VOLUME 95, NUMBER 28
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THURSDAY, JULY 8, 1982
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19-year-old Kings Mountain
man who had his right arm
literally twisted off when he
caught it in a wrapping machine
June 8 at Carmet Industries,
considers himself lucky.
The accident, of course, was
unfortunate, but Jackson said
he’s lucky to be alive and lucky
to have his arm re-planted and in
the healing process.
Jackson returned home over
the July Fourth weekend after a
month’s stay at Duke Medical
Center, where he has already
had eight operations. The
surgery to re-plant the arm
following the accident took 12
hours and 10 minutes.
Jackson, who faces at least
two more years of periodic trips
to Duke for treatment and fur-
‘ther surgery, recalled the acci-
.dent and the past four weeks
Monday while resting at the
home of his parents, Stoney and
Peggy Jackson.
He had just returned to work
from a lunch break on Tues,
A Miracle!
Jack Jackson’s Severed Arm Mending
glove he was wearing on his
right hand somehow was caught
by an Allen bolt and jerked into
the machine.
He couldn’t reach the switch
to shut down the machine, so he
wrapped his legs around a bar on
the lower part of the machine to
keep it from pulling his entire
body in.
A man who was working with
him attempted to turn the
machine off, but he slipped and
was slightly injured. Another
man working nearby saw what
had happened and hurried over
and turned the machine off.
Luckily, Jackson was running
the machine at its slowest speed.
“I had it in first gear,” he recall-
ed. “If it had been in second or
third gear, it would have jerked
me all the way up in it and killed
me.”
The machine caught Jackson’s
arm just below the elbow and in
its wrapping motion was literally
twisting his arm off. Luckily, his
shirt acted as a tourniquet and
rescue personnel, physicians and
nurses and the help of a good
friend who loaned the family a
helicoptor and pilot--saved
Jackson’s arm.
Kings Mountain Rescue
Squad personnel quickly came to
the scene and cut Jackson out of
the machine. From the time of
the accident until the time he
was rescued was 45 minutes.
Jackson, who remained con-
scious throughout the ordeal,
could see that his arm was barely
hanging by some skin. “The first
thing I told the man from the
rescue squad when he came in
was that I was going to lose my
arm,” he recalled.
He was rushed to Kings
Mountain Hospital, where Dr.
George Plonk finished taking the
arm off and stopped the
bleeding. In addition to having
his arm twisted off, he also suf-
fered severe breaks in the
shoulder’ area and had every
muscle and leader damaged from
the shoulder down.
By GARY STEWART June 8 when he reached above kept him from bleeding to death. Dr. Plonk also contacted
Editor the spindle wrapping machine to What transpired afterward— Duke Hospital and got instruc-
Sherrill “Jack” Jackson, a get a hammer. The welding good timing and fast action of tions on how to package the arm
for transport there.
Meanwhile, Carl DeVane of
- Kings Mountain, who works for
Reeves Brothers, offered the use
of his company’s helicoptor to
fly Jackson to Durham. Jackson
left Kings Mountain at 3 p.m.,
met the helicoptor in Gastonia
and was in Durham at 4:15. He
went into surgery at 5:35 p.m.
Tuesday and returned from
© surgery at 5:45 a.m. Wednesday.
“To me, the doctors at Duke,
the good time that the Kings
Mountain Rescue Squad made,
and Carl DeVane and the pilot
‘by getting him up there, are go-
ing to make the difference in
whether or not his arm is saved,”
Stoney Jackson said.
One of the rear seats in the
four-seat helicoptor was remov-
ed so the stretcher could be plac-
ed. Vickie Putnam, a nurse at
Kings Mountain Hospital, was
instructed by Dr. Plonk to make
Turn To Page 6-A
AzexdqTI TeTAOWSNW
Jack Jackson
(1 lamps
py. GARY STEWART
Editor
Down On Late Payments
But, she said, she has a baby
which Suffered brain damage at
NT A mm AHO
: because people move away
_ without paying their utility bills.
ing power restored.
The $10 fee is a penalty which
the city charges to cover the
15th are put on the power “cut-
off” list and are subject to having
their power disconnected. ‘Before
“The only thing we want to do
is to keep the cash flow going »
J hy that she had made
a mistake and the city had a legal
‘allowing Kings
When Melva Huffstetler of
right to disconnect her power,
was upset that she wasn’t con-
tacted personally beforehand
and that, after going to city hall
and paying the $111.32 bill, she
had to return home and get $10
more and go back to city hall
and pay that money before hav-
Citizens
For KM
BY CATHY McDANIEL
A public hearing was con-
ducted Wednesday, June 30, in
the Commissioner’s Chambers of
City Hall for the purpose of
Mountain
citizens the opportunity to ex-
press their opinions on how
Community Development Block
Grant funds the City has applied
for should be spent.
Mayor John Henry Moss read
the four categories under which
the City is considering spending
the funds to an empty Coun-
cilroom, however, as no citizens
attended the noon hearing.
