THE UNION Articles on
Health -- January, February 2006
Hospital lands donation of $500,000, Dave Moller, February 11, 2006
Mental health plan calls for team approach, Dave Moller, February 11, 2006
Mentally ill will teach peers to cope, Dave Moller, February 7, 2006
Quality of life lures docs, Dave Moller, February 3, 2006
Has the county done enough for mentally ill?, Union editorial, January 10, 2006
Laura's Law may be funded later this year, Dave Moller, January 10, 2006
Sea of change since shootings, Dave Moller, January 10, 2006
Remembering Jan. 10, 2001, Trina Kleist, January 10, 2006
Health-care crisis is coming our way, Dr. Christina Lasich, January 5, 2006
County Behavioral Health chief to leave, Dave Moller, January 5, 2006
Hospital lands donation of $500,000
'Challenge gift' presented by Amaral family
By Dave Moller, davem@theunion.com
February 11, 2006A longtime Nevada County couple has given a $500,000 challenge gift to the Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital Foundation for the new outpatient imaging and women's center.
"It will help the hospital and people in general," said donor Frank Amaral, a county resident for 55 years. He said his son, Lance Amaral of Nevada County, was instrumental in setting the gift up. "I knew they were needing something like that and we rose to the occasion," Frank said.
"We wanted to help get their fundraising going," said LaVonne Amaral. "We're not looking for any publicity on this."
The money takes the foundation a long way toward its goal of gathering $1.2 million in donations for the new building in Grass Valley, according to Executive Director Kimberly Parker. The $17 million center is currently under construction on a site below the hospital with its own parking, and will mostly be paid for from a reserve account.
"Their intent is to get others to give, or give a second time to the project," Parker said of the Amarals.
"It will have $5 million in state-of-the-art equipment," Parker said. "There will no longer be x-rays, everything is digital.
"Within minutes your physician can look at the image (x-ray, or any other body scan) through a password protected Web site," Parker said. That means doctors will not have to come see an x-ray or have one brought to them.
Parker said the equipment will also allow other experts and specialists to look at images on computers to make quicker and, hopefully, better diagnoses.
"One machine will do what three used to do," said hospital imaging department manager Chris Braun. "For the patient, it will be faster."The new building will have a separate entrance for the women's center. It will also have three blood drawing stations. That means outpatients can get imaging and blood work done outside of the hospital and not be mixed with emergency room or bed patients, Braun said.
Current good weather has helped Turner Construction get a good jump on the center and the hospital is shooting for an October grand opening, Parker said.
ooo
To contact senior staff writer Dave Moller, e-mail davem@theunion.com or call 477-4237.
Mental health plan calls for team approach
- copy of plan includedBy Dave Moller
Senior staff writer, davem@theunion.com
February 11, 2006The plan to spend $1 million in new funding for Nevada County mental health services calls for a team approach to deal with patients.
The plan is now available for review and public comment on the county’s Web site at http://new.mynevadacounty.com/bh/.
The county’s proposal would spend monies allocated to counties through Prop. 63, the Mental Health Services Act passed by state voters in 2004. The act will tax millionaires for county mental health services across California.
Many involved in the county’s mental health arena backed the proposition, along with Nick and Amanda Wilcox, whose daughter was killed by a mentally ill man in 2001.
The county’s proposal to spend its allocation calls for:• A team concept to deal with people in crisis.
• No-cost counseling from mental health patient peers.
• A courthouse advocate for patients and their families.
• Counselors to help the county jail, area police officers and Spanish-speaking people deal with patient situations.Plan facilitator Joan Buffington said the public has 30 days to respond to the 200-page plan, either to herself or Doug Bond, the project manager.
“We really want people’s input and we’re required to by law anyway,” Buffington said. “They won’t be shined on.”
In addition, there will be a public meeting to discuss the issue from noon to 2 p.m., Friday, March 17 at the Madelyn Helling Library Conference room in Nevada City.
Buffington said written comments can be e-mailed to her or Bond at these addresses: doug.bond@co.nevada.co.us, or joan.buffington@co.nevada.co.us.
Once the draft proposal is finalized, the county board of supervisors and Department of Behavioral Health Director Robert Erickson will have to approve it. It will then be sent to the State Department of Mental Health for final approval, which could take three months, Buffington said.
For more information, call Buffington a 913-6446 or Bond at 470-2403.To contact senior staff writer Dave Moller, e-mail davem@theunion.com or call 477-4237.
Mentally ill will teach peers to cope
By Dave Moller, davem@theunion.com
February 7, 2006Melissa Blackwell has learned to live with her depression, thanks to classes last fall that taught her how to deal with it.
Now others who want to do the same can, in a new round of classes starting Feb. 9.
Nevada County's chapter of The National Alliance on Mental Illness will be holding a nine-week, two-hours-per-week session "for anyone with a mental illness or psychiatric challenge, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc.," said Scottie Hart, local NAMI board member.
