OFF PAGE ONE
VETERAN: Lost his sense of balance a decade ago
Page 10A
East Oregonian
Continued from 1A
wheelchair, wearing a black
ball cap emblazoned with the
image of a helicopter and the
date of the incident, August
27, 1965. His hat covered the
lat, runway-shaped surface
left behind after reconstruc-
tive surgery to ix the place
where the rotor sheared off
part of his skull. He listened
as Van Dyke said he irst
learned of Esselstyn’s story
from an East Oregonian
article a year ago.
“As I read the article
chronicling Ron’s amazing
story, I knew I had to do
whatever I could do to insure
he received the honors and
recognitions he deserved,”
Van Dyke said.
Van Dyke collected a
thick ile on Ron from the
Army archives and sent the
evidence to the Secretary
of the Army last March.
Van Dyke’s request was
forwarded on to the Army
Awards and Decorations
Branch which determined
Esselstyn should receive
not only the Purple Heart,
but a Good Conduct Medal,
National Defense Service
Medal, Armed Forces Expe-
ditionary Medal, Vietnam
Service Medal (with two
stars), Republic of Vietnam
Campaign Ribbon, Expert
Badge
and
Marksman
Badge.
“These are tokens he
should have received many,
many years ago,” Van Dyke
said.
He walked over to Essel-
styn and pinned the Purple
Heart onto the veteran’s shirt.
Esselstyn teared up.
“I was shocked,” he said
later. “I didn’t expect all
this.”
Ron’s wife, Sue, stood
nearby, looking emotional.
She more than anyone sees
the dark moments caused by
that long-ago injury. About
a decade ago, her husband
lost his sense of balance and
developed drop foot. He
tumbled off his back porch
and hit his head on a patio.
He tripped in the driveway,
breaking his hip. He had
to give up running. He
struggles with post-traumatic
stress, diabetes and concen-
tration. He exhibits signs of
bipolar disorder. She doesn’t
know which conditions are
the direct result of the head
injury and which aren’t.
Today, however, she felt
only joy as she watched
Ron receive long-overdue
recognition.
“He’s overwhelmed with
so much love and so many
people,” she said.
After the oficial cere-
mony, a parade of people
came forward and addressed
Esselstyn. The speakers
included childhood friends, a
junior high basketball coach,
Sen. Bill Hansell (who
worked with Esselstyn at
the Umatilla County Court-
house) and a VA medical
team that Sue Esselstyn
has dubbed “Team Hope”
for their caring. One of the
nurses on the team, Lonna
Lobe, addressed Ron.
“You take care of some
patients that forever touch
you,” she said. “You and Sue
will always be in my heart.”
———
Contact Kathy Aney at
kaney@eastoregonian.com
or call 541-966-0810.
SEAMUS: Though cancer-free, will continue checkups
Continued from 1A
Seamus’ odd behavior,
starting when Seamus laid
down on the sidewalk at
day care and didn’t move.
Gunnels’ mother, Deanna
Olin, who lives with the
family, thought he might
be having seizures but also
considered he was simply
being his three-year-old self.
“We’d been watching him
do this, but we thought he
was just being goofy,” Olin
said.
On July 10, while Gunnels
was at work, Olin saw
Seamus fall out of his chair.
She called Gunnels, telling
her Seamus needed to be
looked at. That evening they
went to their doctor in Walla
Walla, but the tumor wasn’t
immediately
identiied.
Gunnels arranged for them
to return later in the week for
testing. Twenty minutes after
leaving the doctor, however,
Seamus had another seizure
at a Subway, nearly face-
planting to the ground. The
family rushed back to Walla
Walla, where doctors found
the tumor on an MRI.
“That night and the next
morning I was really a wreck
— just couldn’t stop crying,”
Gunnels said. “Then I was
like, ‘All right, we have to do
this.’”
Just a few days later
Gunnels
and
Seamus
traveled to Portland by Life
Flight for further testing and
Staff photo by E.J. Harris
Medical glue still clings to the scar on the head of
Seamus Gunnels, 3, where doctors removed a tumor last
month at Doernbecher Children’s Hospital in Portland.
surgery at Doernbecher, with
her mom and sister, Brooklyn
Quaempts, providing support
along the way. Gunnels also
called Seamus’ father, who
lives in Missouri, and he lew
to Pendleton shortly after.
As a single mom, Gunnels
worried about taking weeks
off of work, not knowing the
severity of the tumor.
“She was very scared of
course, but she never left his
side,” Olin said. “I couldn’t
get her out of the hospital.”
A week after surgery, tests
conirmed the tumor was
benign. Seamus didn’t have
cancer.
