Section B·Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, January 13, 1998
Judd Blake, St. John sophomore, catches a ball thrown by his sister in the physical therapy room at St. Joseph Health Center. Blake has been a patient at the hospital since he broke both legs in a Nov. 26 collision. Photo by Lisa Stevens John/KANSAN
Sophomore recuperates from near-fatal collision
Spirits soar high strong for Blake
By Lisa Stevens John Kanson staff writer
As students at the University of Kansas begin a new semester, one student wishes he could join them.
Judd Blake, St. John sophomore, was injured in a head-on vehicle collision Nov. 26. Once an active student in Lawrence, Blake now spends his time recuperating in an apartment at St. Joseph Health Center in Kansas City, Kan.
Metallic balloons hover above a desk covered with flower arrangements, the antiseptic smell of a hospital fills the air and a football game blares from a television. Blake enters the room in a wheelchair and reaches for crutches that lean against the wall.
The accident shattered Blake's right knee and crushed the heel of his right foot. He suffered compound fractures of the tibia and fibula in his left leg, a broken left femur, six fractured ribs, a punctured lung, a ruptured spleen, cerebral hemorrhages and facial injuries.
The driver and passenger in the other truck suffered only minor
Although Blake is looking forward to returning to the University, he will have to sit out the spring semester while he undergoes rehabilitation.
He is scheduled to leave the hospital Thursday and will travel to Ulysses, where he will live with his father and continue physical therapy.
injuries.
"I'd rather come back to Lawrence, but I've got to get better first," he said. "You can't skip steps."
Blake can't recall the accident that nearly took his life. He remembers packing his clothes that morning, going to the Student Union to pick up his paycheck for his job at Wescoe Terrace and heading east out of Lawrence to visit relatives in Pittsburg.
Approximately 45 minutes later, Blake's Toyota truck crossed the center line on a highway in Miami County and collided with an oncoming truck. Blake said.
It took one hour and 45 minutes to remove the roof of the cab and lift Blake from the truck. He was flown by helicopter to St. Joseph Health Center and in surgery for over ten hours.
Blake's sister, Erica Westoff, Pittsburg, said rescue workers didn't think Blake was alive.
"But then they heard him gurgling." she said.
Blake spent 11 days in the intensive
"There are times I get bummed out,but you can't let it get you down. You've got to work hard to get better."
Judd Blake
St. John sophomore
care unit. Then the grueling work of physical therapy began.
"The first time they hed me stand up, I wanted to say," Lay me back down again. "It hurt so bad, and I was so weak." he said.
Each time, therapy took him to his limit, he said.
"They would have me work until I would start shaking all over, and then they'd let me rest," Blake said.
He said his strength was coming back.
"I've been in rehab for a month," he said. "In the last week, I've noticed a lot of improvements. I'm able to do a lot more things independently."
Courage and determination seemed to run through Blake's comments.
"There are times I get bummed out, but you can't let it get you down. You've got to work hard to get better," he said.
Paleontologist cries fowl play in bird-origin debate
Fossils may prove feathered friends evolved elsewhere
By Susie Gura
Kansan staff writer
searching for fish fossils in China.
In 1990, Zhonghe Zhou, graduate research assistant at the University of Kansas' Natural History Museum, discovered the first fossil of the prehistoric bird cathayornis while
the discoveries of Zhou's bird fossil and a prehistoric dinosaur found by Larry Martin, senior curator of the museum, fueled a debate among scientists whether all modern birds descended from the same ancestors and whether birds were related to dinosaurs.
The cathayornis fossil showed that it was related to archaeopteryx, an older bird. Other studies done by Zhou and Martin showed that cathayornis was older than the
dinosauras that were thought to have looked like birds.
Martin argued that birds did not descend from dinosaurs.
"The origin of birds split into two lines, one that is extinct and the other that gave rise to modern birds," Martin said.
Last spring, the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia sent Martin and three other researchers to China to explore fossil beds.
In China, Martin found fossils of birds and dinosaurs in the same deposits. Among those fossils found by Martin was the
130 million-year-old dinosaur,
sinasuratteryx.
The dinosaur was found below birds' fossils. Scientists previously believed sinosauratteryx had a crest of primitive feathers, but Martin said that he now thought they were not actually feathers.
After the discovery Martin questioned whether feathered dinosaurs existed and whether birds descended from dinosaurs.
"We structured the model from sketches, built a body and then filled it in with clay," Martin said.
A model of sinosauratteryx will be on display next week in the Natural History Museum.
"It is rare to find that many specimens of a bird, especially one that is extinct." Zhou said.
Of the 30 Cathayornis specimens that exist, Zhou has found 15.
A model of cathayornis already is displayed in the museum.
Several of the fossils are located in the University's Natural History Museum, but the original specimen is in Beijing.
Iraq ready to block inspection
The Associated Press
In New York, U.N. chief weapons inspector Richard Butler said the monitoring teams — including the one led by ex-Marine Capt. Scott Ritter — would continue as planned.
BAGHAD, Iraq (AP) — Iraq will block U.N. weapons inspections led by an American Gulf War veteran it says is a spy, the government vowed Monday, setting the stage for a new confrontation with the United Nations.
Iraq has criticized Ritter, claiming he is an intelligence agent for the United States. Ritter denies the charge.
The agency's statement came after Ritter and a team of U.N. inspectors reportedly visited a hospital and a prison in Baghdad. It said the ban on Ritter would begin today.
An Iraqi government spokesman said the presence of too many Americans on the teams was prolonging the inspections program and delaying the lifting of U.N. sanctions on Iraq, the official Iraqi News Agency reported.
Other U.N. inspection teams will be allowed to continue their work, said Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon.
The inspectors are trying to verify that Iraq has destroyed its weapons of mass destruction, a condition that must be met before the United Nations will lift trade sanctions imposed after the country's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
In Washington, President Clinton said the United States has had nothing whatsoever to do with choosing members of the U.N. teams.
"Certainly Saddam Hussein shouldn't be able to pick and choose who does this work," Clinton said. "That's for the United Nations to decide."
He said he expects the U.N. Security Council to take strong action if the inspectors are denied their right to do their job.
The American ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson, said the Iraqi move would be discussed at a Security Council meeting Thursday.
"Iraq is up to its old tricks," Richardson said. "We feel the Security Council should make a strong response."
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