"The most exciting thing about the program is it's led by people who have mental illness and are well along in their recovery who have been trained to teach it to others with mental illness," Hart said. "There's just magic that happens when one person who has been there and back shares with a person who's also on the road to recovery."
For Blackwell, an employee at the FREED Center for Independent Living in Grass Valley, the classes made a huge difference.
"Just to know that other people have had the same kind of experiences that I experienced was great," Blackwell said. "I found out I'm not the only one that has a panic attack or anxiety about going out in public.
"It's important for people in the community to understand that people with psychiatric disabilities can be high-functioning individuals. They can drive, hold jobs and go to the grocery store."
Those interested in the classes should call Hart at 272-5022 for an advance application and questionnaire, "so that we'll know them and they get to know us" prior to the class. Hart, who will teach the class with two other recovering people, said applicants will be asked if they are seeing a psychiatrist and if they are comfortable in groups, among other questions.
The location of the course will only be revealed to those who get in so that the integrity of the program is maintained, Hart said.
"You don't need a referral from a professional, although we welcome them," Hart said. "We want 12 to 15 people, and it usually fills up in the last week," prior to starting.
The NAMI Peer-to-Peer Education Course will deal with stigma, various disorders, emotions, addictions, relationships and other topics. Students will develop a relapse prevention plan during the course.
"It's appropriate," Hart said, "for people in any stage of recovery."ooo
To contact staff member Dave Moller, e-mail davem@theunion.com or call 477-4237.
To get into the class, call Scottie Hart at 272-5022. Classes start Thursday and will be held from 3 to 5 p.m. for nine straight Thursdays thereafter. The location will be given to those who will be in the class.
By Dave Moller, davem@theunion.com
February 3, 2006Debbie Plass thinks she has the best job in Nevada County. As Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital's recruiter, Plass recruits personnel and that often means physicians.
Doctors leave Nevada County for various reasons, and unlike potential county government and school employees, they are not as affected by the tight housing market here.
But doctors are looking for more than a nice home when they move and Plass has something many other recruiters don't, Nevada County's strong sense of community and what is often referred to as the "Evergreen Factor."
"They want an excellent practice, collegial physicians and a better lifestyle," Plass said. "Many of them like the outdoor activities."
"Physicians are looking at a whole community," said Steve Sibilsky, the community relations director at the hospital. "When we take them out and about (Nevada County), the nature of the community is what does the job."
Dr. Terry Werner was recruited by Plass and has been here since August.
About four years ago, he replaced a beloved physician in Auburn, "and I could never get my practice to grow," said Werner, an ear, nose and throat doctor. "This area was attractive, much like Auburn and I wanted to retain that.
"I've really enjoyed it. Our practice has really grown and we're busier than we were in Auburn. The quality of life was a key factor," as were the schools and area restaurants, he said.
Orthopedic surgeon Dr. Gabriel Soto was in the Bay Area completing his residency when he got 50 to 100 solicitations from hospitals and towns in various states.
His father-in-law, Dr. Dale Butler, has been here five years and told him how great it was to practice in Nevada County. The family connection was an obvious attraction to land here.
"But the real reason was there was a need for someone," Soto said. He knew there would be an elderly patient base here and that specialists and surgeons have a tough time finding positions in metropolitan areas.
And, of course, there was also that Evergreen Factor.
"I was absolutely done with the city," Soto said. "I go back there now and I can't wait to leave. The Grass Valley-Nevada City area is a hidden gem with restaurants and the arts; it has a lot going for it."
When Plass lands a doctor, "Usually, it's a win-win-win situation," she said. "The community has the need, the hospital gets referrals and expertise, and the physician can establish a thriving practice pretty quickly."
For every physician opening at the hospital, Plass said she gets three to four doctors responding. That doesn't necessarily translate into instant filling of the positions.
Currently, she is searching for three family practice doctors, two internal medicine physicians, a neurologist, an endocrinologist (glands), an ear, nose and throat doctor and a cardiologist. Any of those doctors could come to Nevada County on their own volition, but Plass has to follow federal guidelines in recruiting them.
The Internal Revenue Service bases hospital physician recruitment on population and community need.
"You just can't grab another dermatologist," Plass said.
Initially, Plass goes to outside recruiting firms who have lists of available doctors and their résumés.
"We do thorough background checks on them and their licensing status," Plass said. "We want people with a great attitude; nice people to deal with."
Sierra Nevada Memorial also offers financial incentives to physicians on a case-by-case basis.
The hospital does that, "so that the doctor doesn't have to worry about the logistics of setting up a practice," Plass said. "We could help them lease a building for a short period, pay some of their moving expenses or help with equipment. It's very individualized."
"Sierra Nevada offers a loan to start your practice," Soto said. "Most hospitals do in rural areas. It's a loan, not a grant, but it is forgivable if you stay in the community long enough.""We fill (the physician positions) as quickly as possible," Plass said. "I don't want to be in the grocery store to hear, 'I can't find a doctor.'"
oooTo contact senior staff writer Dave Moller, e-mail davem@theunion.com or call 477-4237.
