Tuesday, April 16, 2013 // Issue 106, Volume 78
THE DAILY COUGAR
T H E
O F F I C I A L
S T U D E N T
N E W S PA P E R
O F
T H E
U N I V E R S I T Y
O F
H O U S T O N
BOSTON MARATHON
Alumnus, wife avoid bomb attack Amanda Hilow Managing editor
One UH alumnus decided to take his wife to Boston for Patriot’s Day — she wanted to run in the marathon, but the annual Boston Marathon saw cheers from a half million spectators and some 20,000 runners change into screams of fear and pain as two bombs detonated near the finish line of the 26.2-mile race Monday. “‘I saw this guy’s legs get blown off,’” Tremain Fedke, 28, said he heard someone say. “‘Just stay where you are,’” Fedke said his father-in-law told him. Fedke didn’t know about the explosions, yet. He was just trying to reconnect with his family member after the older man visited a medical tent for claustrophobia. According to the Chicago Tribune, the attack left three dead, including an 8-year-old boy, and at
least 140 injured. Some victims were even left amputated. Thankfully, Fedke said, his wife and the rest Fedke of their family were safe. “We’re blessed,” he said. “At about mile 22, she just wanted to walk. If she had walked, she would have been right there by either one of the explosions, and her family was waiting at the finish line for her, so they might have been hurt, as well.” Alden Fedke, Texas A&M graduate, said she finished the race in four hours and three minutes. The first bomb went off when the clock showed four hours and eight minutes. “I had just passed the finish line,” she said, still shocked from the experience. She said she then
heard something everyone originally thought was thunder, until they realized the truth. “Everyone was just like, ‘explosion, explosion.’ We were all freaking out,” she said. “It was very scary, but I just thank the lord that I didn’t walk those last few minutes. I thank the lord that he helped me not stop.” The Chicago Tribune said the Boston Marathon attack was the worst bombing in the U.S. since Sept. 11, and President Barack Obama promised to find the people responsible “Make no mistake, we will get to the bottom of this,” Obama told Washington reporters. The event will be treated as “an act of terror.” Alden Fedke said she was second place, just 20 minutes behind the first runner, and still 15 minutes faster than the average finish time, according to Runner’s World magazine.
More than 5,000 runners never finished. “It was so horrible. And it was such a huge marathon — so many people worked hard to get there, and a lot of people couldn’t even finish,” Alden said. The marathon, held on the third Monday of every April, starts in Hopkinton, Massachusetts and ends in Boston’s Copley Square — where the crowd is at it’s thickest. The two explosions were about 50 to 100 yards apart in this area, according to The Chicago Tribune. After seeing shirtless and bloody victims and newly wheelchairbound runners fleeing the aftermath, Tremain and his wife are finally headed home. “Everyone is safe, and we are ready to go home,” he said. “The plane ride is going to be a little bit freaky, though.” news@thedailycougar.com
S I N C E
1 9 3 4
OPINION
How to avoid the finals flu LIFE+ARTS
Q&A with Sick Puppies singer SPORTS
SCIENCE
Device efficiently detects spreading cancer Makenzie Seman
and Mathematics, and his colleagues at the University of A new medical device co-devel- London co-developed this device, oped by a physicist at UH detects which has been in distribution for the spread of breast cancer and more than a year in Europe. “Since it helps detect the spreadallows physicians to better prescribe a treatment plan, and it will ing of cancer more efficiently,” be increasing its market influence, Brazdeikis said, “I would imagine bringing it closer to clinical trials it will become widely available in America in a short amount of around the country. time.” Audrius The SentiMag is an extremely Brazdeikis, sensitive intraoperative probe a research that allows surgeons to have better associate accuracy when attempting to locate professor the sentinel lymph node, which is of physics the first lymph node in which a in the College of tumor’s metastasizing cancer cells drain. Natural This patented method removes Sciences the need for radiation, increases the speed of the detection process, and it puts the detection of the sentinel The probe, which can better detect breast cancer, is expected to lymph node be available across America soon. | Courtesy of UH.edu in the hands Contributing writer
of surgeons. “Seeing the original concept go through changes and advance in the marketplace has been ver y gratifying,” Brazdeikis said. “DevelopBrazdeikis ing strategies between the scientific aspect and the business market has been the most challenging.” Throughout these challenges, distribution of the product has reached beyond Europe. This came as a result of a signed agreement between Sysmex Europe GmbH, a leading international company that develops and produces diagnostic solutions for laboratories across the world, and Endomagnetics Ltd., a medical company focussed on magnetic sensing and nanotechnology in medicine. Brazdeikis formed Endomagnetics with physics professor Quentin Pankhurst and systems engineer Simon Hattersley from UCL. “It was a business concept we
developed to bring our technology into the forefront of the marketplace,” Pankhurst said. The SentiMag system was initially funded by the UK-Texas Bioscience Initiative and is now in use in eight European countries. With Sysmex holding the exclusive right to manage sales and support for this groundbreaking progression in Europe and some Middle Eastern and African countries, the system will be provided a strong backing for further advancement and expansion. It is believed by the co-developers that this device is going Pankhurst to be essential to those in need of treatment from this disease. “I am convinced that getting the device circulated worldwide is a positive step in cancer treatment,” Brazdeikis said. “Maybe this could be the right step in eventually eliminating cancer altogether.” news@thedailycougar.com
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