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American Morning
President to the Border; Chilling Insurance Fraud Case; CSI: High School
Aired June 06, 2006 - 08:58 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BOB FRANKEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Bob Franken at the White House.
As the president heads southwest, the theme of the day is immigration. The theme of the week, politics.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Carol Costello in New York. It's a field trip they'll never forget. A real-life CSI as some high school students discover a real body.
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SR. PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon. Some military officials say it could be premeditated murder, the death of Iraqi man last April, but defense attorneys are decrying a rush to judgment. I'll have details ahead
DAN LOTHIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dan Lothian in Des Moines, Iowa, where we continue our weeklong series, "Paying the Price in the Heartland." This morning, I'll take a look at how high gas prices are impacting rural commuters coming up.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Road rage has a new name now. And now doctors say you could be born with it.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, please.
And then, it happens only every century, the date 6-6-06. Some say it's a bad omen, but why? We'll investigate just ahead on this AMERICAN MORNING.
M. O'BRIEN: Good morning to you. I'm Miles O'Brien.
S. O'BRIEN: And I'm Soledad O'Brien.
A CNN "Security Watch" we start with this morning. President Bush is now heading to the Mexican border. He left the White House in just the past hour. The president's going to visit a Border Patrol training center in New Mexico and a sector headquarters in Texas.
AMERICAN MORNING'S Bob Franken at the White House for us.
Hey, Bob. Good morning.
FRANKEN: Good morning. And let's put this in context.
There is an extremely important to both parties election, a congressional election in the San Diego area, an election to decide who replaces Republican Duke Cunningham. And, of course, immigration is an extremely important issue there.
So here we have the president, a state or so away, in New Mexico to start, speaking about what he supports as far as immigration legislation is concerned. There is tough legislation and there's tougher legislation.
The president, in effect, is saying his is tough enough. His proposal, the one that he supports, would include with tough security measures also a part of a way for immigrants in this country to achieve citizenship. That has many conservatives up in arms.
The president is trying to convince that base of his party that it is tough enough, as I said, tough enough for them to support and not fracture. There's a big concern that in this election coming up today, and in the more important off-year elections, that the conservatives might be turned off by the president's approach and may stay home. So the president is using as a backdrop some facilities near the border to say that what he is suggesting should please everybody -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Bob Franken for us.
Bob, thanks.
In another CNN "Security Watch," up to 17 Canadian suspects are in court right now facing terrorism charges. They're accused of plotting to blow up targets in Toronto and Ottawa. Their arrests highlight the fear that homegrown terror cells exist in America, ready to strike with no outside help.
Earlier on AMERICAN MORNING, CNN security analyst Richard Falkenwrath talked about that specific threat.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD FALKENWRATH, CNN SECURITY ANALYST: They are the hardest plot to detect. If they have no communications with any other known terrorist network or extremists, then it's very hard to locate them. You have to rely on informants and in sources within the cell, or the mosque, or wherever it may be to get them.
This is one of our biggest nightmares, and it frankly is the pattern that we saw in Madrid and we saw in London, and maybe we're now seeing in Toronto. So we have to assume it's a real possibility here in the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
S. O'BRIEN: You'll want to stay tuned to CNN day and night for the most reliable news about your security -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: A wild shooting overnight in West Virginia. Three are dead, four are injured. Police pursuing leads.
It happened outside a home just -- or in a home just outside Charleston. Police say a car was seen leaving the area. The description and details sketchy at this hour.
Happening "In America," a fatal gunfight at a southern California high school. It happened at Venice High School. A 17-year-old student was killed. He apparently went to help two brothers of his in a fight. Police looking for suspects.
And in northern California, President Bush declaring a major disaster in 17 counties hard hit by those storms and flooding in the past couple of months. The order clears the way for federal aid
A 6-year-old by is in state custody after his family forgot him at his own birthday party. The boy's mother says there were 12 children celebrating at the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Florida. Each relative thought the boy was somewhere else. Officials there likely to determine today if the boy can stay with a relative for the time being.
