Times investigation: Legal drugs, deadly outcomes

Terry Smith collapsed face-down in a pool of his own vomit.

Lynn Blunt snored loudly as her lungs slowly filled with fluid.

Summer Ann Burdette was midway through a pear when she stopped breathing.

Larry Carmichael knocked over a lamp as he fell to the floor.

Jennifer Thurber was curled up in bed, pale and still, when her father found her.

Karl Finnila sat down on a curb to rest and never got up.

These six people died of drug overdoses within a span of 18 months.

But according to coroners' records, that was not all they had in common. Bottles of prescription medications found at the scene of each death bore the name of the same doctor: Van H. Vu.

After Finnila died, coroner's investigators called Vu to learn about his patient's medical history and why he had given him prescriptions for powerful medications, including the painkiller hydrocodone.

Investigators left half a dozen messages. Vu never called back, coroner's records state.

Over the next four years, 10 more of his patients died of overdoses, the records show. In nine of those cases, painkillers Vu had prescribed for them were found at the scene.

Vu, a pain specialist in Huntington Beach, described himself as a conscientious, caring physician. He declined to comment on individual cases, citing confidentiality laws, but he said he treats many "very, very difficult patients" whose chronic pain is sometimes complicated by substance abuse and depression, anxiety or other mental illness.

"Every single day, I try to do the best I can for every single patient," he said in an interview. "I can't control what they do once they leave my office."

Prescription drug overdoses now claim more lives than heroin and cocaine combined, fueling a doubling of drug-related deaths in the United States over the last decade.

Health and law enforcement officials seeking to curb the epidemic have focused on how OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and other potent pain and anxiety medications are obtained illegally, such as through pharmacy robberies or when teenagers raid their parents' medicine cabinets. Authorities have failed to recognize how often people overdose on medications prescribed for them by their doctors.

A Los Angeles Times investigation has found that in nearly half of the accidental deaths from prescription drugs in four Southern California counties, the deceased had a doctor's prescription for at least one drug that caused or contributed to the death.

Reporters identified a total of 3,733 deaths from prescription drugs from 2006 through 2011 in Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura and San Diego counties.

An examination of coroners' records found that:

In 1,762 of those cases — 47%— drugs for which the deceased had a prescription were the sole cause or a contributing cause of death.

A small cadre of doctors was associated with a disproportionate number of those fatal overdoses. Seventy-one — 0.1% of all practicing doctors in the four counties — wrote prescriptions for drugs that caused or contributed to 298 deaths. That is 17% of the total linked to doctors' prescriptions.

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Ohio teen sentenced to life in Craigslist murders

AKRON, Ohio (Reuters) – Seventeen-year-old Brogan Rafferty was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Friday for his role in the killing of three men and the attempted murder of another, some of whom were lured by a Craigslist ad promising work on an Ohio farm.

Rafferty was 16 when he was arrested in November 2011, but was tried as an adult. He was convicted late last month in the murders of David Pauley, 51, of Norfolk, Virginia; Ralph Geiger, 56, of Akron, Ohio; and Timothy Kern, 47, of Massillon, Ohio.

Prosecutors called the teen an apt pupil to the alleged trigger-man, Richard Beasley, 53, who is also charged in the murders.

Rafferty testified that he was terrified of the man he had considered a father figure and spiritual advisor after he saw Beasley shoot Geiger in the head execution-style.

During the trial, jurors heard testimony that the teen helped dig the graves for three of the men and was found in possession of guns and knives stolen from them after Beasley shot them.

Beasley’s trial is scheduled in the same courtroom for January 7. He faces the death penalty if convicted. Both Rafferty and Beasley’s attorneys are under a gag order and are not permitted to talk to the media.

In other incidents involving Craigslist and other social media, people advertising goods for sale or responding to ads have been attacked and killed.

In 2009, a former medical student was accused of killing a masseuse he met through Craigslist. In February, two men in Tennessee were accused of killing a man and a woman for “unfriending” the daughter of one of the suspects on Facebook.

(Reporting by Kim Palmer; Editing by Mary Wisniewski and David Brunnstrom)

Internet News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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Bond soars with record $87.8M 'Skyfall' debut

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The sky's the limit for James Bond's "Skyfall."

