PAGE 8
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23, 2014
WILD ART
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
GEORGE MULLINIX/KANSAN
A worker sprays down telephone poles and other flammable materials while another sets fire to part of the fields that make up the KU Field Station in Northwest Lawrence. The fields are burned annually to promote healthy soils.
DRUGS FROM PAGE 1
The problem with prescription drugs is prevalent in the Lawrence area as well. According to usdrugtrends.com, there were 311 prescription drug-related admissions to Lawrence emergency rooms last year, involving drugs like OxyContin, Percoct, Vicodin, Xanax and Lortab.
40 percent higher usage rate of painkillers than any other age group from previous generations.
The prescription drug, Adderall, is particularly troublesome for college students. Nationally, seven percent of college students are using the prescription drug Adderall illegally, and students ages 18 to 22 are twice as likely as non-students to use the drug for non-medical purposes, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
Sgt. Trent McKinley of the Lawrence Police Department, said that abuse of prescription drugs in the Lawrence area is a growing problem the department has had to deal with recently. In March, a man was arrested in relation to a string of prescription drug thefts at Dillon's pharmacies. McKinley said things like drug take-back days help them control the problem.
"We certainly see pain medications being sold in the street and in the schools," McKinley said. "Anything that we can do to keep those out of an abusers hands or someone who's going to turn around and sell them is significant, and we have seen more of that in the past few years."
In addition to keeping drugs out of unauthorized hands, McKinley said the take-back day helps keep the city safe in other ways as well.
"For us locally, certainly this benefits us, because it helps to divert toxic chemicals from entering our waste water system," he said. "When people flush these things down the toilet, that of course gets into our wastewater system, which we purify and eventually becomes part of the drinking system down the line."
There will be two collection sites available for disposal on Saturday, one at the shortterm parking lot of the Douglas County Law Enforcement Center at 11 E. 11th St., and the other at the Lawrence Police Department Training Center at 4829 Bob Billings Parkway. Illegal drugs, inhalers, injectables and needles will not be accepted, and participants are advised to remove any identifying information from prescription labels.
Edited by Jamie Koziol
CAPS FROM PAGE 1
school year, about 40 percent of CAPS clients were graduate or professional students and 33 percent were seniors.
There are a number of factors which affect this process," Maestas said. "Primarily, as the semester proceeds, stress — academic, social, financial, etc. — increases. Stress exacerbates any underlying problems [students] may have."
Maestas said he urges students to be sure to inform CAPS if their situation is urgent. Those will be addressed "promptly," he said.
"Urgent or emergent doesn't only mean suicidal," Maestas said. "If students need to speak with one of us sooner than the next available initial assessment, we encourage them to let us know. We can then assess the situation and respond to the need."
Any students experiencing an emergency should call 911, he said.
For non-emergencies, the weeks-long wait for an appointment is not unusual. Grace Jakubowski, a sophomore from Chicago, said she was told early in the school year she would have to wait 27 days for an appointment with a professional therapist, so she agreed to see a CAPS intern instead.
"There was no intervention or clinical work for my anxiety," Jakubowski said. "It was more just talking about how I felt about it."
Jakubowski said she wound up seeking professional help from the local Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center.
The University is not alone in trying to balance the demand for services with its staffing levels. According to the 2013 National Survey of College Counseling Center Directors, 95 percent of college campus counseling centers reported an increase in students' demand for services last year. The survey also found that 88 percent of campus mental health center directors said the increase "posed staffing problems for them."
The International Association of Counseling Services recommends one health professional for every 1,000 to
1,500 students. The University currently averages about one professional for every 2,000 students.
Botts and Maestas said the counseling center added two or three staff members in recent years, with funding from Student Senate, but would need $330,000 more in base salaries each year to be able to add six professionals for a total of the recommended 18.
"We are constantly reviewing our procedures in order to be more efficient and available while maintaining consistency with standards of professional practice," Maestas said.
Students who face a long wait at CAPS and want help to mentally prepare for the end of the year or address other problems can contact any of the following local services (which CAPS works with regularly): The Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center, DC-CCA Headquarters, GaDuGi SafeCenter, KU Psychological Clinic and Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
Edited by Kate Shelton
STATE
Kansas farmer gets kidney transplant from hunter
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Rob Robinson chats with Gil Alexander at a prairie chicken display at the Statehouse in Topeka. The outdoorsmen have developed a friendship and business partnership after Robinson donated a kidney to Alexander in 2012.
That's when Robinson learned that Alexander was ill and needed a kidney transplant to prolong his life. Robinson returned to Mississippi and got tested and found out he was a match, in fact closer than if they were brothers.
