NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Saturday, December 21, 2019
Former La Grande man on front lines of New Zealand emergency
Dr. Matt Valentine
treated many of the
survivors after eruption
By DICK MASON
EO Media Group
LA GRANDE — The stunning
Dec. 9 volcanic eruption on New
Zealand’s White Island jolted the
small nation and the life of Dr. Matt
Valentine, an emergency room phy-
sician with deep La Grande roots.
Valentine, based at Whakatane
Hospital, 30 miles south of White
Island, treated many of the survi-
vors right after the volcano blew,
an unanticipated event that left at
least 16 people dead and more than
two dozen injured.
The physician is the son of Eric
and Meg Valentine of La Grande.
Eric Valentine reported when his
son arrived at Whakatane shortly
after the eruption, the hospital,
about the size of Grande Ronde
Hospital, had 20 patients from the
eruption.
“They all suffered from vari-
ous degrees of steam burns from
the brief but intense steam and ash
eruption on White Island,” Eric
Valentine said, discussing what his
son told him.
Medical staff treated and
released a few of the patients but
others needed critical care, plac-
ing enormous stress on the hospital
personnel.
“They were spread very thin,”
Eric Valentine said.
The New Zealand Herald
reported all victims at Whakatane
Photo courtesy of the New Zealand Herald
A recent view of the eruption at White Island, New Zealand.
Hospital had burns covering at least
30% of their bodies and 22 victims
initially required airway support.
Valentine said patients needed intu-
bation and ventilators to help them
breathe, but there was not enough
equipment to go around. Whaka-
tane Hospital reached out to other
facilities for burn treatment sup-
plies and transferred some patients
to larger hospitals.
He said the worst cases went
to Christchurch, a city of about
380,000 on the South Island where
there is a major burn treatment
center. According to the Herald,
in the hours after the eruption, 29
patients were under intensive care
in Christchurch and at New Zea-
land’s three other burn units, at
Middlemore, Waikato and Hutt
Valley.
“Fixed wing aircraft and heli-
copters were flying patients out all
night,” Eric Valentine said.
Matt Valentine grew up in La
Grande and graduated from La
Grande High School in 1989. He
graduated from Dartmouth Col-
lege in 1994 and from Oregon
Health & Science University, Port-
land, in 1999. He practiced medi-
Legislators subject to public records law
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
SUNDAY
MONDAY
Cloudy and mild
Cloudy and cooler
60° 38°
47° 37°
TUESDAY
Mostly cloudy
WEDNESDAY
Mostly cloudy
Chilly with clouds
breaking
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
46° 27°
37° 23°
37° 24°
HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
60° 40°
48° 37°
49° 29°
38° 29°
40° 27°
OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Seattle
Olympia
48/40
50/36
52/33
Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
58/38
Lewiston
50/41
61/42
Astoria
49/39
Pullman
Yakima 51/36
48/37
55/39
Portland
Hermiston
50/42
The Dalles 60/40
Salem
Corvallis
49/39
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
46/34
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
50/41
51/33
50/36
Ontario
47/33
Caldwell
Burns
Trace
0.13"
0.99"
5.08"
7.32"
9.46"
WINDS (in mph)
48/35
47/27
Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
53/38
Sun.
WSW 4-8
S 8-16
N 4-8
NNE 6-12
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
48/31
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2019
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
7:33 a.m.
4:14 p.m.
2:15 a.m.
1:35 p.m.
New
First
Full
Last
Dec 25
Jan 2
Jan 10
Jan 17
NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 79° in Fullerton, Calif. Low -20° in Waverly, Colo.
ual lawmakers must release
records, a majority of the
Supreme Court justices ruled
the institutions of the Legis-
lature, the House and the
Senate, are not required to.
The state’s public-records
act was passed by voter ini-
tiative in 1972.
The Legislature has made
a series of changes to it in the
decades since, and lawyers
for the House and Senate
have regularly cited a 1995
revision to a 1971 definition
of legislative records in their
denials to reporters seeking
records. The House and Sen-
ate release limited records,
including travel, and payroll
records and reports submit-
ted to the Legislature.
BRIEFLY
66°
35°
39°
27°
66° (2019) -12° (1990)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
Albany
50/40
0.02"
0.62"
0.98"
12.20"
9.49"
12.45"
OLYMPIA, Wash. — The
Washington Supreme Court
ruled Thursday the Public
Records Act fully applies to
state lawmakers.
The justices heard argu-
ments in June on the appeal
of a case that was sparked
by a September 2017 lawsuit
filed by a media coalition,
led by The Associated Press.
It sought sexual harassment
reports, calendar entries and
other documents.
The coalition argued law-
makers have been violat-
ing the law by not releasing
the information. Lawmakers
have long said they are not
subject to the law that applies
to other elected officials and
agencies.
The justices ruled in favor
of the media coalition in a
7-2 decision.