The 23rd Bond film hauled in a franchise-record $87.8 million in its first weekend at U.S. theaters.

According to distributor Sony, adding $2.2 million from Thursday night previews at large-format theaters, "Skyfall" has taken in $90 million domestically.

That lifts the worldwide total for "Skyfall" to around half a billion dollars once its weekend haul is counted overseas, where the film began rolling out in late October. As of last Thursday, "Skyfall" had rung up nearly $350 million internationally.

The third installment starring Daniel Craig as British super-spy Bond, "Skyfall" outdid the $67.5 million U.S. debut of 2008's "Quantum of Solace," the franchise's previous best opening.

"Skyfall" more than doubled the $40.8 million debut of Craig's first Bond film, 2006's "Casino Royale."

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Mind Faded, Darrell Royal’s Wisdom and Humor Intact Till End

Three days before his death last week at 88, Darrell Royal told his wife, Edith: “We need to go back to Hollis” — in Oklahoma. “Uncle Otis died.”

“Oh, Darrell,” she said, “Uncle Otis didn’t die.”

Royal, a former University of Texas football coach, chuckled and said, “Well, Uncle Otis will be glad to hear that.”

The Royal humor never faded, even as he sank deeper into Alzheimer’s disease. The last three years, I came to understand this as well as anyone. We had known each other for more than 40 years. In the 1970s, Royal was a virile, driven, demanding man with a chip on his shoulder bigger than Bevo, the Longhorns mascot. He rarely raised his voice to players. “But we were scared to death of him,” the former quarterback Bill Bradley said.

Royal won 3 national championships and 167 games before retiring at 52. He was a giant in college football, having stood shoulder to shoulder with the Alabama coach Bear Bryant. Royal’s Longhorns defeated one of Bryant’s greatest teams, with Joe Namath at quarterback, in the 1965 Orange Bowl. Royal went 3-0-1 in games against Bryant.

Royal and I were reunited in the spring of 2010. I barely recognized him. The swagger was gone. His mind had faded. Often he stared aimlessly across the room. I scheduled an interview with him for my book “Courage Beyond the Game: The Freddie Steinmark Story.” Still, I worried that his withering mind could no longer conjure up images of Steinmark, the undersize safety who started 21 straight winning games for the Longhorns in the late 1960s. Steinmark later developed bone cancer that robbed him of his left leg.

When I met with Royal and his wife, I quickly learned that his long-term memory was as clear as a church bell. For two hours, Royal took me back to Steinmark’s recruiting trip to Austin in 1967, through the Big Shootout against Arkansas in 1969, to the moment President Richard M. Nixon handed him the national championship trophy in the cramped locker room in Fayetteville. He recalled the day at M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston the next week when doctors informed Steinmark that his leg would be amputated if a biopsy revealed cancer. Royal never forgot the determined expression on Steinmark’s face, nor the bravery in his heart.

The next morning, Royal paced the crowded waiting room floor and said: “This just can’t be happening to a good kid like Freddie Steinmark. This just can’t be happening.”

With the love of his coach, Steinmark rose to meet the misfortune. Nineteen days after the amputation, he stood with crutches on the sideline at the Cotton Bowl for the Notre Dame game. After the Longhorns defeated the Fighting Irish, Royal tearfully presented the game ball to Steinmark.

Four decades later, while researching the Steinmark book, I became close to Royal again. As I was leaving his condominium the day of the interview, I said, “Coach, do you still remember me?” He smiled and said, “Now, Jim Dent, how could I ever forget you?” My sense of self-importance lasted about three seconds. Royal chuckled. He pointed across the room to the message board next to the front door that read, “Jim Dent appt. at 10 a.m.”

Edith and his assistant, Colleen Kieke, read parts of my book to him. One day, Royal told me, “It’s really a great book.” But I can’t be certain how much he knew of the story.

Like others, I was troubled to see Royal’s memory loss. He didn’t speak for long stretches. He smiled and posed for photographs. He seemed the happiest around his former players. He would call his longtime friend Tom Campbell, an all-Southwest Conference defensive back from the 1960s, and say, “What are you up to?” That always meant, “Let’s go drink a beer.”