A 6-day-old baby is back with mother this morning. Police in Lubbock, Texas, found little Priscilla Maldonado abandoned in a car in 100-degree heat. Doctors are keeping the baby at the hospital for observation. We talked to Erica Ysasaga earlier on AMERICAN MORNING, and this is how she described the kidnapping.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERICA YSASAGA, MOTHER OF KIDNAPPED BABY: She came over and she asked about my baby. She brought up about stuff she was going to give me, the baby stuff she was going to give me. And then she said if she could take my baby on the next block, some relatives lived on the next block from me and she could take Priscilla.
And I told her no, and she kept on insisting. And I told her no. And I finally went with her, and then we were walking. We walked over there and nobody was at that house, and then we were walking back and my son distracted me. And when I turned around she was gone with Priscilla.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
M. O'BRIEN: The alleged kidnapper and her husband being questioned. Stephanie Lynn Anderson (ph) faces a kidnapping and possible endangerment charge.
The Duke men's lacrosse team will be allowed to play next season under tight supervision. The season canceled this year, as you'll recall, after three team members accused of raping an exotic dancer at a party. The school says it will watch the team closely and they will play under a new code of conduct.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RICHARD BRODHEAD, DUKE PRESIDENT: As I wrestled with this issue, I decided that Duke could only resume men's lacrosse if we made a clear statement of the conduct we expect of the players going forward, if the players actively accepted responsibility for living up to these expectations, and if we had a strong oversight mechanism to monitor the situation. These conditions have now been met to my satisfaction.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
M. O'BRIEN: The three team players charged with rape have pleaded not guilty.
And kids or adults, don't try this at home. A Minnesota man burned himself doing the laundry. How, you ask? Well, he thought gasoline would get the grease off his clothes, so he poured the gas instead of detergent into his washing machine.
Get this, surprise. The gas exploded. He suffered second-degree burns on his legs. And we're glad that's all he has to report and he's living to tell the tale -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: In Los Angeles, two women are in federal custody after pleading innocent to insurance fraud charges. They're accused of befriending homeless men, taking out insurance policies on them, and then collecting more than $2 million after the men died in hit- and-run accidents. Police are trying to determine if the women are cold-blooded killers.
CNN's Peter Viles has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETER VILES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The two elderly ladies pleaded not guilty to fraud, 75-year-old Helen Golay, in the glasses and the bouffant, and 73-year-old Olga Rutterschmidt, allegedly behind a scheme so twisted, it shocked even the cops.
DETECTIVE DENNIS KILCOYNE, LAPD: I will tell you, I'm in my 30th year, probably 21 years in homicide. And this is -- this is pretty evil.
VILES: Death number one, a homeless man named Paul Vados, killed by a hit-and-run driver in this alleyway in 1989. No suspect was apprehended.
Death number two, a year ago another alley, another hit-and-run, another dead homeless man, Kenneth McDavid, again, no suspect. There was something weird about the McDavid case, though. Two old ladies kept bugging the investigating detective for information.
LT. LYLE PRIDEAUX, LAPD: He was suspicious, in that these two women with no apparent interest in this person were making all these inquiries and wanted copies of reports and things like that.
VILES: The women were Helen Golay and Olga Rutterschmidt. It just so happened they had taken out nine life insurance policies on McDavid, the homeless victim. When another detective heard that, he said, wait a minute, I remember those two from a cold case.
KILCOYNE: The cobwebs were cleared out. The file was located. And there's a -- the Paul Vados 1989 incident. And, sure enough, the same two little old ladies, Olga and Helen, were doing the same thing then.
VILES: What emerged was chilling, women who allegedly befriended homeless men, took out insurance policies on them, and then collected more than $2 million when the men died violent deaths.
COMMANDER HARLAN WARD, LAPD: We had to refocus the death investigations of these two men on these two women.
VILES: They were arrested last month, Golay near the beach in Santa Monica, where she owns property, Rutterschmidt in a modest Hollywood apartment complex. For now, they're charged only with lying when they took out the insurance policies.
KIM SAVO, PUBLIC DEFENDER: They're charged with mail fraud, mail fraud. It's a very boring federal offense.
ROGER DIAMOND, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: There's just no evidence of any murder. If they had evidence, they would have filed charges.
VILES: But police believe there were two murders and that the women are the prime suspects.