The four categories being con-
sidered by the City and examples
of eligible projects under each of
them are as follows:
Community Revitalization
ojects, designed to improve,
erve or develop residential
eas. Examples of activities be-
under this
costs of two tripssto/d dis nnect
recor
2 did not return the calls until 5
AX Thursday temo: GN
kkk
Mayor Moss,
strictly enforce its policy.
City utility bills are mailed on .
the last day of the month and
received by customers on the
first day of the month, McDaniel
explained. All payments, as
specified on the bill, are due by
the 15th.
McDaniel said all persons who
have not paid their bills by the
and’ "City Say
Treasurer Joe McDaniel said late
payment of utility bills is an old
th problem i in the city, and because
~ of demands of early payment
from its power suppliers-Duke 3
t Power and Transcontinental
i Gas Pipeline-it has become
necessary for the city to more
dsgomected 2 Gi X
Last on’ cutoff Hstwhich
was for power consumed in
May-contained 40 82 by 11”
pages of names with bills amoun-
ting to $260,000. Bills for the
month came to $700,398.22.
“I'd say 80 or 85 percent of
our customers pay on time,”
McDaniel said. “But if
everybody wanted to wait until:
the 25th to pay, we’d never be
able to make payroll.”
McDaniel estimated the city
loses $7,000 to $9,000 a quarter
Don’t Appear
Public Hearing
Economic Development Pro-
jects, designed to promote the
creation of jobs, enhance income
levels, provide opportunities for
local ownership or support
economic services essential to
the vitality of the community.
Examples of activities being
considered under this category
include provision of public
facilities for employment, train-
ing, and business development;
financing working capital,
machinery or buildings for
profit-making businesses to
create new jobs; and captializing
a local development corporation
to help expand existing
businesses.
Development Planning Pro-
jects, designed to help develop
projects that can be considered
for future funding through
CDBG. Examples of this include
economic development and
energy conservation.
Urgent Needs, designed to
meet certain community
€ pment ds that have a
- $127,673.
Grants given under this category
must: meet needs that
demonstrate unusual or pressing
needs not addressed in other
categories or that demonstrate
creative approaches to com-
munity development needs that
can serve as a model for other
North Carolina communities.
In a budget-amending action
also taken up at the hearing, the
Board voted unanimously to
distribute $330,283 from debt
service fund to the following ac-
counts in the utility fund: gas
bond principal $10,000, gas
bond interest $2,610; water and
sewer principal $189,000 and
water and sewer bond interest
Interest income of
$1,000 was also transfered.
An additional public hearing
will be held July 12 at 7:30 p.m.
in order to accomodate those
citizens unable to attend the
June 30 hearing. Mayor Moss
expressed his hopes that citizens
will attend this hearing, and add-
ed that he is willing to discuss
Ar cutoff Ii
your door is ticketed, you are.
subject to having your power. A
$2,300 is currently operating in
the customers on fhe.
The business which owes the
chapter 11 of bankruptcy, and
the city cannot collect that bill
until the courts act. All power
the company consumes since the
date of bankruptcy is payable,
they said.
Another business with a bill of
$1,239.46 is being allowed to
pay some each month until the
debt is paid, through an arrange-
ment with Mayor. Moss.
McDaniel said he is willing to
work with any individual or
company facing a hardship, but
in matters where someone
“simply doesn’t want to pay his
bills, I send him back here to the
mayor.”
FOURTH FUN—A group of area youngsters
Pictured above competed in a hollering con-
“Basically, I think most people
have been “carried”
for several ‘months, ‘but with
good reason, McDaniel and
Moss said. Businesses had late
bills totalling from as little as $50
to more than $2,300.
check--having their power
cutoff, the city can only
apologize.
“It’s possible our man for
some reason did not ticket their
door, or for some reason it was
ticketed and was lost before they
got it,” McDaniel said. « I wish I
could say ‘don’t ticket this house,
because they're good people’, but
it doesn’t work that way. If we
concentrated on one area of
town or didn’t ticket some peo-
ple because they’re good people,
we’d really be in for problems.”
Mrs. Huffstetler said if this
had happened a year ago, she
probably would have paid the
bill and penalty and not said a
word.
Nx v ofor 7 persons like the
4 Huffstetlers—who McDaniel call-
ed good customers who just hap-
‘pened to forget to mail their
office when Mrs. Huffstetler
came in to air her complaint and 4
pay her bill, was contacted later
by Mr. Huffstetler, who explain-
ed the situation. “I offered right
then to have the power restored,
but by that time Mrs. Huffstetler
had already made the payment
and the power was back on.
“This is one of the most
unpleasant jobs on God’s earth,”
he went on. “Believe me, we
don’t like to turn people’s power
off. If everyone paid on time,
we’d have the easiest job in the
world.”
Mayor Moss said the city’s
policy of hanging tags and giving
a four-day cutoff notice is a good
one. “But we've learned: that
some people just aren’t going to
pay until you hang the tag.
Turn To Page 4-A
Photo By Gary Stewart
tion Saturday at the Community Center. More
photos are on page 10-A.
w that we live in a town that
~ would be this heartless.” ign
McDaniel, who was out of the