Wednesday January 27, 2010 year: 130 No. 53 the student voice of
The Ohio State University
www.thelantern.com campus
A club for bacon?
2A
sports
thelantern Bus driver trapped with gunman Apparently drunken man waves gun in bus; driver’s emergency trigger didn’t work MICHELLE SULLIVAN Campus editor sullivan.423@osu.edu A campus bus driver who went out of his way to help a pedestrian get out of the cold earlier this month ended up with a drunken gunman on board and no way to summon help because the bus’ emergency button didn’t work. The evening of Jan. 12 had been a standard night at work for Joe Everts. The third-year Ohio State student in middle childhood education was driving one passenger on the Campus Loop North route around 9:30 p.m. when he was flagged down by a man near Ohio Stadium. Everts said although the man was not at a bus stop, he decided to pick him up anyway, despite CABS policy. “It was dark and cold,” Everts said. “Buses are few and far between at night so under the circumstance I stopped to pick him.” Once the man — who was stumbling and seemingly drunk — boarded the bus, Everts’s other passenger quickly got off. Then Everts saw what the man was carrying: a gun.
He said his first thought was one of disbelief. “My first instinct was to think it wasn’t real,” Everts said. “I didn’t want to overreact.” But he said he kept an eye on the man in his rearview mirror. This agitated the suspect, who began yelling at Everts. “He said things like ‘What are you looking at?’ and ‘You’re not going to answer?’” Everts said. Everts said he tried to calm the man down, but that further enraged the man. He began waving the gun at Everts. JOE EVERTS “This is when I became nervous,” Everts said. “I stayed calm and tried to keep everything as normal as possible; that’s what we are told to do. I never really freaked out but it got my blood pumping.” Everts said once he noticed the gun in the man’s hand, he changed the
continued as Bus on 3A
1B
Is Turner Player of the Year?
With the basketball season in full swing, Evan Turner is making his case as a candidate for Player of the Year
campus
Helping Haiti a dollar at a time Buckeye fighters fit in at local gym
PAUL WOO / Lantern photographer
2A
inside
War time China captured by photography exhibit page 8 Jared Mahone takes on
year-long project of songs on page 10
Chris Gardner brings message of "Pursuit of Happyness" to campus on page 4
27 January 2010
btw Your weekly dose of entertainment
weather high 33 low 28 scattered flurries
TH FR SA SU
29/18 few snow showers 23/18 cloudy 26/15 mostly cloudy 29/20 sunny www.weather.com
Eli Ayars, a 2005 graduate of Ohio State, does a drill with Chico Bays during a mixed martial arts practice Monday night at the Buckeye MMA Gym.
CHRIS GRABER Lantern reporter graber.54@osu.edu The sport of mixed martial arts has grown in popularity ever since Arizona Sen. John McCain called it “human cockfighting.” McCain once referred to the gruesome punches a fighter can take to the face while positioned helplessly on the ground as un-American. While there are plenty of people who view the sport as barbaric, Buckeye MMA coach Josh Williams said that comment and comments like it are ignorant, and many critics are simply jealous. “You can do boxing, wrestling, judo, karate and kickboxing, but you put them all together and people have a problem,” he said. “You have kids going to karate and kung fu at a young age, and they step out here and get wiped the floor with by a guy with high school wrestling experience.” The people who look down on the sport do not bother Williams, who said he loves coaching his local team, which consists of professional and amateur fighters.
He said owning his gym and teaching MMA sounds a lot better than working at the hospital or using the degree in English he earned from Ohio State in 2002. Williams got into cage fighting when he was 15, shortly after the sport of MMA originated in 1993, and he has competed professionally. As a coach of the sport, Williams has excelled, advancing more than 20 fighters to the professional level. His gym, located on 4608 Indianola Ave., is home to 75 fighters, both professional and amateur. Aaron Hughes, a third-year in pharmaceutical studies and Buckeye MMA member, is on the verge of reaching the professional level. Hughes held an amateur belt in 2009 after only two years of training at Buckeye MMA. “I started freshman year fighting and I love it,” Hughes said. “It’s just the adrenaline, competing and just being in there I like most.” For pro-fighter Eli Ayers, a 2005 OSU graduate, the sport has been great to him. At 35, he still competes, although he said he is near his last years participating.
continued as MMA on 3A
$1B expansion continues with Medical Center at full capacity DAN MCKEEVER Oller Projects Reporter mckeever.1@osu.edu Dr. Steven Gabbe, Ohio State’s senior vice president for health services and CEO of the Ohio State University Medical Center, gave the annual State of the Medical Center address to an audience that filled the Meiling Hall auditorium Tuesday afternoon. Gabbe focused on the Medical Center’s performance on the local, national and international stages, as well as its internal progress in areas such as the continued development of Project ONE, a $1 billion expansion project, as well as hospital financing and patient satisfaction. Below are some highlights of the speech. Project ONE Gabbe stressed the importance of expanding the Medical Center, stating that the current facilities are at full capacity. “We’re full,” he said. “The worst words you can hear are, ‘You have cancer.’ The worst words after that are followed by, ‘and we can’t send you to the James.’ … We need to grow our capacity.” The new facility will allow the Medical Center to take in 10,000 more visits per year and 300,000 more outpatient visits per year, Gabbe said. The building project is underway with the commencement of demolition of Means Hall.
As for the facility’s construction, Gabbe noted the efforts of OSU President E. Gordon Gee to have Project ONE designated as a demonstration project for a proposed set of state construction management reforms. As a demonstration project, the facility would use a construction management STEVEN GABBE method allowed under the proposed reforms, making construction quicker and cheaper, Gabbe said. A search firm is developing a list of candidates to assume the full-time position of executive director of Project ONE, Gabbe told The Lantern. Financing Gabbe noted that the Medical Center’s budget outlook was strong, with its revenue greater than expenses, exceeding expectations and receiving strong ratings for several other key financial metrics. The Medical Center is also pushing for increased funding for graduate medical education. The federal government has a cap on the number of medical education positions that it will fund through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “We’re well above the cap, as are most academic medical centers,” Gabbe said. “We’re pushing
hard for health care reform legislation that will fund positions for graduate medical education.” Gabbe also discussed the financial effect of uninsured patients on Columbus hospitals. “All the hospital systems share the burden for the uninsured patients. For us that represents about $144 million of uncompensated care each year,” he said.
Patient satisfaction Gabbe reported improved numbers in the area of patient satisfaction, attributing the increase in part to follow-up phone calls to patients and nurses making regular rounds. OSU hospitals improved their performance on the HCAHPS, a national standardized survey of patient satisfaction, from a score of less than 66 percent in January of 2009 to a score of close to 72 percent in November. These scores place OSU above its 2010 target of about 69 percent and the national average of about 65 percent. Patients also rated the Medical Center above Mount Carmel and OhioHealth in a survey of consumer perception of care, but the Medical Center trailed both medical providers in market share in Franklin County. The Medical Center captured a 28.9 percent market share, behind Mount Carmel’s 29.1 percent and OhioHealth’s 42.1 percent.
1A