KILCOYNE: Probably anyone in this room would think that this is probably not something that -- even though they're -- they're gaining financial gain for this, that they would -- would leave the actual dirty work to someone else or hire someone. We're not so sure about that anymore.
VILES: When they showed up in April for a free lunch at this church, the pastor assumed they were like many other older women, down on their luck.
PASTOR CHARLES SUHAYDA, HOLLYWOOD PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: Many of them, as you know, live on very small Social Security incomes. And many of them are in poverty here.
VILES: Then he learned they had cashed in when two homeless men who took their meals here were killed.
SUHAYDA: And to think that, you know, people would be victimized in such a way was, you know, very sad for me.
VILES (on camera): Now police are still investigating and they're asking the public in Los Angeles for some help. The question, are there other homeless men who have suffered the same fate?
Peter Viles for CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, that is a creepy case. Peter's report first aired on "PAULA ZAHN NOW." You can catch that weeknights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.
A possible preview of the November elections playing out in California today. There's a special election in San Diego to replace the disgraced congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Democrat Francine Busby is threatening to capture a traditionally Republican seat from former congressman Brian Bilbray.
M. O'BRIEN: Some Florida high school students will not soon forget a forensic field trip. As a matter of fact, this will be a life-long memory, I think. It turned into a real-life version of "CSI."
Carol Costello here with more.
Hello, Carol.
COSTELLO: Yes, Miles. I think these kids will be talking about it for the rest of their lives.
Strange enough, 29 students acting as amateur crime scene investigators were supposed to be gathering fake clues to a fake crime when things suddenly got very real. They found a man's body.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOSH ROZENTAL, STUDENT WHO FOUND BODY: There are no words to describe it. I was freaking out, like, so bad.
COSTELLO (voice over): For a group of high school criminology students it was a frightening lesson in forensics.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It looked real, but we thought since we were here for an investigation it wouldn't be.
COSTELLO: The summer class from St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale was on a field trip Monday conducting a mock crime scene investigation when they came across a real dead body.
ROZENTAL: We found a guy with his hand wrapped around the fence, and then we -- everyone came over there and we saw, like, his face. And we thought it was part of the crime scene.
COSTELLO: In fact, the students thought their teacher, Sue Messenger, was playing a trick on them.
BILLY SPRITZER, STUDENT WHO FOUND BODY: I thought she made it really look good, I thought, because the hand was grabbing the fence. And I touched the hand and it felt like a real hand.
SUE MESSENGER, CRIMINOLOGY TEACHER: All of a sudden, a student came running up to me and said, "Ms. Messenger, did you plant a real body?" Well, I had actually planted these cardboard skeletons, and I was like, "No."
COSTELLO: The teacher and her students notified the police, who turned the area into a real crime scene.
SGT. ANDY PALLEN, FT. LAUDERDALE POLICE: Ironic set of circumstances that they were out here in a summer program for a crime scene investigation when they came across the body. COSTELLO: Police believe the victim, a man about 55 years old, died of natural causes. But the gruesome discovery was an invaluable lesson for students trying to solve a mock mystery and stumbling upon the real thing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That was the first time I had ever seen a dead body, so I thought that was kind of crazy. And the smell I'll never forget. But this is a great experience.
MESSENGER: You know that old expression true life is stranger than fiction? I think this is definitely -- it definitely holds true here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COSTELLO: It's freaky. They thought their teacher had planted that there. You know, I guess it was an important lesson. School officials are concerned about what the students witnessed, and they've made counseling available to anyone who may need it.
M. O'BRIEN: Well, that would be a teacher who kind of went a little to far, I guess, right?
COSTELLO: Yes. She did nothing of the kind. She had paper skeletons, not the real thing.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes. All right. Thank you, Carol.
We're going to talk to one of the kids, and their teacher, as a matter of fact, in just a few minutes and see how they're handling all this, and if it is, in fact, something they won't forget. I think that's safe to say -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Yes, I agree with you there.
A spectacle that's pretty rare. We wanted to show it to you this morning. It's a rainbow in a cloud. Take a look at this. Can you see it right there? Isn't it beautiful?
This one first appeared in east central Washington State. It could be seen over the border in Idaho, too.