As her husband’s memory wore thin, Edith did not hide him. Instead, she organized his 85th birthday party and invited all of his former players. Quarterback James Street, who engineered the famous 15-14 comeback against Arkansas in 1969, sat by Royal’s side and helped him remember faces and names. The players hugged their coach, then turned away to hide the tears.

In the spring of 2010, I was invited to the annual Mexican lunch for Royal attended by about 75 of his former players. A handful of them were designated to stand up and tell Royal what he meant to them. Royal smiled through each speech as his eyes twinkled. I was mesmerized by a story the former defensive tackle Jerrel Bolton told. He recalled that Royal had supported him after the murder of his wife some 30 year earlier.

“Coach, you told me it was like a big cut on my arm, that the scab would heal, but that the wound would always come back,” Bolton said. “It always did.”

Royal seemed to drink it all in. But everyone knew his mind would soon dim.

The last time I saw him was June 20 at the County Line, a barbecue restaurant next to Bull Creek in Austin. Because Royal hated wheelchairs and walkers, the former Longhorn Mike Campbell, Tom’s twin, and I helped him down the stairs by wrapping our arms around his waist and gripping the back of his belt. I ordered his lunch, fed him his sandwich and cleaned his face with a napkin. He looked at me and said, “Was I a college player in the 1960s?”

“No, Coach,” I said. “But you were a great player for the Oklahoma Sooners in the late 1940s. You quarterbacked Oklahoma to an 11-0 record and the Sooners’ first national championship in 1949.”

He smiled and said, “Well, I’ll be doggone.”

After lunch, Mike Campbell and I carried him up the stairs. We sat him on a bench outside as Tom Campbell fetched the car. In that moment, the lunch crowd began to spill out of the restaurant. About 20 customers recognized Royal. They took his photograph with camera phones. Royal smiled and welcomed the hugs.

“He didn’t remember a thing about it,” Tom Campbell said later. “But it did his heart a whole lot of good.”

Jim Dent is the author of “The Junction Boys” and eight other books.

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Lenders, title insurers find new ways to delay or kill mortgages

Do you know the difference between credit rescoring and credit repair?

Apparently, some lenders don't. As a result, they are refusing to fund mortgages that they otherwise would approve.

At the same time, some title companies are starting to play hardball with borrowers who have recently undertaken home improvement projects. Even if the work is relatively minor, and even if it has been completed, the companies are refusing to issue title insurance policies, effectively stopping refinancings in their tracks.

For as long as Richard Temme of Woodland Hills Mortgage in Woodland Hills can remember, title companies would write policies on properties with recent or ongoing construction as long as the borrower agreed to indemnify the company against mechanic's liens. But lately, the mortgage broker reports, title firms have become much more cautious.

The typical indemnification holds the title company harmless from any liabilities, losses, damages, expenses or charges the company may incur because of mechanic's lien disputes between the borrower and the contractor. Borrowers also usually agree to defend any action based on a lien and do all the things necessary or appropriate to clear the lien from the title.

But in an increasing number of cases, that is not enough, Temme says. "We've seen title companies declining to issue on many more loans" than in the past, he says. As a result, he adds, "even minor home improvement projects, recent or unfinished, can hold up or kill a loan."

This may be a California phenomenon because the laws are different in other states. But in the Golden State, contractors, subcontractors and suppliers can file liens retroactively to the day they started their work or furnished materials.

If that date of the lien is before the day the mortgage is closed, the lien, not the mortgage, is in the first position. As a result, some title agencies are not writing policies unless the borrower can put a much higher level of net worth behind the indemnification, Temme says. And some are not accepting any indemnification at all.

Meanwhile, otherwise good loans are being rejected by lenders that confuse rescoring with credit repair. They are not the same.

Credit repair is often a scam. In fact, attorneys at the Federal Trade Commission say they've never seen a legitimate operation that offers to erase bad credit, create a new credit identity on your behalf or remove bankruptcies, judgments, liens or bad loans from your record. If the bad information in your file is correct, there is nothing that can be done to remove it, at least not legally.

No wonder lenders want nothing to do with applicants who have paid someone to clear accurate data from their records. If you have bad credit, after all, you are probably a bad risk.

Rescoring, on the other hand, corrects errors in your file, which may result in an increase to your all-important credit score.