SNMH doctors' tenure
Doctors at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital are broken into primary care and surgical services categories. Primary care physicians are internists, pediatricians, family practice and hospitalists. The surgeons cover orthopedics, obstetrics/gynecology, urology, podiatry, oral, eye, general and plastic surgery. The average times of service are:• Primary care, 12.25 years.
• Surgical services, 12.66 years.Information from Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital
Our View: Has the county done enough for mentally ill?
The Union editorial board
January 10, 2006So how far have Nevada County's mental health services come since Jan. 10, 2001?
We are reporting today that county officials feel they have made some progress in improving security and treatment since Scott Thorpe went on his murderous rampage that all agree was brought on by a deteriorating mental condition.
Thorpe was under the care of the county when he lost control and took the lives of three innocent people and wounded or injured three others. The county acknowledged in the courts that it held some responsibility for the deaths when it settled with the families of two of the victims.
It was clear five years ago that changes needed to be made, but has enough been done?
The county has since installed bulletproof glass and metal detectors in some of its buildings, hired security guards and instituted an ID-badge system as a result of the shootings that left an entire community quaking in fear until Thorpe was apprehended later that day.
Bob Erickson, who recently announced his retirement as the department's director, says internal changes made include the sharing of patients' caseloads and having two full-time psychiatrists on staff.
The question, of course, is whether the changes have gone far enough to help mentally ill people get the treatment they need. Is the county sufficiently committed to the treatment of mental illness? What will it do with Proposition 63 money that is targeted for new programs to treat the mentally ill?
Erickson's retirement gives the county an opportunity to hire a mental health-care professional. The person who gets the job should not be a professional administrator. He or she needs to be someone who has worked in the trenches with patients and alongside those who have devoted their lives to working in this field.
The Board of Supervisors also needs to evaluate whether the county is spending enough money for treatment and whether its staff can handle the current caseload.
The events of Jan. 10, 2001, show that we just can't dismiss mental illness as something that only affects other people. Its victims can be as random as those who died or were hurt that day. Many of us have family members or friends who have mental health issues, as well.
It seems that in past years, government has been trying to get out of the mental-health field, which is complicated, challenging and expensive. At the same time our commitment is wavering, our population is swelling, and that should create growing concerns.
Our approach to this problem is a measure of the health of our society. It's important that we take care of those who need help, or others may suffer in ways that we never imagined.
Laura Wilcox, Pearlie Mae Feldman, Michael Markle and the other victims were just living their lives like any of us that day. We'll never know if a more attentive or well-financed Behavioral Health Department would have made a difference.
The county, however, can't slide into any sort of complacency that might be brought on by the passage of time. It must always remain committed to giving the best possible care to those with mental illnesses.
It remains, though, to be seen if that commitment is there and will remain there.
Laura's Law may be funded later this year
By Dave Moller
Senior staff writer, davem@theunion.com
January 10, 2006Amanda and Nick Wilcox are among those who believe their daughter’s killer should have been taken into custody well before any bullets flew at the HEW Building or Lyon’s Restaurant on Jan. 10, 2001.
Scott Alan Thorpe was not taking his prescribed psychiatric medicine, something that his mother said seemed to keep him doing well when he took it.
Considering their daughter’s killer was also believed to have many firearms in his home and was alleged to have stalked a mental health worker, any knowledge that he wasn’t taking his medication should have been enough to bring him in for an evaluation.
Or at least that’s what the Wilcoxes hope will now be the case in the future, especially here in western Nevada County.
Laura’s Law was named after Jan. 10, 2001, shooting victim Laura Wilcox, one of three shot to death by Thorpe, and was strongly backed by her parents and State Assemblywoman Helen Thompson of Davis.
The 2002 law allows counties to treat mental patients who can be proven to be threats to themselves or others or who are refusing treatment after being diagnosed as mentally ill.
Laura’s Law did not include the funding counties needed for involuntary hospitalizations, however. It has only been put to use in Los Angeles County for mental health patients in jail there and is now the subject of a protest lawsuit.
Language in the bill has also been considered vague and contradictory by some, raising questions as to whether the Prop. 63 Mental Health Services Act will be able to direct funding for involuntary treatments.
However, here in Nevada County, as part of the lawsuit settled by the county with the Wilcox family, there was an agreement to embrace Laura’s Law when Prop. 63 funds become available, possibly later this year.
“We are making a hard effort to do that,” said county CEO Rick Haffey. “We will act in good faith.”
To contact senior staff writer Dave Moller, e-mail davem@theunion.com or call 477-4237.
Officials: upgrades extend beyond secure buildings
By Dave Moller
Senior staff writer, davem@theunion.com
January 10, 2006Change in Nevada County is typically pushed by growth, but the Jan. 10, 2001, shootings have brought about alterations to foothill life, some obvious, some subtle.
Mental health officials say awareness was certainly raised about their cause after the mental condition of the man who pulled the trigger on that tragic day and the quality of the county’s response to his needs became public knowledge in court.
