OCR Text |
Show CN eo The Salt Lake Tribune UTAH/THE WEST C7 Thursday, December18, 2003 Future uncertain for Mexican boy whofell eneath train Both legs amputated: The 14-year-old was headed to Tucsonto find workin the U.S.to support his sick mother By MicHAEL Makizco Arima Daily Star ’ TUCSON, Ariz. A slowmoving train near Green Valley crushed the legs of Efren Martinez Depaz, as well as his trapping oneleg ashe tried to get away. Thetrain slowly ran over his legs, then kept moving. Soon after, some other illegal crossers Cameacross the unconscious boy. At about 1:30 a.m., two of them flagged down a car that turned out to bedriven by a U.S. Border Patrol agent heading home from work, said agency spokesman Rob Daniels. The two mentold the agent they left other border crossers with the boy. The agent radioed for an am bulance, Daniels said, then took dreamsof working in the United off with the men tofind the boy States to help his parents in lying on theside of thetracks. He wastaken by helicopter to University Medical Center. Hospital officials expect him to be taken to Shriner’s Hospital in Mexico City, said spokeswoman Katie Riley. Two monthsago, his mother’s problemsescalated to the point where she became a danger to herself. Efren told his father he wanted to come to the United States to earn money for her Chiapas. Now, the 14-year-old boy lies in a bed at University Medical Center, his legs amputated just below the groin, his face set as grim as his future. Efren was traveling to Tuc- son, where his uncles live and where he heard he could work and save the moneyhe needs to get his mother treatmentfor serious mental problems. He had traveled mainly by bus from Tonala, in the Mexican state of Chiapas, walked for miles to get around border security in Nogales, then entered Arizona illegally. Seeing a chance to speed his journey, he sneaked aboard a Union Pacific train in Rio Rico. It was a little after midnight Nov. 16 when Efren, less than 30 miles from his destination and too cold to stay exposed any longer, climbed off near Green Valley as the train stopped. “T tried to cross the tracks in front of it, but it started moving ~ again,”he said. a * The train pushed him over, care. “T told him I didn’t want him to go,” said his father, Ariosto Martinez Cruz, reached by tele phonein Chiapas. “But it was a grave situation. Crus There is no money here,” Cruz said. “I didn’t want him toleave. But he decided he wanted to leave. I never thought this would get to this point.” Efren gathered a few belongings, bought a bus ticket with money his family scraped together andleft for Tucson. Efren’s uncle, Pedro Vasquez Salazar, works as a day laborer here after crossingillegally into the United States 16 monthsago. Efren Martinez Depaz, 14, of Chiapas, Mexico, is recovering in a Tucson,Ariz., hospital after having his legs amputated after a train accident. “Wesurvived by fishing, but there is no longer any work in the area,” Salazar said. Salazar and another uncle had hoped the Mexican government would help the injured Efren stay in Arizona. But Carlos Flores Vizcarra, the Mexican consul in Tucson, said Efren’s parents preferred that the boy return to Chiapas. Vizcarracalled the accident a tragedy, but still an accident, unlikely to bring Efren any kind of amnesty. “He’s a young man, he suffered a great loss, but hopefully he will get over it and he will havealife,” Vizcarra said. More than 500 people are Activists put teeth in message The Salt Lake Tribune StS ‘ “All I Wednesday. Fundingsince the cuts. And the moving trains, he said: “You fall under it, it will kill you as fast at 1 mile an hour as it will at 70.” Efren survived, to face a life dependent on others for an act he intended to help someone were Leon Ritchie, a prominent Heber City businessman who delivered The Salt Lake Tribune continuously for 69 years to his neighbors in Wasatch County, died Wednesdayfollowing a bout of cancer. He was89. Ritchie who retired from de livering The Tribunelast April, had many businesses duringhis life, including a gas station, feed mill, chicken hatchery, motels and a hotel, car, tractor and snowmobile dealerships, a