Meanwhile, back in Pend-
leton, people in the commu-
nity took notice of what was
going on. Holly Cyganik,
whose son, Carson, goes to
the same day care as Seamus
and Atticus, didn’t know the
family, but wanted to help.
She organized a car wash at
Dave’s Chevron, ultimately
raising $1,300 for Gunnels
and Seamus.
“One mom to another, I
wanted her to know that she
had support,” Cyganik said.
Lyndsey Verkist, Gunnels’
sister-in-law,
started
a
GoFundMe page on behalf of
the family, which has totaled
$3,000 so far. Gunnels esti-
mates she’s received at least
$6,000, much of that from
strangers.
Gunnels keeps a note-
book to write down every
instance in which someone
does something nice for the
family, whether it’s bringing
them food, cleaning their
house, or donating money or
clothes. The support has been
ODOT: Does not use the statistical
tests common in many other states
Continued from 1A
edly since 2005 that its road-
paving inspection program is
vulnerable to fraud. Because
the department fails to under-
take basic precautions, asphalt
contractors can game ODOT’s
system to make it appear
standards were met while
compromising road quality,
similar to what Volkswagen
did with diesel emissions.
ODOT estimates it spends
$100 million a year on asphalt.
In the past year, it used about
1.6 million tons of it to build
new roads and rehabilitate
existing ones.
For about two decades,
Oregon has relied on road
contractors to test their own
asphalt quality and show they
meet minimum standards.
State technicians do their own
tests to spot-check one-in-10
results.
Garrett maintains that
ODOT’s money is well spent,
that he has faith in the integ-
rity of Oregon’s construction
oversight system.
But the federal assessment
that Oregon is vulnerable to
trickery is echoed by some of
ODOT’s current and former
employees.
“Quality control was not
taken seriously,” says Bret
Alford, a longtime ODOT
quality-control
specialist
who left the agency in 2012.
Oregon’s contractor-driven
oversight system, he adds,
“Seems like the fox guarding
the hens to me.”
ODOT’s oversight system
creates a “huge risk of fraud,”
former ODOT internal auditor
Mary Hull Caballero, who
investigated the state agen-
cy’s construction practices
extensively, told Secretary
of State auditors in 2013,
according to a summary of
the auditors’ interview. Hull
Caballero, who is now the city
of Portland’s elected auditor,
declined to comment for this
story.
While there are plenty of
good contractors out there,
“it is so easy for a contractor
to falsify documentation,”
says Carol Putnam, a former
ODOT quality assurance
specialist who left the depart-
ment in 2013. “We don’t
know what goes on behind
closed doors.”
In 2014, the Federal
Highway
Administration
communicated the results of
a top-to-bottom review of
Oregon’s quality control for
road construction conducted
the previous year. Its recom-
mendations largely echoed a
report it issued in 2005.
Rudimentary
quality checks
Since
2005,
federal
highway oficials have urged
Oregon to pursue electronic
data collection of quality test
results and to use statistical
comparisons to look for anom-
alies and bogus reporting.
Oregon, instead, does not
systematically track quality
results or use the statistical
tests that are common in other
states, according to the federal
review. Instead of tracking
numerous results statistically,
a technician will simply
compare the state’s result to
the contractor’s inding during
the spot-check conducted on
10 percent of tests.
“This method of verii-
cation is very weak and will
only detect severe problems
with contractor test results,”
according to a 2013 Federal
Highway
Administration
report.
Much as it did when the
highway administration made
the same recommendation in
2005, ODOT has promised
to launch a study of the issue.
In July, work began on a
$300,000 study by a Texas
A&M Transportation Institute
researcher who formerly
worked for the pavement
industry.
Not only is Oregon’s rudi-
mentary spot-check method
weak and vulnerable to fraud,
the state doesn’t do enough
spot-checking to determine if
it has a problem, according to
the feds.
In a November 2014
memo requesting funding
to study potential quality
improvements, ODOT’s top
quality assurance engineer,
Greg
Stellmach,
wrote
that data gathered that year
suggested that contractors are
not following ODOT rules
on random quality testing.
That, in turn, can have a “huge
impact” on the department’s
spending on asphalt, he wrote.
Faulty asphalt test
Oregon’s roads use asphalt
generated by privately owned
asphalt
plants.
Oregon,
however, continues to test
the asphalt at the plant itself,
using a system that allows the
plant operator to know gener-
ally when the contractor’s
self-test sample is supposed
to be taken. That allows the
operator to temporarily “opti-
mize” the asphalt mix to meet
quality standards, according to
the 2014 memo by Stellmach,
the ODOT quality expert.
