless way that illegal immi
gration is promoted, stimulated
and rewarded from that coun
try," the Cuban Foreign
Ministry said in a declaration
read over Cuban state radio sta
tions.
Coast Guard officials
declined to offer an immediate
reaction Sunday.
Also Sunday. Cuba said the
boy had been kidnapped by his
mother — who died in the voy^”
age — and that he should be
returned to his father.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry,’
said it has filed documents with
the U.S. Interests Section in
Havana asking "that the kicf-V
napped boy be returned as soorr
as possible to his father.”
In Sunday’s editions of thC
Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel;
Elian's cousin was quoted as,
saying from Florida that the.'
boy’s father wants him returned
to Cuba.
However, Lazaro Gonzalez,
the cousin, said he will fight to.
keep Elian in the United Stated”,
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INTRAMURAL SPORTS
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