campground, a Sears catalog Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” echoed in the rotunda of the state Capitol on “group isn’t discouraged, even trespassers Most fatalities involve slow a few years when newspaper was our only The Salt Lake Tribune But these were no Christmas carollers. These were Medicaid clients trying to prove a point: Hundreds, maybe thousands of poor adults are loosing their teeth because thestate’s budget doesn’t allow funding for dental services within the program. The Disabled Rights Action Committee (DRAC) is asking lawmakers to find $3.1 million to restore dental and vision services in Medicaid. The two were eliminated Border Patrol cooperate along the border to keep trains free of constants in the family. “There By GLEN WARCHOL By JACOB SANTINI A children’s song killed by trains nationwide each year, said Union Pacific Railroad spokesman John Bromley. In Tucson, the Border Patrol counted one death this year and one in 2002, but Bromleysaid the number is higher throughout the Southwest because of illegal bor dercrossing Railroad police and the Leon Ritchie, 89, Trib institution, dies ‘use song to “Medicaid: A committee -for disabled rights wants - dental coverage restored Ric anps/ The Associated Press store and real estate. “[ was a busy man,” Ritchie told The Tribune in an interview in April. But through it all, Ritchie and his family hung on to The Tri bune distributorship. Ritchie signed a contract in 1935 to dis tribute the newspaper in the HeberValley Beginning when he was 21, Ritchie first delivered the paper in a used Chevrolet that he had hitchhiked to Salt Lake City with $325 in his pocket to buy. He had Srepuen Zusy/TheSalt Lake Trilnine Ken Wulie, left, and Dan Smith, wearing a pig snout to represent the “greed of the pharmaceutical industry,” are among activists who were at the Capitol on Wednesday drawing attention to Medicaid cuts. after Gov. Olene Walker’s budget recommendationsdidn’t include money to restore the programs. “As long as I’ve got friends feeling their teeth slowly rotting away ... we're going to be up here making noise,” said Jerry Costley, the executive director of DRAC. Utah’s Medicaid program used more than $1.1 billion in state and federal funds in the 2003fiscal year and covers more than 270,000 Utahns. Walker’s recommendations call for an additional $24 million in state funds, an amount that will cover inflation associated with drug costs and growth in the numberofclients. The additional money will bring in another $80 million in federal funds. “As long as I'vegot Jriendsfeeling theirteeth slowly rotting away .. . the means of eating,” said his son Jim Ritchie very morning, Leon got up at 4 a.m. to deliver the paper. He finished about 9 am.,, then started his other jobs “| was so tired by evening that | ached,” Leon said. “| would pick up hitchhikers on the way back to Heber to keep me awake.” In blizzards, delivery took longer, but “there was never a day that people didn't get their Tribune eventually,” said Elda, his wife of 66 years Services for Ritchie are scheduled for 11 a.m. Mondayin the Heber LDS First Ward, 500 N 300 Kast, Heber City. A viewing will be Sunday, 6-8 p.m. at the Olpin-Hoopes mortuary, 300 N Main, Heber City glenwarcholasitrib.com OBITUARIES made the money weeding beets we're going to be uphere.” for $1.28 a day, he remembered. “| kept the car moneyin a paper bag under my pillow.’ JERRY COSTLEY, at the Capito! For three generations, The Tribune income was one of the Hildagard Marie Tripp Bitney "1913 ~2003" ommission OKs proposal for revamping Pioneer Park The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake City’s historical stewards havefinally settled on a design to fix beleaguered but Olympic-sizedicerink (84 feet by 200 feet) will be a hardsell, along with a contraption that would shoot a wall of water into the air and create a screen for viewing images. They are ideas pushed by Anderson’sstaff at the end of promising Pioneer Park. Now the city just needs money to add gardens, a dog park, cafe, stage, historical elements, boccie ball and volleyball the LDS Church, Downtown A\l- courts and