Whereas credit repair firms are not legitimate, the 70-odd companies that provide rescoring are credit reporting agencies that work with the national credit repositories — Equifax, TransUnion and Experian. As resellers of credit information contained within the three repositories, they not only provide the majority of all credit reports but also have a legal obligation to you and your creditors.

Moreover, according to Terry Clemans of the National Credit Reporting Assn., rescoring is a program developed in conjunction with and processed through the big three credit repositories. Indeed, each repository maintains a special rescoring department that deals directly with resellers.

When a credit file is rescored, it is checked twice for accuracy, first by the reseller and again by the national repository. It is, Clemans says, "one of the safest transactions for any creditor because everything is double-verified."

If a change is warranted — say, a trade line was reported incorrectly, or the damaging information is not yours but someone's with a similar name — the miscue is corrected at the repository level and a new credit report and credit score are issued.

If you believe data in your credit file are incorrect, you can have the data removed on your own if you have the time and patience. It can take anywhere from 30 to 45 days. But if you are in a hurry, you can pay a reseller to do it for you, usually within 24 to 72 hours, Clemans says. The cost ranges from $50 to a few hundred bucks, depending on how complex the problem is.

Rescoring has been a popular service for seven or eight years, Clemans says, and he thinks some lenders are so worried about bad risks that they are confusing credit rescoring with credit repair. He calls it a "knee-jerk reaction after all the pain" resulting from the mortgage meltdown.

"I have heard from lenders … claiming they are trying to protect themselves from consumers 'gaming' the system for better rates," he says.

But as Clemans sees it, lenders that object to rescoring are basically telling a consumer seeking a quick resolution of incorrect data that they can't have it corrected for that particular loan application. As a result, he wonders whether it is lenders who are gaming the system in an effort to force borrowers into higher interest rates.

Whether or not that's true, there's little that would-be borrowers can do besides take their business elsewhere — or sue the lender under the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

As far as mechanic's liens are concerned, mortgage broker Temme is telling his refinancing customers to advise the title company in writing of any construction or rehab projects on the property. Otherwise, he says, if a lien is filed, the title company may sue for the amount it has to pay the lender to pay off the lien.

And tell the title firm early. Even if the company will accept an indemnification, the process can take weeks, he says, noting that loans can be lost during that period.

lsichelman@aol.com

Distributed by Universal Uclick for United Feature Syndicate.

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California plans to drop warrants for some parole violators

SACRAMENTO — State corrections officials are poised to drop the arrest warrants of thousands of parole violators, releasing them from state supervision at a time when their detention would complicate efforts to ease crowding in state and county lockups.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation intends to begin a massive review next week of more than 9,200 outstanding warrants, starting with individuals who were convicted of nonviolent crimes and absconded from supervision. Over the next eight months, parole field offices across the state will be given lists of missing felons, 200 at a time, to review and determine if retaining them on parole "would not be in the interest of justice."

The mass purge is an attempt to ease the burden on counties in July, when the state hands off responsibility for parole revocations to local courts, said agency spokesman Jeffrey Callison. Weeding out cases that are years old, or of parolees nobody is looking for, will make it easier to focus on those who pose a threat, he said.

It will not, Callison said, "allow some paroles to 'get off the hook.' "

"I have been told that discharging people is not the point of the exercise," he said Friday.

Which is exactly the claim of some victims' advocates who are infuriated by the state's so-called warrant review project.

"It's mass amnesty for felons," said Assemblyman Jim Nielsen (R-Gerber), a vocal opponent of Gov. Jerry Brown's plans to ease state prison crowding by shifting responsibility for low-level offenders to counties.

When inmates are released from state prison, they are required to report to a parole officer. When a felon does not appear, or disappears later, an arrest warrant is issued. With low-level offenders now serving time in county jails, the state's parole population is shrinking dramatically because those released from jail go to county probation, not state parole.

But the same law that shifted responsibility for low-level offenders also requires county courts to take over most revocation hearings for parole violators. The warrant review will remove many of those potential cases.

The plan calls for parole agents to review about 7,000 warrants against low-level offenders to determine if those parolees have violent offenses or multiple felonies, belong to gangs or committed new crimes. Agents will then decide whether to drop the warrant and release the felon from parole.

Once that review is completed, the agency may undertake a similar study of outstanding warrants against missing parolees who committed serious or violent offenses, indicating that they too might be released from state supervision.