A Thurston County supe-
rior court judge ruled in Jan-
uary 2018 that while the
offices of individual lawmak-
ers are subject to the Public
Records Act, the House and
Senate were not. The Legis-
lature appealed the portion
of the ruling that applies to
the legislative offices, and
the media coalition appealed
the portion of the ruling that
applies to the House and
Senate.
While the media won
its argument that individ-
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
LOW
TEMP.
Pendleton 46/32
50/41
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
Month to date
Normal month to date
Year to date
Last year to date
Normal year to date
By RACHEL LA CORTE
Associated Press
HERMISTON
Enterprise
60/38
50/39
61°
56°
39°
25°
66° (1900) -12° (1990)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
46/36
Aberdeen
48/36
41/32
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
49/41
cine in Florence on the Oregon
Coast for five years before moving
to New Zealand in 2008 to take his
position at Whakatane Hospital.
Dr. John Bonning, president of
the Australasian College for Emer-
gency Medicine, also treated burn
patients injured in the eruption.
He told the Herald as he wheeled
patients into Waikato Hospital
after the eruption he could smell
the sulfur coming from their cloth-
ing and saw “bits of dead skin”
and “broken ash” peeling off their
bodies.
“It was awful, just horrific,” he
said. “Saying it was like a war zone
would not be an understatement.”
His comments came as New
Zealand authorities imported 120
square meters of skin from the
United States and Australia to
help treat the victims’ terrible burn
injuries. The Herald reported that
equates to about 60 donors — in
New Zealand only five to 10 people
donate skin each year.
The demand for blood and
plasma also increased dramatically
since the eruption, Sarah Morley,
chief medical officer at New Zea-
land Blood Service, told the Her-
ald. And Heather Cleland, plastic
surgeon and director of the Vic-
torian Adult Burns Service, said
the biggest challenge for treating
patients with severe burns was
fluid loss, resuscitation and protec-
tion of the airways.
“Once fluid loss occurs, the
blood pressure starts to drop and
the person will go into shock, so
resuscitation and inserting (an)
intravenous line is crucial to avoid
organ failure,” Cleland said. “The
other issue is inhalation and protec-
tion of the airway, which can block
off, creating a very dangerous sit-
uation. People often require a tube
to be put down into their lungs to
keep the airway open so the patient
can still breathe basically.”
Bonning also took to other New
Zealand media to praise the staff at
Whakatane Hospital.
“Whakatane did supremely
well,” he said. “They received more
critical care patients in 12 hours
than they usually see in nearly 12
months.”
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
Judge won’t dismiss lawsuit
against Monsanto
ants, sealants and hydraulic fluids.
SEATTLE — A judge says he won’t
throw out Washington state’s lawsuit
against Monsanto over pervasive pollution
from PCBs.
In a ruling Thursday, King County
Superior Court Judge Jim Rogers declined
a request by the agrochemical giant to dis-
miss the case. Rogers said Monsanto had
waived its right to bring the motion to dis-
miss by not filing it sooner and that Wash-
ington had stated a plausible case against
the company.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson in
2016 made Washington the first U.S. state
to sue Monsanto over its manufacture of
PCBs, the toxic industrial chemicals that
have accumulated in plants, fish and peo-
ple around the globe for decades. Fergu-
son alleged that Monsanto long hid what it
knew about the harmful effects of PCBs.
Oregon has also sued, and a judge there
declined to dismiss that case last January.
Monsanto was the sole U.S. maker of
PCBs until it stopped producing them in
1977. The chemicals, which have been
linked to cancer and other health problems,
were banned two years later.
The company has said the case lacks
merit, and it noted that Washington and
other government entities were among the
users of PCBs.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls,
were used in many industrial and commer-
cial applications, including in paint, cool-
Boise woman convicted
of elder abuse, neglect,
exploitation
BOISE, Idaho — A jury has found a Boise
woman guilty of abusing an elderly couple
she worked for as a caregiver.
Sherri L. Watring, 53, was arrested in Jan-
uary and charged with two counts of abuse
and neglect of vulnerable adult and one count
of exploitation of a vulnerable adult. An Ada
County jury convicted her of all the charges
on Wednesday after a three-day trial.
Prosecutors said she worked as a care-
giver for an elderly couple between 2016
and 2018, using her power of attorney to
take money from the couple and denying the
elderly woman adequate medical treatment
and nutrition.
Prosecutors also said that when the elderly
man died in February 2018, Watring had him
cremated and didn’t tell his family about it.
They say when she was fired from the job
weeks later, she took the ashes with her,
spread them in a location unknown to the
family and later turned the empty urn over
to police.
The elderly woman died while under hos-
pice care in June 2018.
Watring is scheduled to sentenced on
March 6. She faces a maximum of up to 10
years in prison for each abuse charge.
— Associated Press
Shown are noon positions of weather systems and precipitation. Temperature bands are highs for the day.
-10s
-0s
0s
showers t-storms
10s
rain
20s
flurries
30s
snow
40s
50s
ice
60s
cold front
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