Boy Survives Wilderness Ordeal, Cites Book Series as Inspiration

May 23, 2012 at 8:45 am , by Holly Lebowitz Rossi

Thirteen-year-old William Hickman is “lucky to be alive” after a harrowing incident in which he was stranded by a waterfall in Washington state.  Hickman cites the “Pendragon” series of fantasy books as having taught him the skills he needed to scramble to safety, as MSNBC.com reports:

Hickman was hiking Saturday with his father, 9-year-old brother and friends above Wallace Middle Falls, near the town of Gold Bar about 45 miles northeast of Seattle. He wanted to cool off.

“I wanted to go in … just to wade a little bit,” Hickman said at a Monday news conference, where he was joined by the people who staged a dramatic, middle-of the night operation.

But he slipped and the whitewater swept him over a 10-foot drop into a deep pool above the waterfall.

In the water, the teen quickly thought of advice from a fantasy-novel character Bobby Pendragon of the Pendragon Adventure books by D.J. MacHale: “Go feet first, stay to the sides and kick off the rocks,” the Seattle Times reported.

He managed to scramble onto a narrow rock shelf just before the main falls.

He stayed there, cold and wet, for the next eight and a half hours, Hickman and rescuers said. His father shouted encouragement, telling him he was going to be OK. Rescue crews later tossed him blankets, energy bars and fruit snacks.

Image: Waterfall, via Shutterstock.

Study: Health Care Costs for Kids on the Rise

May 23, 2012 at 8:14 am , by Holly Lebowitz Rossi

Out-of-pocket expenses for kids’ health care are rising, and health care spending is growing fastest among Americans under age 18, a new study by the Health Care Cost Institute has found.  CNN.com reports:

The institute is an independent nonprofit research organization that partnered with four major insurance companies (Aetna, Kaiser, United and Humana) to analyze 3 billion insurance claims of people with group employer-sponsored health insurance.

The study said consumers’ out-of-pocket expenses rose 7% from 2009 to 2010, according to the institute. For insurers, costs only rose 2.6% during that time period.

Per person under 65, the average annual spending on health care was $4,255 — that’s a combination of what people and their insurance companies paid.

Between 2009 and 2010, it rose 4.5% for Americans under 18. The trend has been upwards for children since 2007, when the average annual expenditure for this group was $1,790, compared to $2,123.

Image: Money, via Shutterstock.

Facebook Apologizes to Mother for Photo Removal

May 22, 2012 at 1:30 pm , by Holly Lebowitz Rossi

The social networking site Facebook has reportedly apologized to a Tennessee mother who had allegedly been banned from the site after she posted photos of her infant son, who died from severe birth defect.  Memphis’ ABC News station reports:

Heather Walker’s son, Grayson James, died just eight hours after his birth. She posted the pictures to help with the grieving process. But then, “I couldn’t post anything on my page, I couldn’t like anything, I couldn’t share anything,” she said.

Then came this: “Dear Mrs. Walker, We do apologize for the removal of this content and the subsequent warning,” Walker read.

It’s not everyday a billion dollar company makes amends for its transgressions. But that’s exactly what Facebook did after deleting controversial pictures of a dying newborn baby and censoring his mother’s account.

 

Female Toddler Lives as a Boy

May 22, 2012 at 8:47 am , by Holly Lebowitz Rossi

At age 2, a girl named Kathryn told her parents, “I am a boy.”  The Washington Post has published an in-depth look at Kathryn’s story, and how her family has come to accept that their child is transgender:

“I am a boy” became a constant theme in struggles over clothing, bathing, swimming, eating, playing, breathing.

Jean and Stephen gave up trying to force Kathryn to wear the frilly dresses that Grandma kept sending. Kathryn wanted nothing to do with her big sister Moyin’s glittery, sparkly pink approach to the world. (Moyin attends school with my son, which is how I came to know the family. The Washington Post is using the family’s middle names to protect their identity beyond their community, where their situation already is widely known.)

Kathryn didn’t even want to be around other little girls, let alone acknowledge that she biologically is one.

Click here to read the whole story.

Image: Child riding a skateboard, via Shutterstock.

 

Facebook Bans Mother for Posting Photos of Baby with Birth Defects

May 22, 2012 at 8:05 am , by Holly Lebowitz Rossi

A Tennessee mother has reportedly been banned from Facebook after she posted photos of her baby, who was born with rare neural tube birth defect in which a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull.  WMC-TV, a Tennessee news station, reports on Grayson James Walker, who was born in February of this year and died just 8 hours after being born:

Heather Walker recently posted pictures of Grayson without his hat on.

“Not long after, Facebook deleted them because of the content” she said.  “They allow people to post almost nude pictures of themselves, profanity, and so many other things but I’m not allowed to share a picture of God’s beautiful creation.”

Walker and her Facebook friends decided to re-post baby Grayon’s photos in protest, and the mother is now on a 24-hour ban from the social networking website.

Click here for an update to this story: Facebook Apologizes to Mother for Photo Removal

Image: Facebook, via 1000 Words / Shutterstock.com