Sexual offenders are excluded from the reviews.

Callison said the state has no idea how many parolees may be released from supervision. Nielsen, former chairman of the Board of Prison Terms, estimated it would be 70%.

"This is as close as just letting people go as we've come," said Todd Gillam, a Northern California parole agent and vice president of the Parole Agent Assn. of California.

Gillam said the mass reviews overlook the value of leaving outstanding warrants in law enforcement computer systems, especially for routine matters such as traffic stops. "The warrant is a warning, to alert the officer that this guy is a problem," he said.

Gillam and others said parole agents are under pressure to release felons from state supervision as soon as possible.

Those criticisms come as the corrections department reacted to a report in the Fresno Bee on Friday that the man who killed two people at a chicken processing plant in Fresno earlier this week, then killed himself, was released from parole over the objections of his parole agent. The gunman, Lawrence Jones, was freed from prison in June 2011 and discharged from parole in May, even though his parole agent deemed him a danger.

The state corrections department "greatly regrets the tragedy," spokesman Luis Patino said, "but it must be noted that Jones had been out in the community for almost a full year and a half when he apparently committed this heinous crime.... Neither CDCR, nor any other law enforcement agency, can guarantee that someone will not commit a crime out in the community once they have been released from prison."

The newspaper's report also came on the same day that the governor named a new state parole chief: Daniel Stone, a longtime agency employee and former parole officer. Stone's appointment over the Division of Adult Parole requires state Senate confirmation.

paige.stjohn@latimes.com

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Philip Roth Is Retiring; Amazon Glitch Disables Buy Buttons

Today in books and publishing: Philip Roth confirms his retirement; Amazon‘s mysteriously vanishing buy buttons; Kobo expands to Italy, Kindle considers China; cities in literature.

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Philip Roth wraps it up. One of America’s most celebrated living novelists has been hinting at retirement for a while now. But he didn’t choose to make a big announcement in a prominent stateside literary organ like The New York Review of Books. He chose instead to let it out in interviews with the foreign press over recent weeks. Last month he told Nelly Kaprièlian of French magazine Les Inrockuptibles that he hasn’t written new material in three years, and doesn’t plan to write any new novels. “To tell you the truth, I’m done,” he said frankly, “Nemesis will be my last book … Enough is enough! I no longer feel this fanaticism to write that I have experienced in my life.” He said the same thing in an interview with Italian magazine La Repubblica earlier this month. His publisher Houghton Mifflin confirmed that Roth is entering retirement. It looks the 74-year-old writer will have plenty of time to go over his life story and thoughts on literature with his new biographer, Blake Bailey. [Salon]

RELATED: How to Game Amazon Prime; Random House Consolidates in the Spanish Market

Where did Amazon‘s buy buttons go? Late last night, customers looking to replenish their Kindles with fresh e-books were probably quite frustrated. No matter how hard anyone clicked, there was no way to purchase e-books from Penguin, Random House, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and HarperCollins through Amazon. A company spokesperson later confirmed that it was just a technical slip-up, and buy buttons were quickly restored. But given Amazon’s propensity to punish publishers that don’t bend to its will with disabled buy buttons, this brief black-out set off a minor panic in publishing land. Why were only Big Six publishers affected? Did it have anything to do with the ongoing agency pricing legal battles or the Penguin Random House merger? Though it seems to have been nothing more serious than a technical goof, it’s a stark reminder that Amazon has the ability—as well as the leverage—to shut down publishers’ most important connection with consumers at the click of a mouse. [New York Observer]

RELATED: Chart: The Rapid Gains of the E-book

E-reading takes a global turn. E-books may be taking firm holds in the U.S., but they have a long way to go before they became the global format of choice for readers. Italy may be going in an increasingly digital direction soon, with the country’s largest bookseller Mondadori Group partnering with Kobo to stock Touch e-readers in its hundreds of stores. 34,000 e-books will be available for Italian readers. China is another largely untapped market, one that Amazon is eyeing enviously. ZDNet’s Liau Yun Qing reports that Kindles may become available there as early as this month. “If Amazon brings its e-reader to China, it will face competition from Chinese e-commerce player Dangdang which launched its e-reader in July at a retail price of 599 yuan (US$ 79),” she writes. “In comparison, the cheapest Kindle Paperwhite e-reader, which includes “Special Offers”, retails at US$ 119 in the United States.” [ZDNet]