perhapsan ice sheet. liance It’s all with the aim of getting more people to use the urban park and erase its image as a seedy spot fit to visit only on Saturdays during the popular Farmers Market. The Historic Landmarks homeless-service providers are skeptical that there is a market or need for such features, whichcould be phased in. Gary Porter, executive secre- a lengthy process about howto redevelop Pioneer Park. The park stakeholders and including surrounding tary to the LDS Church's presid ing bishop and a memberof the Gommission approved Mayor Downtown Alliance board, said Rocky Anderson’s proposal Wednesday night. Panel members and others Council members, who mustde- the church wants to preserve and display the history of Pioneer Park, 300 S. 300 West.It is named for Mormon pioneers whoestablished a fort on thesite after arriving in the valley in 1847. The new park would tell the history of the pioneers as well as subsequent immigrants. “You don’t get any added cide whether to fund it. Preliminary estimates put the price tag two or three [the ice sheet and haverejected plans for a baseball stadium, aquarium and amphitheater in the past because none of them kept the park as open space. Nowthe plan goes before City at $6 million to $7 million. If Wednesday's discussion is the indication, any - benefit historically with phase waterwall],” Porter said, though he allowed they might be nice features. Bob Farrington, director of the Downtown Alliance, said he wonders howthe ice sheet would compete with the much smaller one at Gallivan Center, 200 S. Main St. Otherwise, he and others sup port the rest of the design. “Great cities have great parks,” Farrington said. “This plan has the potential of turning this asset into a great park.” Part of the renovation will redo past redevelopment. The plan calls for relocating the play groundand removing restrooms, tennis courts and some walk ways. Most of those elements were built in 1996. New re strooms will be built, along with volleyball and boccieball courts. The basketball courts will be re located. The proposeddog park is seen as a crime-fighter in other cities because it brings more people. While crime has dropped at the park, drug dealers still plague the space. They prey on the homeless population that fills the park during theday. The city hopes that a re vamped park will spur more businesses and residents to move into the area. That is already 4 Park redevelopment: phase one In subsequent phases, the city could add an Olympic-sized skating rink and a screen for water shows 300 South (+ K; 680 90:& @ Pioneer 9 a0. Park oof Stage Sem December 16, 2003of natural causes She ae a ®> 00: D t a 1 VolleybalP ie NORTH a [Dog pan? O gs YY reunion aSKE Wd! The Salt Lake Tribune happening with new condos businesses and a hotel sprouting nearby hmayasltrib.com Utah to John 13, 1913 in Gustave and Martha Marie Zschaber Koegler Hiidagard married Horold Leslie Tripp who preceded her in death. She married Lee E. Bitney Hildagord was an active member of the LDS Church, serving as a Sunday School Teacher, Primary Teacher and Relief Society y Visiting} Teacher. She loved her religion and tried to live it each and every day. She also was c member of the Good Sams Club and loved totravel Hildagard has forever chonged our lives and brought us much joy and happiness. We look forward to our with Hildagard in Heaven as a forever family Survivors: husband, Lee Bitney, Salt Lake City; daughter, Lori Fox, Hol laday; foster son, Frank Miller, Salt Lake City; grandchildren, Michael Wenerstrom, David Wenerstrom, Ste ven Tripp; seven grandchildren. Pre ceded Source: Deagn Workshop was born March Millcreek, 2O an ar? {History walk Hildagard Marie Tripp Bitney, 90, our loving wife, mother, grandmother, and great grandmother, passed away # 300 West By HEATHER MAy in death by her parents; one sister and four brother Funeral services will be held Satur day, December 20, 2003, at 11:00 a.m. in the Grant 7th Ward 1300 East 3487 South. Friends may call at Goff Mortuary 8090So. State Frida 6-8 p.m. or Saturday at the churd from 9:45-10:45 a.m. Interment, Ely sian Burial Gardens See NEXT PAGE |