HOSPITAL HOSTAGE CRISIS ENDS IN DEATH

Sheriff Adams faces questions regarding her decision
to fire on a teen assailant.

By Frank Moore

Brotherly love took a tragic turn this week when a local high school student threatened the lives of patients and staff at Smallville Medical Center in a desperate attempt to help his dying sibling.

The drama began when 16-year-old Garrett Davis entered the facility, demanding that doctors save his brother, Vincent, a 22-year-old demolition business owner, who was being treated for terminal liver disease at the center. Despite their best efforts, doctors had been unable to prevent Vincent's rapid deterioration.

Distraught over this grim prognosis, Garrett claimed he had powerful C-4 explosives strapped to this chest and told doctors he'd destroy the hospital if his brother did not receive an emergency organ transplant.
The building was quickly surrounded by law enforcement agents from the Smallville Sheriff's Department, led by Sheriff Nancy Adams, along with members of the Lowell County Bomb Squad. At the time, there were about 21 patients remaining inside the center, along with several family members and medical personnel.

According to eyewitnesses, Garrett tried to force doctors to remove the healthy liver from one of those patients, a local farmer who was undergoing triple-bypass heart surgery, for use by his brother. Such a procedure would have been fatal for the involuntary donor.

But before any innocents could be harmed, a police sharpshooter stationed on a rooftop across from the hospital found Garrett in his sights and shot him in the chest, killing him instantly.

After police entered the premises, they were unable to locate any bombs, even though several doctors and nurses had reported feeling shockwaves or tremors around the time of the shooting.

But while it's possible that Garrett had been bluffing about the size and amount of explosive material he was carrying, Sheriff Adams staunchly defended her decision to give a sniper the go-ahead.

"We were dealing with an unstable individual here," she said. "With so much at stake, we had no choice but to take him out the first chance we could."

Shortly after the crisis was averted, Vincent also died due to complications from acute liver failure. In a strange twist, hospital records show that he had actually been pronounced dead and then cremated in Metropolis one day before the hostage situation. It is assumed that his case file was somehow mixed up with one belonging to another patient, although authorities are still investigating.

The Davis brothers' only known relative, an uncle stationed with the U.S. Army in Germany, has returned to Smallville to handle the funeral arrangements since their parents died in a car accident over a decade ago.
"Garrett wasn't really a bad person," said an acquaintance who did not wish to be identified. "He'd just do anything for his brother."

HIGGINSON NAMED TO
JAMISON TRIAL
"A Coup For The Prosecution," Says Defense

By George "The Streak" Talmer

The Honorable Judge Randolph Higginson has been chosen to replace Judge Terrance Mathis in the Donovan Jamison espionage case. Higginson, widely considered a good candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court, has served the Metropolis Federal Circuit Court for 25 years.

Higginson, who grew up in Metropolis' Suicide Slum, is notoriously the most anti-big business judge in the federal court system. He has also presided over three espionage cases--all resulting in life sentences for the accused. The most famous of these was the landmark 1997 case when Higginson sent Richard Crane away for life after the former CIA agent was convicted of selling secrets to the government of Vlatava.

The precedents are not lost on defense attorney Louis Libowsky. "Of course we got Higginson as our judge. This just strengthens our appellate case; there is something at work here, and it's far larger than what the media is reporting. Read between the lines, people! My client is being set up!" commented the laughing Libowsky. "This is so blatant it's practically sloppy. The puppeteer is at work again!"

Donovan Jamison broke his self-imposed media gag to comment, although he could shed no light on the identity of the mysterious "puppeteer" his attorney referred to. "It's just a good thing a jury has to hand down a guilty conviction before a judge can do any bloody sentencing--could you imagine if this were an arbitration?"

As expected, the prosecutor in the case, Bobby Adamson, was especially jubilant upon hearing the news. Grinning from ear to ear, he commented, "Judge Higginson is one of the most respected jurists in America today. We have all the faith in the world that he will preside fairly over the case."
The first day of the Donovan Jamison trial is next Wednesday, February 25.