County buildings became more secure, and people said that maybe Grass Valley and Nevada City lost their small-town innocence that day.
“One of the different things is the openness about mental illness now,” said longtime county Behavioral Health Department employee Joan Buffington. “Historically, there was an incredible stigma toward the mentally ill, but after the shootings it was an opportunity for education and outreach for mental health issues. It shocked people into looking at the issue at a community level and a personal level.”
Buffington said her recent work of getting input on the spending of expected new funds from the Prop. 63 Mental Health Services Act drew 1,500 responses from meetings and questionnaires.
“There’s an awareness, and education has shifted attitudes,” Buffington said.
Nevada County’s ability to treat the mentally ill also was subject to change.
“We reorganized adult services so that all (case workers) were aware of all clients,” said Bob Erickson, who became director of the Behavioral Health department two months after the shootings. “The shared caseload helps because things may come out (with more people involved). We also have two full-time psychiatrists now.”Erickson said the establishment of the mental health patient drop-in service at Spirit Center in Grass Valley is an example of how positive change has come out of the tragedy. He said funding for mental health programs through Prop. 63 should also get patients additional help in the near future.
Physical changes are also apparent within the department.
A guard now stands at the front door, with heavy, thick protective glass in the reception area where Thorpe killed his first two victims, Laura Wilcox and Pearlie Mae Feldman.
“The obvious thing (throughout the county) is the ID cards everybody wears; we use them to get into the buildings, too,” said Nevada County CEO Rick Haffey. “Our buildings have been hardened so that they’re more secure.”
Several other offices are also more secure, said Tom Coburn, the county’s facilities manager.
Guards, protective windows and metal detectors are now in place at the Child Support Services office in Grass Valley and at Adult and Family Services at the Rood Center in Nevada City. The new county building, named after Laura Wilcox, in the Brunswick Basin is similarly protected for clients of Child Protective Services and Children’s Behavioral Health. There are also security devices at the Nevada County Courthouse that were in place or planned before the shootings, including protective windows at the district attorney’s office and the collections office.
The only public entrance to the courthouse is also protected by a large metal detector and two guards. There is also a protective window and a locked entrance room at the sheriff’s office in the Rood Center, and many security devices were built into the Wayne Brown Correctional Facility.
Sheriff Keith Royal said there have been a number of security mechanisms installed by his office but would not publicly discuss them. The department’s special response team, which responded in the Jan. 10, 2001, shootings, also remains available to be mobilized.
All officers receive annual training in the use of force “and how to physically control people you come in contact with,” Royal said. “You try to give your staff a broad understanding of different types of events, but they’re all scenario driven.”
Nevada County will also have a $320,000 mobile communications and operations center in the near future, funded through the Homeland Security department. Royal said the vehicle will allow members of several local emergency agencies to work together in the case of a major incident.
Lyon’s Restaurant in Grass Valley, the other site of Thorpe’s fatal shots — including those that took the life of 24-year-old assistant manager Michael Markle — has a surveillance system in place that allows employees to always know who is coming and going.
Owner Ajey Giles said the staff has also received instruction from local police agencies on how to spot problem people and how to evacuate the restaurant should it become necessary. But, Giles said, those who work at the restaurant and those who frequent it as customers — including members of the victims’ families — are ready to move on.
“The consensus of the employees and our patrons is that it should be let go,” Giles said of the shootings. “It’s time to let it go and not have the wounds reopened every year.”
To contact senior staff writer Dave Moller, e-mail davem@theunion.com or call 477-4237.
Victims, families deal with the past every day
By Trina Kleist
Staff writer, trinak@theunion.com
January 10, 2006On Jan. 10, 2001, Scott Harlan Thorpe reached a peak in the mental illness that had bedeviled him for years.
In his home on Mooney Flat Road, he selected a 9mm, semi-automatic Ruger and clips from among his cache of weapons. He drove to Nevada City and Grass Valley.
He shot six people, changed the course of seven families and scarred a community.
Five years later, the victims and their families told their stories to The Union.
The pain of what happened has not gone away, though it has become more manageable. They all get on with life, though life has taken a very different turn.
Healing has taken its own pathway for each: sometimes inward and quiet, sometimes public and vocal. Their paths are marked with humor and anger, gratitude and guilt.
Some still seek therapy. Some get relief from the medicine of time. Many battle with depression.
Some take comfort in religious faith. Some wonder where God was when they needed him.
Some stay in touch with each other. There are tensions among them for the choices made along the way.
Yet, none wants any more hurt for anyone, ever.
All struggle greatly in some way.
And, for most, there is some detail, or several, that won’t let them rest: the way something was handled or not handled, an apology that came late, a question never answered, pain not acknowledged.
What could have been.
What never will be.
What could be still.
To contact staff writer Trina Kleist, e-mail trinak@theunion.com or call 477- 4231.Judith Edzards
“I fight. I fight every day.”