RELATED: New Batman Comic Postponed; Books Banned in China Thrive in Hong Kong

Cities in literature. Mark Binelli’s new book Detroit City Is the Place to Be is all about the Motor City—its ascent during America’s industrial golden age, and its struggle to redefine itself. Given his obsession with the urban, Publishers Weekly decided to tap Binelli for a list of his favorite books that take specific cities as a central theme. It’s more interesting than most lists on this subject might have been. For instance, he shines a light on Joan Didion not for her classic takes on San Francisco or New York, but for her book Miami. And his favorite books to take on New York—Ben Katchor’s The Jew of New York and Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel—are refreshing inclusions. His favorite book about Detroit, Elmore Leonard’s City Primeval, is also a bit surprising. [Publishers Weekly]

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Madonna fan guilty in NYC resisting arrest trial

NEW YORK (AP) — A former firefighter with a crush on Madonna has been convicted of resisting arrest outside her former New York City apartment building as he spray-painted poster boards with love notes.

A jury delivered its verdict Friday in Robert Linhart's trial. He could face up to a year in jail.

Defense lawyer Lawrence LaBrew tells the New York Post (http://bit.ly/ZgI4jl) that Linhart will appeal.

Linhart was arrested in September 2010. Police say he parked his SUV outside the singer's Manhattan apartment, laid out a tarp and wrote out such messages as "Madonna, I need you."

Jurors told the Post they felt it was fine for Linhart to express himself to the Material Girl. But they said they believed police testimony that he resisted arrest by flailing his arms.

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Indoor trampoline parks spring up throughout Southland

Indoor trampoline parks are springing into action throughout Southern California, along with leaping games of dodge ball, highflying basketball and rigorous calisthenics.

Just ask Akory Coates, who lived out his basketball dreams for an hour recently at a Sky Zone trampoline park in Torrance. He jumped, he twirled in the air, his fingertips grazed the rim and he made four baskets. Not an easy feat for a 9-year-old, but a series of trampolines beneath his feet gave him all the lift he needed.

"Hey, Dad, look at me," Akory said as he went up for a basket and made it. His father took the fourth-grader at Major Lynn Mokler Elementary in Paramount and friends to the park for the boy's birthday. Across the warehouse a SkyRobics exercise class was underway, and a small group of parents watched their kids tumble.

The indoor trampoline business is booming, with dozens of parks open or in the works across America. "Since early to mid-2010 the whole industry has exploded," said Jeff Platt, chief executive of Sky Zone Indoor Trampoline Park, a Los Angeles company that opened its first location in Las Vegas in 2004. "People started feeling a little bit better about the economy and were looking for something new to do."

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At a time when the Southland economy is still struggling, experts say trampoline parks appeal to people of all ages eager for a relatively inexpensive activity and exercise. An hour at these parks typically ranges from $10 to $15. Many of them offer birthday parties, aerobics classes, corporate events and dodge ball games. There are also foam pits for people to jump into, and there are pizzas and hot dogs at the snack bar.

"We've seen them take off," said Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services Inc., an industry consultant. "They're not taking off like the space shuttle, but we are seeing a reemergence of them."

Speigel said trampoline parks came into existence in the late '50s and early '60s but fell out of favor because of liability. Today's trampoline parks, he said, are attractive to teens and preteens who like extreme sports such as skateboarding, BMX and snowboarding.

Sky Zone has opened 27 parks — three company owned and 24 franchises. Four are in Southern California, in Torrance, Anaheim, Corona-Riverside and Chula Vista near San Diego.

At least four other companies have opened trampoline parks across the country. Sky High Sports has 15 outlets including ones in Valencia, Woodland Hills, San Diego, Costa Mesa, Ontario and Camarillo.

Jump Street has nine locations combined in Arizona, Colorado and Texas, with plans to open two more. Xtreme Trampolines has two locations in the Chicago suburbs. Rebounderz has one outlet in Florida.

Jerry Raymond, CEO of Sky High Sports and a founding member of the International Assn. of Trampoline Parks, estimates there are just over 100 facilities in the United States and expects that number to grow. Most of the parks are franchises; none of the companies involved released profitability information.

