REGION
Saturday, July 7, 2018
HERMISTON
East Oregonian
Page 3A
PENDLETON
Humane society seeks
council’s help getting
new district on ballot
By ANTONIO SIERRA
East Oregonian
Staff photo by Jayati Ramakrishnan
Zeddrik Cota, center, stands with three of the UCFD paramedics who responded after an accident that left him
in a coma. Left to right: Danny Hinton, Kyle Rutherford and Jesse Brown.
Zeddrik Cota begins rehab
journey after bike accident
By JAYATI
RAMAKRISHNAN
East Oregonian
Three weeks after an
accident that left him in a
coma, Zeddrik Cota is walk-
ing and talking.
To his family, those
things are nothing short of
miraculous.
Zeddrik, 12, sat quietly
Friday, with a smile on his
face, as his parents recalled
the last few weeks. He
placed his hand on his moth-
er’s, and listened as she
talked about his recovery.
While riding his bike on
June 14, Zeddrik asked his
father if he could go check
out the skate park at Campus
Life, across the street from
Hermiston High School.
As his father got out of
the car, Zeddrik and his
brother went into the park,
not realizing there was
a sharp drop-off close to
where they were standing.
“There’s a lip that goes
into a bowl that just drops
off,” said Oscar Cota, Zed-
drik’s father. “He goes up
and over it, and faceplants
into the concrete.”
Zeddrik had swelling on
both sides of his brain, and
was in a medically induced
coma for four and a half
days.
Within a day of com-
ing out of the coma, Oscar
said, his son’s eyes were
opening, and the day after,
he was responding to ques-
tions, and able to recognize
his parents and siblings.
Zeddrik has several
months of rehabilitation
ahead of him: He will go
through occupational and
speech therapy, and will
have some dental work.
“He’s had difficulty with
a lot of stuff,” Oscar said.
“His short-term memory is
pretty affected.”
Paramedics
who
responded to the scene esti-
mate Zeddrik fell about 10
or 12 feet from the dropoff.
Oscar said his son was
wearing a baseball helmet at
the time of the crash, which
covered his ears and the side
of his head.
Zeddrik’s
mother,
Alainna Abbott, said he may
be able to go to school for
a few hours a day, but they
will have to keep him pro-
tected from any illnesses or
other injuries.
“I told him he’s stuck
in mom’s bubble,” Abbott
said, smiling at her son.
“He’s really bored, just
because he’s so active.”
During his recovery,
Zeddrik won’t be able to do
many of the things he loves
— hunting, playing sports
and exploring the outdoors.
But his family says he fully
intends to get back to his
energetic self.
“Our whole family put in
for bull tags. Guess who’s
the only one who got one?”
Oscar said, pointing at his
son. “Hopefully he’ll be
well enough to go up there,
but we’re not going to push
it — it’ll come again.”
“At the end, hopefully
it’s going to be a full recov-
ery,” Oscar said.
Oscar said he and his
family had been over-
whelmed by the support of
the town, even people he
didn’t know.
“How I’m going to thank
each and every one of them,
I have no idea,” he said.
He said he thinks there
could be some more steps
taken to make the skate park
safer, or at least to alert peo-
ple about the steep dropoff.
“I’m glad he’s here, and
I hope some safety precau-
tions go up so that it doesn’t
happen again,” Oscar said.
“Especially because it’s near
a daycare, and right behind
the basketball court.”
A week after his return
to Hermiston, Zeddrik met
with some of the paramed-
ics, so that he and his family
could thank them.
“We remember these
ones,” said Jesse Brown,
the firefighter and EMT who
called for a helicopter right
after the accident. “Far too
often, the outcome is not the
same way. So these are the
calls we live for, where we
made a difference.”
HERMISTON
Ridership up 75 percent for HART
East Oregonian
Ridership for Hermis-
ton’s public bus system has
risen 75 percent in the first
half of 2018.
The HART, run by Kayak
Public Transit on behalf of
the city, began in January
2017. The fixed-route bus
is free to any member of
the public and runs Monday
through Friday from approx-
imately 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
According to numbers
provided by the city, the
HART had 168 riders in
its first month of existence
and 283 riders in Novem-
ber. Ridership has continued
to climb, with 355 riders in
April, 386 in May and 459
in June.
