Blood shortage delays surgeries in Houston

Blood shortage delayssurgeries in Houston
HOUSTON -- Hospitals in and around the nation's fourth-largest city are curtailing noncritical surgeries and procedures because a major regional blood supplier has a severe shortage.
The Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center supplies blood and blood components to more than 180 health care institutions in Houston and 21 surrounding counties.
There is enough blood to serve emergency needs at those institutions, but donations must improve next week for supplies to stabilize, said Bill Teague, the center's director.
"And we have no reserves, so if we had a major trauma somewhere, we'd really be in trouble," Teague said.
Two of the areas major hospitals, Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston and University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, postponed noncritical and elective surgeries until the shortage is addressed.
Both hospitals provide the highest level of trauma care and are among the state's busiest.
Surgeons at some hospitals are making case-by-case decisions based on blood availability.
Submarine crewmenfound at their stations
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Crew remains in the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley show sailors at their stations, indicating whatever sank the sub happened quickly, an official said Friday.
The Hunley, the first submarine to sink an enemy warship, sank Feb. 17, 1864, after ramming an explosive charge into the Union blockade ship Housatonic.
Researchers have uncovered remains from six of the nine crewmen. The bones were near the offset handles on the propeller crank.
"It starts to really add to the mystery of her final moments because it doesn't look like there was any scramble," said state Sen. Glenn McConnell, chairman of the South Carolina Hunley Commission.
The submarine was raised last summer and brought to a conservation laboratory where the clay-like sediment, crew remains and artifacts are being excavated.
Historians have suggested the Hunley took on water after the explosion either shot out or blew out a viewport in the front conning tower.
"The telling time for really learning whether that front eyepiece is the culprit will be when we excavate underneath it and if we encounter the metal and the glass," McConnell said.
Shoplifting suspect diesin struggle with guards
DETROIT -- A woman suspected of shoplifting died in a struggle with security guards outside a drug store Friday in the third such death in the Detroit area in less than a year.
The woman was detained by guards inside the Rite Aid store after she tried to leave with $200 worth of merchandise, said Officer Alecia Thomas, a police spokeswoman.
"The security guard approached her, handcuffed her, then she broke away from the handcuffs and a struggle ensued. Then she died," Thomas said.
The woman's name was not released.
An autopsy was scheduled to determine the cause of death. Police said the case was not being treated as homicide.
Sarah Datz, a spokeswoman for Camp Hill, Pa.-based Rite Aid Corp., said she did not know whether the guards were Rite Aid employees or contractors.
"We are cooperating fully with the police investigation as well as doing our own internal investigation," Datz said.
Tower to reopen
ROME -- Visitors will be allowed back into Pisa's Leaning Tower beginning in November, nearly 12 years after the last tourist made the dizzying climb, officials said Friday.
Tourists will be able to ascend the 183-foot-high tower for $12 each, officials said at a news conference led by Italy's public works minister.
The tower was closed in 1990 for a restoration project aimed at reducing its leaning.
Officials said the reconstruction reduced the tower's tilt by 16 inches. When the work began, the tower leaned 13 feet on its south side. Now its tilt is roughly where it was 300 years ago, officials said.
They said the decrease in lean isn't enough for the naked eye to detect but sufficient to stabilize the monument.
The tower started leaning when the soil beneath it started shifting shortly after work to construct it began in 1173.
Tourists, accompanied by a guide and security personnel, will be allowed to ascend to the top in groups of 30, said Pierfrancesco Pacini, head of the office which takes care of the monument.
Associated Press