SURGERY DURING A SIEGE

While Saving Lives, Doctors Sometimes Risk Their Own

By Jim Bradlee

As Dr. Wayne Scanlan lowered his scalpel to make the first incision in anesthetized patient Jonathan Kent's chest in preparation for a demanding triple bypass operation, the muffled sounds of shouting and running feet were heard in the operating room at Smallville Medical Center.
"I just thought it was another disgruntled patient making trouble," recalled the cardiologist. "I continued with the procedure."

But it wasn't long before the familiar sirens of approaching ambulances were joined by those of police cruisers and bomb squad trucks out front. Unaware of the mayhem taking place in the hospital's waiting area, Scanlan labored over the tubes, clamps and machinery keeping his unconscious patient alive, calmly issuing orders to the team assisting him.

"It wasn't until Yeager burst into the OR that we had any idea there was a situation developing in the building," said Scanlan, referring to Attending Physician Dr. Sean Yeager, who was struggling with a hopeless liver patient when the sufferer's younger brother arrived in the hospital with a homemade bomb strapped to his chest.

"I knew something was up because he didn't even put a mask on before he came in, and he looked like he'd just seen a ghost. He just stood in the doorway and said 'Wayne, I think we're gonna need that liver you got right there.' We would have laughed out loud if it weren't so obvious he was dead serious."

It was at that point that a Sheriff's Department sharpshooter ended the life of the adolescent terrorist, the officer's single gunshot reverberating through the halls of the medical center, followed by a shock wave that shook the structure's rafters.

Thankfully, Kent survived the ordeal, as did Drs. Scanlan and Yeager and the dozens of other innocent people in the hospital at the time. But those shock waves will continue long after the mess in SMC's waiting area is cleaned up. Already the debate over unionizing doctors is being revived, and security measures are being beefed up--somewhat akin to fixing the barn door after the horses have escaped.

The circumstances call to mind a similar situation in 2002, when doctors at Chicago's County General Hospital staged a walkout to protest the lack of metal detectors in their emergency room. A chief resident led the revolt, two years after himself surviving a vicious workplace attack that also took the life of his female colleague.

Asked if doctors at SMC will have to resort to such tactics, Scanlan commented, "Granted, we're not a major urban hospital like County General. We don't have riots and gunmen in the emergency room every third week, or helicopters falling off the roof and Army tanks smashing into the ambulance bay. But there has to be a certain standard of protection even in Smallville. After Dr. Helen Bryce was attacked and robbed in her lab, we all thought nothing like that could ever happen here again. But here we are, less than a year later, performing delicate cardiac surgery while someone is getting ready to blow us all sky high. It's unreal."

SUSPECT GIVES SHERIFF
THE SLIP

By Lacey Lee

Apparently, the Smallville jail isn't as sturdy as the community might like--nor is Sheriff Adams' custody as secure. Once again, a teenage femme fatale has escaped from both.

Earlier this week, Alicia Baker was being held pending arraignment for her attack on Talon co-owner Lana Lang, who is ironically Smallville's prior teen escapee. That "custody" ceased on Friday, when Baker disappeared from her cell. According to the deputy on duty, Andy Drake, he delivered dinner to Baker's cell early Friday evening, only to discover that she was gone. "I had her a nice dinner and everything, even chocolate cake for dessert," claims Drake. "But she wasn't there to eat it. Really surprised me. I mean, Alicia loves chocolate cake."

While Baker's vanishing act may sound suspicious, the official report confirms that there was no sign of a breakout or even a break-in. And with no evidence that the Baker girl had help, the Sheriff's office is stumped. "I can't understand it," Sheriff Adams admitted. "People don't just disappear out of a locked cell. Not even in Smallville."

Nevertheless, while area residents may worry about the potentially dangerous fugitive, as well as the unsettling prospect that our jail is miserably unreliable, Adams urges citizens to remain calm. "I'm on a woman-hunt. That little lady can't hide from me."
Hopefully, when the Sheriff finds Alicia Baker, she'll be able to keep her this time.