Judith Edzards was a clerical supervisor for Nevada County’s Behavioral Health department. She hired Laura Wilcox as a receptionist.
Five years ago today, a winter storm poured down rain. Employees called to say they weren’t coming in.
In the building just down the hill from the main office, case worker Kim Cuisinot was thinking about the chocolate that Edzards kept at her desk. “I wanted that chocolate,” Cuisinot recalled. “I headed to her office, then realized I had forgotten some paperwork and came back.”
Edzards was sitting at a desk behind Wilcox when Scott Thorpe walked in. Their office was behind a pane of ordinary window glass the county had installed after employees had asked for a bullet-proof barrier.
“I was shot in the head, through the lungs, in the esophagus, in the right shoulder,” said Edzards, now 54.
One of the three bullets that hit her smashed through the right front temporal lobe of the brain, the part that deals with personality, memory and the ability to recognize things.
During the first two weeks Edzards lay in the hospital, the Behavioral Health lobby was remodeled. Bullet-proof glass was installed at the reception window.
It was another two weeks before Edzards’ family learned whether her injured brain would ever work again.
In the ensuing years, her husband, Darrel, became her nurse and caretaker. “I had to learn to walk. I had to learn what a kitchen is,” she said.
A year ago, Edzards’ doctors took a part of her stomach and turned it into an esophagus. Now, she said, she can swallow more normally. She yearns to taste a doughnut again.
She has no memories of that day. But when the weather turns stormy, she grows anxious.
Sometimes, Edzards said, she knows what she wants to say, but the words don’t come out right.
“I’m left with bullet fragments in my head that can’t be removed. My scars are not only external, but internal as well,” she said.
As Edzards and her husband talk about their struggles, they look at each other, touch and fall silent. It is the first time she has told her story publicly. It is time, she said. She is moving on.
“I have had many, many, many surgeries and procedures,” Edzards said. “I struggle daily, but with the support and love and encouragement of family and friends and a great medical team, I fight. I fight every day.
There is a bench at the Nevada County Fairgrounds.
After the shooting, people from the community donated money to help the family. Edzards used part of it to buy the bench and a plaque to commemorate all those whose lives were changed by the shooting. “I go there every year and place a rose there,” Edzards said.
She donated the rest of the money to Meals on Wheels.
Edzards said she hoped a revisiting of these events would refocus the community’s attention on the needs of the mentally ill.
“It’s very, very important that this not be forgotten, because this keeps the awareness of mental illness out there,” Edzards said. “It is a disease. It’s not to be overlooked or taken lightly.”
She said she worries that the system designed to help the mentally ill is still, failing those who need it most.
“This was a preventable tragedy,” Edzards said.Pearlie Mae Feldman
“This year’s Christmas wasn’t so horribly hard.” — Marissa Jewell
Pearlie Mae Feldman was the pillar of her family. “She took care of everybody,” her daughter, Robinette Jewell, said.
At 68, Pearlie Mae was helping to raise her granddaughters, Marissa and Amber Jewell, whose law enforcement parents worked crazy hours. She regularly picked up Marissa from school and never missed the girls’ basketball games.
She also was a caretaker for her 81-year-old husband, Emil Feldman, and her 78-year-old brother-in-law, George Feldman.
“She was the most loving, sweet, gentle, wonderful person you’d ever want to meet,” Robinette said.
On Jan. 10, 2001, Pearlie Mae had just left George with a nurse at the Behavioral Health office at Nevada City’s HEW building. Emil, who was recovering from a broken hip, waited in the car outside.
Pearlie Mae came out the door from the hallway into the waiting room and was talking to receptionist Laura Wilcox to make George’s next appointment. Scott Thorpe walked in and started shooting.
Pearlie Mae slumped against the door. When the shooting was over and police brought people out of the building, they had to step over Feldman’s body to get out.
Earlier that morning, Robinette had offered to drive her Uncle George to the HEW building for his appointment.
“It had been raining that morning, and I had told her I would take him, but she said, ‘Oh, no, I’ll do it, I’ll go,’” Robinette recalled. A few hours later, she heard the news of the shooting and feared for her relatives.
“A light bulb went on when I called the school and they said Mom never picked up Marissa,” Jewell said. “Who knows why she had to be there at that time? We say God needed another angel in heaven.”
Robinette recalled how the Sacramento television stations picked up the story. “It was a three-ring circus,” she said. “They still call us every year, bringing it back up.”
Granddaughter Marissa Jewell was 11 years old.
“I was close to her. My parents worked a lot. I was always with her,” Marissa said. “It was a big change.”
Holidays and special occasions still are difficult.
Marissa, now 16, graduated from eighth grade soon after the shooting, without the woman who would have been so proud of her.
“I cried the whole day,” Marissa recalled. “This year’s Christmas wasn’t so horribly hard.”
The county Sheriff’s Office closed ranks around the family — Feldman’s son-in-law, Sheriff’s Deputy Mike Jewell, worked at the county jail at the time. He was transferred out the next day.