Franchises for bigger companies such as Sky High and Sky Zone typically cost more than $1 million each to open, including insurance coverage, fees and facility costs.

Platt, Sky Zone's CEO, said the key to a successful trampoline franchise is introducing new activities.

After Sky Zone's revenue started to decline in 2009, five years after opening, it introduced dodge ball, then workout classes and basketball hoops. The moves paid off. Last year Sky Zone posted about $16 million in revenue and it's projecting $70 million for 2013.

Park operators say they make special effort to keep trampoline parks as safe as possible, but they acknowledge that injuries and liability are always a concern. "Injuries aren't something that we'll ever be able to eliminate, but we can try," Platt said.

As trampoline parks continue to multiply so will injuries, said Seattle lawyer Sim Osborn, who has represented clients who have injured themselves at trampoline parks. He said bodies can't absorb the impact of accidentally landing on the pads that border the trampolines, the facilities can get overcrowded and employees can't always supervise jumpers.

"Frankly, the way they're designed and built, you cannot make them safe," he said.

Although trampoline injury rates have decreased every year since 2004, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission found there were almost 98,000 injuries in 2009, the latest year data were available.

In September, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a warning about possible safety hazards involving trampoline use. The group also recommended that operators inform participants of possible risks. Park operators said they provide instructional videos and safety brochures, and have supervisors monitoring participants.

Trampoline parks aren't monitored by any state agency, said Peter Melton, spokesman for the California Department of Industrial Relations.

At the Torrance park where young Akory was showing off his basketball potential, Shannon Brown was leading the SkyRobics class, her ponytail bopping through a series of jumping jacks. Soon she had the four participants running across 24 trampolines, then doing push-ups and a dodge ball scrimmage.

"I've had kids as young as 8 years old and older people in their 50s and 60s," Brown said, adding that she tailors the classes to participants' skill level. "It's definitely a lot harder than it looks."

Law firm intern David Moussa, 21, of Torrance was among the participants. Moussa, who tore a knee ligament during a basketball game, said he enjoys the trampoline workouts because they impact his joints less than running.

"At first it was a little weird," Moussa said, as beads of perspiration formed on his forehead. "When I first did this I thought, 'I'm this big macho guy who plays basketball,'" he said, "but after the first couple of minutes I was done."

Deon Coates, 29, of Bellflower has taken his son Akory to the Torrance Sky Zone three times.

"The place is extremely clean and never understaffed; it really gives you a sense of safety," Coates said. "Plus, it's a perfect way to get the kids to sleep versus NyQuil."

adolfo.flores@latimes.com

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Conjoined twin girls successfully separated in 7-hour surgery

Surgeons and a 40-member medical team in Philadelphia have successfully completed the separation of 8-month-old twin girls who were joined at the lower chest and abdomen, according to the hospital where the procedure took place.

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said the seven-hour operations were completed on Wednesday. It was the 21st time surgeons at the hospital had separated a set of conjoined twins. Other hospitals have also reported successful separations.

The twins, Allison June and Amelia Lee Tucker, of Adams, N.Y., shared a chest wall, diaphragm, pericardium and liver, according to a hospital statement.

Led by Dr. Holly L. Hedrick, pediatric general, thoracic and fetal surgeon, a multidisciplinary team of about 40 members, including physicians, nurses and other medical staff from general surgery, plastic and reconstructive surgery, cardiac surgery, anesthesiology, radiology, and neonatology, participated in the separation.

“Like all separations of conjoined twins, this was a very complex surgery, but it went very well and as expected,” said Hedrick, who led the team that worked on the patients. “Allison and Amelia are currently recovering in the Newborn/Infant Intensive Care Unit (N/IICU) and will be monitored closely by CHOP’s expert clinical teams for the duration of their recovery,” she stated.

“We expect that, with this complex surgery behind them, Allison and Amelia will receive the care, therapy and support to allow them to live full, healthy and independent lives,” Hedrick stated.

Conjoined twins occur once in every 50,000 to 60,000 births, and most are stillborn. About three-quarters of such twins are female and are joined at least partially in the chest, sharing organs. Chances of successful surgery and survival are greater if the twins have separate sets of organs, the hospital said.

The Tucker family has not commented. The hospital asked the media to respect the family’s privacy.

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