TOPEKA, Kan. Two hunters brought together by a love of the outdoors formed a friendship leading one to donate a kidney to the other, a friendship that has led to a foundation aimed at sharing the outdoors with others.
Robinson, a soft-spoken man of few words, jokes that giving the kidney wasn't required for getting permission to hunt, but felt like the right thing to do.
Rob Robinson, a 45-year-old firefighter from Starkville, Miss., happened to knock on Gil Alexander's door in 2008 in northwest Kansas seeking permission to hunt pheasant. Robinson returned three years later, this time to hunt turkey on Alexander's property.
"I didn't remember his name, but I knew the voice and Mississippi," Alexander said Tuesday of their second meeting.
"He texted me and said 'I'm a match,' Alexander said. "I put down the phone and started to cry."
The two went to a Kansas City Chiefs football game together then went to the hospital the next day for the surgery on Nov. 26, 2012. In the process, Alexander also
"I never thought I would be an organ donor, let alone a living one," he said.
learned he had early stages of pancreatic cancer, which doctors were able to remove.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
"I just feel like the most blessed person on the planet," said Alexander, 56.
Alexander, a fourth-generation Kansas farmer, said his great-grandfather was from Mississippi and was a Buffalo Soldier in the Army. He's traveled to the South to see his friend and promote their foundation.
"I never thought I would be an organ donor, let alone a living one."
Robinson, who holds the record for one of the largest turkeys ever shot, said he always wanted to start a hunting business and the connection with Alexander is helping him fulfill that dream. The two are hoping to create a "five-star resort" where people can come experience hunting and the outdoors by overcoming any physical or financial obstacles.
ROB ROBINSON kidney donor
The transplant gave Alexander new life, allowing him to stop dialysis and to continue farming his nearly 3,000 acres north of Nicodemus. The men decided to build on their friendship and start Forever Outdoors, an organization that brings wounded veterans, children and others to northwest Kansas to experience hunting and nature.
"I also want to turn my house in Mississippi into a lodge." Robinson said.
Alexander and Robinson
Hawaiian Airlines Flight 45 arrives from San Jose, Calif., in Kahului, Hawaii, on Monday, April 21. A 15-year-old boy on Sunday climbed into a plane's wheel well, then flew for five hours to Hawaii on a misadventure that forced authorities to take a look at the security system that protects the nation's airline fleet
met with Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and other state wildlife officials Tuesday to talk about their organization and to raise awareness of the need for organ donors.
HONOLULU — A 15-year-old stowaway who survived a flight over the Pacific in a jet's wheel well spent seven hours undetected in what is supposed to be a highly secure area of San Jose International Airport before the flight departed, according to an official briefed on the investigation.
NATIONAL
Jet stowaway undetected for hours before departure
The law enforcement official told The Associated Press on Tuesday that video surveillance shows the boy on the airfield a little after 1 a.m. Sunday, walking on the tarmac and near airplanes in fenced and guarded areas. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about the case and spoke on condition of anonymity.
While it's not clear how the teen spent all that time, FBI spokesman Tom Simon in Honolulu said the teen was sleeping in the plane before the 8 a.m. PDT takeoff. He "literally just slept on the plane overnight," Simon said.
High altitude and low temperatures knocked him out during the 5 1/2-hour flight; he didn't regain consciousness until an hour after the plane landed in Hawaii, Simon said. Medical experts have said the boy may have survived the subzero temperatures and thin air of the plane's 38,000-foot cruising altitude because his body went into a state akin to hibernation.
When the landing gear of a Boeing 767 retracts, there is little room to maneuver in the wheel well. The boy would have had to curl up in the fetal position or crouch down the entire time. And there is no way to get into the main cabin or luggage compartment without removing large pieces of the aircraft's interior, said Jon Day, general manager of Southern California Aviation, a maintenance yard in Victorville, Calif., that handles commercial jets.
The boy was resting Tuesday at a Honolulu hospital. Hawaii's Department of Human Services said
The incident "raises serious concerns affecting passenger safety" said U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., who is asking the Government Accountability Office to assess airport perimeter safety nationwide.
The boy has not been charged with a crime, but much about him
— including his identity and his motivation — remained a public mystery.
The FAA says about one-quarter of the 105 stowaways who have sneaked aboard flights worldwide since 1947 have survived. Some wheel-well stowaways survived deadly cold and a lack of oxygen because their breathing, heart rate and brain activity slow down.
child welfare officials were arranging his safe return to Northern California.
Meanwhile, investigators were struggling to find out how the San Jose airport's post-9/11 security could have been so easily breached.
- Associated Press
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