“We knew that this is the
type of service that people
will have to learn and get
used to, but once they do,
that ridership would really
start to climb,” assistant city
manager Mark Morgan said
in a statement.
During the HART’s first
year the city and Kayak
adopted several changes to
the route, eliminating lit-
tle-used stops and adjusting
the schedule to make it more
user-friendly and allow for
more circuits per day. The
city also installed bus shel-
ters at some locations, and
route information is now
integrated with mapping sys-
tems such as Google Maps.
Morgan said he believes
HART is now “a very usable
system with no real changes
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Pendleton, OR I-84 - Exit 216
Pendleton, OR I-84 - Exit 216
Merkley holding town
halls in Eastern Oregon
East Oregonian
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley
(D-Ore.) will hold a series
of town halls this weekend
in Eastern Oregon.
He will be at Eastern
Oregon University, La
Grande at 9 a.m. on Sat-
urday, before traveling to
Wallowa for a town hall at
the senior center at 12:30
p.m.
Merkley on Sunday
heads to the Pendleton
Early Learning Center, 455
S.W. 13th St., Pendleton,
where a town hall begins at
1 p.m. From there he goes
to the Port of Morrow Riv-
erfront Center, 2 Marine
Drive N.E., Boardman,
where the event begins at
4 p.m.
Merkley made head-
lines a few weeks concern-
ing the separation of immi-
grant children from parents
seeking asylum. He also
has raised concerns regard-
ing who President Donald
Trump could appoint to fill
the latest vacancy on the
Supreme Court.
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planned.”
He said there is still a mis-
conception that the HART is
only for the elderly or dis-
abled, but ridership data
shows only 39 percent of
riders fall in that category.
For more information
visit ctuir.org/general-tags/
hermiston-hart or call dis-
patch at 541-429-7519.
As it attempts to launch
a campaign for a coun-
ty-wide special taxa-
tion district, the Pioneer
Humane Society will go
before its hometown city
council Tuesday to request
help in getting ballot
access.
The humane society,
which operates the Pend-
leton Animal Welfare Shel-
ter, intends to ask voters
for 10 cents per 1,000 in
assessed value. Officials
from the nonprofit expect
it will bring in $300,000
per year for society opera-
tions, which would include
expanded reach in Umatilla
County, increased shelter
capacity, expanded neuter
and spay clinics, and new
programming.
The society is also
expecting the tax revenue
to pay for capital improve-
ments to its Pendleton shel-
ter and the ability to con-
vert volunteer roles to paid
positions.
Similar to the proposed
4-H tax, the humane soci-
ety needs approval from
the Pendleton City Council
and other Umatilla County
governments to appear on
the ballots in each city or
unincorporated area.
According to the Pio-
neer Humane Society, the
Oregon Humane Society
performed an audit that
determined that they were
understaffed compared to
other shelters.
The council has a
packed agenda with a few
other topics of interest:
• As the city puts
together an application for
a $25 million federal grant,
the council will consider
contributing a $2 million
local match.
The grant would pay for
a project that would realign
the Interstate 84 Exit 209
interchange to ease traffic
congestion in that area.
If the city wins the grant
from the U.S. Department
of Transportation’s BUILD
program, the city and the
Oregon Department of
Transportation will each
be required to contribute
7 percent each of the proj-
ect’s total cost.
ODOT has already com-
mitted $2 million toward
the project, and if the city
follows suit, the project
would total $29 million.
While the council could
commit the money as soon
as Tuesday, a staff report
states the city would need
to determine a funding
source at a later date.
The deadline for the
grant application is July 19.
• Staff is requesting a
$185,629 change order for
the new fire station that
would raise the budget for
the first phase from $1.9
million to $2.1 million.
In an interview, pub-
lic works director Bob Pat-
terson said the city is still
committed to following the
project’s overall budget of
$9.4 million, but some of
the bids came in over the
original estimate. Patterson
said the city needs to act
quickly to take advantage
of favorable steel prices,
and staff will pore over the
rest of its bids to make sure
the overall budget isn’t
expanded.
The council will meet at
7 p.m. at the council cham-
bers in city hall, 500 S.W.
Dorion Ave.
Pam Wagenaar,
Administrative Assistant
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