Not only that, but the plant
operator has plenty of time to
switch to a different mix when
it sees a state quality techni-
cian drive up to double-check
the contractor’s self-test,
according to the federal audit.
Fraud by asphalt plants
is not an abstract concern.
Documents show that in 2008,
an ODOT pavement engineer
resigned in protest and warned
the Federal Highway Admin-
istration of an “unethical”
failure by ODOT manage-
ment to investigate what he
concluded was contractor
fraud by an asphalt supplier.
somewhat overwhelming,
simply because she isn’t sure
how to thank everyone.
“I wanted everybody to
know,” she said. “You can’t
ever express (thanks) enough
and you can’t name everyone
that’s helped you.”
Last weekend, Seamus
went to a friend’s birthday
party — his irst fun outing
since surgery. Atticus, who
Gunnels said has been a
trooper for his little brother,
got to have a one-on-one
day with Gunnels once they
returned from Portland.
Olin and Gunnels said
Seamus is pretty much back
to the outgoing boy they
knew before surgery. Though
Seamus is cancer-free, he
and Gunnels will continue
going to Doernbecher for
routine checkups. They’re
not out of the woods yet, but
for now, Gunnels said she’s
cherishing the time spent
with her boys.
“It kind of takes you
back and (asks) you, ‘What
is really important?’ Being
with your children,” Gunnels
said.
Seamus’
GoFundMe
page can be found at www.
gofundme.com/2dsg6s24.
———
Contact Will Denner at
wdenner@eastoregonian.
com or 541-966-0809
Friday, August 26, 2016
CRASE: Make a note of all
exits when entering a building
Continued from 1A
emergency situation your
actions matter.
The CRASE training,
offered by law enforce-
ment agencies around the
country, focuses on helping
people train their brain to
act on three steps: avoid,
deny and defend.
The best-case scenario
is for people to avoid the
danger. Osborne said they
can do that by being aware
of their surroundings and
taking threats seriously.
If it sounds like maybe
there are gunshots coming
from another part of the
building, he said, assume
those are gunshots and act
accordingly until you know
otherwise. Don’t assume a
ire alarm or lockdown is
just a drill. Often people
waste precious time they
could have used to get to
safety telling themselves
nothing is wrong.
“Take things seriously,”
Osborne said. “If you treat
it as if it’s real until you’re
sure it’s not, you increase
your chances of survival.”
Osborne said making
note of all available exits
when entering a building
and not just following the
crowd can help people get
out of harm’s way more
quickly in situations ranging
from active shooters to ires.
He also said often people
ignore secondary exits like
windows because society
has ingrained in them that
it’s not OK to break things.
“Don’t look at things as
barriers, look at things and
think, ‘How do I defeat this
barrier?’” he said.
If people don’t have
time to get out or the
shooter is blocking the only
exit, the next step is to deny
them access to victims.
The training included
various methods for doing
that, including locking
doors, turning off lights,
barricading
entrances
with furniture, wedging
doorstops under the door or
tying it shut. One method
participants used during
a hands-on practice was
wrapping a belt around the
large hinge found on the top
of many doors in ofices,
schools or churches.
If that fails, Osborne
said, people have a moral
and legal right to defend
themselves. They can
use everyday objects as
weapons, they can disorient
the shooter by throwing
things and they can ight
dirty.
After volunteers prac-
ticed barricading the door
Osborne had them practice
defending it. As he came
through it, wielding a
Nerf gun, the participants
waiting on either side of
the door tackled him, threw
things and grabbed the gun
before he managed to ire a
single shot.
“There is a mental
component to this,” he
said. “People do not have
the right to hurt you. They
do not have the right to kill
you. If they’re trying to do
that it should make you
mad. You can use that.”
The training used videos
throughout, showing in
some cases re-enactments
and in other cases real-life
footage of incidents such
as a man who pulled a gun
at a school board meeting.
Osborne used the videos to
point out actions that saved
lives or put them in danger.
Proactive
decisions
people make to avoid, deny
or defend can help buy time
for people to call 9-1-1 and
for law enforcement to
arrive, he said. Once they
do people should be careful
to keep their empty hands
visible, make no sudden
movements and follow
instructions.
The CRASE training
helps give people tools to
respond decisively in an
emergency, but at the end
of the day, Osborne said,
people can make their own
moral choices, like the
staff of a hospital in Seattle
where a mass shooting took
place.
“Some of the nurses ran,
some of the nurses fought
back and some of them
covered their patients,” he
said. “None of them made
the wrong choice.”
———
Contact Jade McDowell
at jmcdowell@eastorego-
nian.com or 541-564-4536.
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