County Sheriff Keith Royal “would personally come out here to our house in Chicago Park and make sure I was OK.,” said Robinette, now 39.
The family is managing, she said.
“It hurts all of us in different ways. It’s less than when it happened, but it’s still hard,” Marissa said. “We live in her house. There are pictures everywhere.”
If her grandmother had been there, perhaps Marissa would have done better in high school. It’s hard to know. But now she’s thriving in an independent study program, enjoys science, and is excited about studying anthropology at California State University at Chico.
She’s interested in forensic anthropology, the science of looking at bones and other evidence, and figuring out how they got the way they are.
Daisy Switzer
“It’s an awful, awful thing to see somebody sick whom you know can be well.”
Daisy Switzer had recently finished her master’s degree in psychology. The 34-year-old single mother was clocking up hours at the Nevada County Behavioral Health office as an intern for her therapist degree. Her office was steps down the hall from where Scott Thorpe shot three other people, killing two of them.
“I was close enough to hear the bodies fall,” Switzer recalled. “Mr. Thorpe tried my door. ... I could see the handle turn.”
The door was locked, but Switzer could think only of escaping. She touched the gold heart necklace her 11-year-old daughter, Emily, had given her, said a prayer, hung out the small, second-story window and dropped onto the cement.
Even now, the window doesn’t look so very high. Yet the fall broke bones in 38 places, including Switzer’s feet, legs, pelvis, ribs and spine, and displaced spinal disks. A break in the first vertebra exposed the spinal cord — “a breath away from paraplegia,” Switzer said.
For nearly an hour, Switzer lay there in the rain while police secured the building. “I could hear Daisy screaming,” said case manager Kim Cuisinot, who was in the building nearby.
Switzer spent a year recovering. Some of her bones had to be wired back together. Priests, ministers, shamans and monks came to see her and pray.
Emily’s teachers kept an eye on the child. Another mother, Betsie Hill, noticed the girl had nothing to do.
“She went out of her way to take Emily to the children’s theater group, to get her away from all this stress, to make sure she had a magical world,” Switzer recalled.
“I love that about a small community. There’s so much here that’s generous and fabulous and kind.”
She eventually went back to work at Behavioral Health to finish her clinical hours and earn a doctoral degree. She kept a rope ladder by her desk.
During that time, wooden blocks were nailed into all the window sashes. The blocks prevent the windows from being opened more than a few inches.
A memorial plaque was placed on a table outside the building where the shooting took place. Switzer’s name was left off the list of victims. She walked past it daily for two years.
Yet Switzer lived for her work. She became part of the Mental Health Court team, people who work intensely with the mentally ill who get into legal trouble.
“I had clients that were successful, but I was really hard on people. I was up to speed on every single case. This was the thing I woke up for,” Switzer recalled.
Switzer left the department in September 2004. Not long after, a new plaque with her name replaced the first one on the memorial table out in the parking lot.
She runs into former clients. She lives for those times when the person flies over to her in the grocery store, gives her a hug, tells her things are going well.
Others weigh on her heart.
“People that I had stabilized, I’ve seen them on the street. They’re drooling and they look terrible,” Switzer said. “It’s an awful, awful thing to see somebody sick whom you know can be well.”
Switzer now is 40 and 2 inches shorter. She has gone through five surgeries. Changes in atmospheric pressure make her bones ache. Her X-rays scare doctors.
“That jump wasn’t supposed to hurt! Jackie Chan does it! I’ve seen him!” Switzer said.
Her eyes squeezed to slits and her full, silly laugh rang out in a Victorian office across from the Nevada County courthouse. A reprint hangs above the fireplace: Rosie the Riveter in her strong-arm pose saying, “We can do it!”
Switzer earned her psychologist license this summer. She is starting a practice as a forensic psychologist.
That’s the doctor who tries to figure out whether people can handle getting custody of their children, managing their own affairs, qualifying for Social Security or whether they could become addicted or violent. Whether someone like Scott Thorpe is too mentally ill to stand trial or could be guilty, but insane.
“Great work when you can get it,” quipped Switzer.
After the shooting, “the doctors said she’d never sit up,” recalled her mother, lawyer Jayne Kelly. “On New Year’s Eve, she danced.”
Michael Markle
“Mike is very much alive in all of us.” — Margie Markle
Michael Markle had grown up in Marysville but took a job as assistant manager at Lyon’s Restaurant in Grass Valley.
On Jan. 10, 2001, Scott Thorpe killed two people at the Nevada County Behavioral Health office, then headed to Lyon’s. Thorpe, in his delusions brought on by severe mental illness, thought the food he ate there was being poisoned. He walked to the kitchen and asked to speak to the manager and meant to kill him.
Thorpe, instead, shot Markle, who had been on the job three days. He was 24.
His mother, Margie Markle, is now 61. She recently retired from teaching kindergarten. She keeps busy: she’s in her 14th year on the local school board, she volunteers at the schools, and she has her daughter and two grandchildren nearby. Keeping busy fills the quiet times.
“Too many real silent moments or moments by myself are not good because your mind wanders, and you think, ‘What if?’” Markle said. “There’s no end to it. Nothing brings him back, but you learn to get on. There is a peace.”
Markle is a lifelong Presbyterian and taught at a Catholic school. That background — in which two fundamental truths are sin and the undeserved forgiveness of sin — probably helped her forgive Thorpe, she said.
“Forgiveness is very important. If you forgive, then you don’t become bitter,” Markle said.
That insight flashed through her mind’s blur shortly after the shooting.
“I remember driving down the street, thinking to myself, ‘I’ve got to come to grips with this or I’m going to become bitter. I’m going to have to forgive this man.”
Going to Thorpe’s sanity hearings helped her find peace.
“The more I heard, the more I realized this man was not out to get my son. My son just happened to be there,” Markle said. “This man was fighting his own demons.”
The family remembers Michael Markle on a daily basis, often in small ways. On his birthday, they go to his favorite Chinese restaurant. At the high school reunion, classmates asked for a photo of him to display at the party.
“His best friend named his first-born after him. Mike was an honorary best man at the wedding,” Markle said.
Her nephew, Evan Furr, was 8 years old and loved his fun-loving Uncle Mike. Now 12, Evan regularly reminds the family that it’s time to visit the cemetery and change the flowers.
Michael Markle had a son, Austin, who will be 8 years old on Jan. 12. The boy now lives out of state and Markle has no contact with him, but she guards the hope that she will again. She saves things for him, things that were his father’s.
Furr’s sister also is 8. When Allyson Furr sees a balloon go up into the sky, “She says, ‘The balloons go up to keep Uncle Mike happy,’” Markle said. “Mike would never have wanted us to stay in one place and be bitter. Mike was always the one who said, ‘Come on, stop stressing!’
“Mike is very much alive in all of us.”
Richard Senuty
“He just wanted to put it behind him.” — Sharon Thorpe
Richard Senuty was a cook at Lyon’s Restaurant in Grass Valley.
Later on the day Scott Thorpe opened fire in the restaurant kitchen, Senuty recalled the man who had come in about two months before.
“He was complaining that we were poisoning the food,” Senuty, then 34, told reporters from his bed at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital.
Senuty said at the time that Thorpe first shot assistant manager Michael Markle, then turned to the cooks by the stove and told them, “Get out of here.”
Senuty and another cook scrambled through the foot-high, pass-through window, underneath the warming lights. Senuty ran out the back of the restaurant toward his truck. He reached inside for his cellular telephone to call 911, unaware that Thorpe was following him.
Thorpe shot the cook three times in the arm and abdomen, then turned, reloaded and walked away.
After the trial, Thorpe’s family reached out to console the victims, including Senuty.
“He wound up consoling us,” said Sharon Thorpe, Scott Thorpe’s sister-in-law. “He had a whole lot of intestinal trouble. He had trouble going to the bathroom, yet he was concerned about us.”
“He was such a sweet, sweet man,” recalled Daisy Switzer, a former intern at the Nevada County Behavioral Health department, where Thorpe had received treatment.
Senuty was unmarried, had no children and lived in a cabin on his parent’s property off Lime Kiln Road. He later moved out of the area. Attempts by The Union to locate him were unsuccessful.
“I’m not surprised” that Senuty left the area, Sharon Thorpe said. “He just wanted to put it behind him.
“I wish him well.”
To contact staff writer Trina Kleist, e-mail trinak@theunion.com or call 477- 4231.
Other Voices: Health-care crisis is coming our way
By Dr. Christina Lasich
January 5, 2006The health-care condition in our small town is making headline news. As the condition worsens, expect more news of doctors leaving or charging retainer fees.
Medical care is a business, thus is governed by a basic principle that increases in expenses must be matched by increases in income. In the past five years, doctors have seen overhead increases outpace the reimbursement increases.
For example, commercial rent has increased over 10 percent in the past five years while Medicare reimbursement has only increased 5 percent. Expect more news of people unable to afford health care, as deductibles and co-payments dramatically increase.
In turn, more people are skipping out on those obligations to the doctors. Delinquent accounts are on the rise, again hurting the local doctors. Expect more news of employers unable to stay in business because of rising health-care premiums. Do not forget that many employers are health-care providers who need supportive staff. This bad news all adds up to the small town squeeze.
The health-care crisis will hit small towns first.
We all enjoy the quality of life here in Nevada County. The small-town atmosphere is exactly why my parents moved here in 1975 from Las Vegas. But quality of life comes with a price. Everyone has to make a sacrifice. Employees struggle with lower wages. Employers struggle with limited access to affordable health-care plans. The doctors struggle to be self employed, unlike many colleagues who choose to stay in big cities with employers like Kaiser providing great benefits.
Unfortunately, the small-town squeeze is taking a toll. Have you tried to find a primary care physician lately? Nevada County is losing doctors and new doctors are not moving in to fill the gaps. With limited ability to retain and recruit doctors, Nevada County's health-care community is crumbling.
The Union has cried out for lawmakers to fix the problem. I say that the solution can start in small places, right here in the Sierra Nevada foothills. A national health-care system is not on the horizon; however, the problem can be worked from the other side. Help your local doctors service your community.
Starting in the doctor's office, pay your co-payments and deductibles in a timely fashion. The grocery store does not let you walk out without paying. Doctors expect the same courtesy. When you get a bill, pay it. The Union might want to offer new doctors reduced rates for advertising to help jump-start the practice.
What can the cities of Grass Valley and Nevada City do? All business owners pay a special fire tax yearly with the business license. A special medical tax could help to subsidize doctors. Subsidizing small-town doctors would not only help to retain doctors but also recruit doctors. If the business burden was diminished, then doctors could pass that savings to the consumer, the patient.
For example, a patient may not be able to afford a large deductible. A subsidized doctor could waive a portion of that deductible. A subsidized doctor could also see MediCal patients without worrying about the very low reimbursement rate. Ultimately, a subsidized doctor could afford to spend more time with you. Subsidies work for farmers; subsidies could work for doctors. Solutions do exist in small places. Unfortunately, none of the solutions are pain-free.
Nevada County needs to start thinking about creative ways to head off the health-care crisis. If we do not, the headlines will continue to tell a sad tale. Businesses, doctors, and the workforce will continue to leave in search of better conditions. Some of us will stay, but for how long and at what cost?
Yes, the trend is alarming and something needs to be done. But only fools idly wait for "big brother" to fix the problem. We need to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. As Jesse Jackson once said, "You may not be responsible for being down, but you are responsible for getting back up."
Dr. Christina Lasich lives in Grass Valley.
County Behavioral Health chief to leave
By Dave Moller
Senior staff writer, davem@theunion.com
January 5, 2006It's been five rough years for Bob Erickson at the helm of the Nevada County Behavioral Health Department and now, he says, it's time to go.
Erickson, 63, will be on one of two panels that meets Thursday to interview eight candidates for his department director job. Erickson said he hopes a candidate will be selected soon so that he can start grooming his successor.
"I'll do some consulting. I've got grandkids, and I want to have some fun," Erickson said of his future plans.
Erickson is not leaving under a dark cloud, but his tenure started under one. When Erickson took over in March of 2001, the department was reeling from the infamous Jan. 10 shootings that occurred inside its Nevada City offices less than two months prior. Left dead were seasonal employee Laura Wilcox and caregiver Pearlie Mae Feldman. Many others were injured, physically and emotionally.
"That first year was really challenging," Erickson said. "We lost 10 to 15 people who just never came back, who were physically or emotionally traumatized.
"Beyond that, quite a few people inside the (HEW) building were traumatized but kept working. We helped them work through that."
Resurrecting the department from that state has been a daunting but professionally fulfilling task, Erickson said.
Lael Walz said Erickson realigned the department to make communication key. Walz is the president of the Nevada County chapter of NAMI, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.
"He changed the organizational structure to where the doctors talked to staff," Walz said. "He started the team approach.
"He started shifting the behavior at Behavioral Health. Bob made it clear that staff was to listen to family members."
But tight finances made the entire journey rough.
"It's been rocky," Erickson said. "There's never been enough money to do the job that needs to be done."
"Bob has had the impossible challenge of trying to provide services with no money," said Joan Buffington, who worked at Behavioral Health for years and is winding up a stint with a county mental health spending task force. "He has done a heroic job with any creativity he could find to maintain core programs. The happiest I ever saw him was one year ago when he got the CEO (Rick Haffey) to transfer him money to keep going."
Erickson said he only worked in one California county that had enough mental health funding, and that was because of a federal grant that eventually dried up. Since then, budget cuts and lower state incomes have made his tasks hard to pull off.
"I've been involved in creating programs more than building programs," Erickson said.
However, the approach toward mental health has evolved in a more positive way during Erickson's 34 years in the field.
"We were more institutional, but now we're focused on keeping people in the community," Erickson said. "That's a cost and a philosophical change, and I think it's been good for the patients."
That philosophy is embodied in Grass Valley's Spirit Center, where mental health patients help each other learn how to cope and live with their diseases. Erickson did not start the concept, but he said he is proud of encouraging the center to become independent from the county as a nonprofit.pirit Center board member and counselor Dolores Jordan wished Erickson would not leave.
"He's been totally honest with the consumers and agencies," Jordan said. "He treats people with respect and doesn't have any hidden agendas."
Although funding remains a pain, Erickson said there is hope for the future with the passage of Prop. 63, The Mental Health Services Act.
How it will work is uncertain though, Erickson said, because the law calls for funding new programs and not those in existence. The battle to keep core funding for programs remains, Erickson said, and will challenge the new director when the economy is down again.
"It's been an interesting five years," Erickson said. "But I'm aging, and it's time to move on."
To contact senior staff writer Dave Moller, e-mail davem@theunion.com or call 477-4237.