At first we thought it was a sun dog. Rob thinks -- Rob weighed in and said it was a halo. Miles...
M. O'BRIEN: Well, here's the thing. Let's show -- we found a picture. This is from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That is a sun dog at the 3:00 and 9:00 position there, those two little dots that are literally 22 degrees disparate from the sun.
S. O'BRIEN: OK. So that looks nothing like our picture.
M. O'BRIEN: Right. So those are sun dogs.
So what do we think, Rob?
ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, I think that they probably were sun dogs that got everybody fired up to call the National Weather Service and the television studios. And then by the time the TV photographer got out to actually shoot it, the sun dogs were gone and all you saw was the halo, because in that picture, you're right, you usually see -- that's what I think is the bottom arc of a halo, which is produced...
M. O'BRIEN: Right, that's probably it.
MARCIANO: ... when the sun's rays...
S. O'BRIEN: The halo's better looking than the sun dog, I think.
MARCIANO: Isn't that gorgeous? It almost looks like somebody -- I mean, it's just really beautiful.
S. O'BRIEN: It does look like PhotoShop.
M. O'BRIEN: It's a PhotoShop dog and we just got dogged is what happened, probably.
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, no.
MARCIANO: I do -- I do think in all likeliness both occurred and this video is just of the halo itself.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes.
MARCIANO: But 22 degrees, just to give you an idea, if you hold your hand out, put your thumb over the sun, and then extend your pinky, that's 22 degrees of the sky.
M. O'BRIEN: That's 22.
MARCIANO: And that's where you'll see either a sun dog or...
S. O'BRIEN: What am I...
M. O'BRIEN: I've got 24.5. I don't know...
(CROSSTALK)
M. O'BRIEN: ... dude.
MARCIANO: All right, guys.
(WEATHER REPORT)
MARCIANO: That's the latest from here.
Soledad, back over to you.
S. O'BRIEN: All right. Thank you very much, Rob.
MARCIANO: OK, guys.
S. O'BRIEN: Today is the sixth day of the sixth month of 2006. Drop the zeros, that's 666, and some people consider that number to be the path to Armageddon, the coming of the antichrist.
Of course, Hollywood is absolutely leveraging all of that. They've remade the 1976 horror classic, "The Omen," and it opens nationwide today.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes, and Mia Farrow was -- you talked to her yesterday -- she was positively scary in this role in that little clip.
S. O'BRIEN: She's terrific...
M. O'BRIEN: Yes.
S. O'BRIEN: ... and she's getting great reviews, too, as the nanny in this.
M. O'BRIEN: Yes. She's fantastic.
The fear of the number 666 is so widespread it has its own name. Now, bear with the poor anchorman here as he puts on his glasses.
Hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia -- I think I'm in the neighborhood. Anyhow, that is the fear of the three sixes. Still don't buy into all this? Well...
S. O'BRIEN: No.
M. O'BRIEN: ... what are mortgage rates today, you may ask?
S. O'BRIEN: Why, Miles, what are mortgage rates today?
M. O'BRIEN: They are 6.66, Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: Shocking. What does it all mean? What does it all mean?
M. O'BRIEN: The devil made us do all of this.
S. O'BRIEN: Still to come this morning, new developments in a murder case that's involving U.S. Marines in Hamdanya. We're live from the Pentagon this morning.
M. O'BRIEN: Then, have you ever seen 191 tons of dynamite in action, in careful domino-like synchronicity?
S. O'BRIEN: Wow.
M. O'BRIEN: We'll have more on a huge demolition project in China. Boy, that's a spectacle.
S. O'BRIEN: And then, believe it or not, they say there's a medical reason for road rage. The guy who's cutting you off, he's not just a jerk. He's actually got a serious medical condition.
M. O'BRIEN: It sounds like a legal defense, huh?
S. O'BRIEN: Oh, please, we're not buying it. We'll explain that theory just ahead on AMERICAN MORNING.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Some U.S. Marines behind bars at Camp Pendleton, California, are apparently telling a troubling story to military investigators. An April killing in Hamdanya that they originally said was justified may in fact be a case of premeditated murder.
For more on this we turn to CNN's Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon.
Good morning, Jamie.
MCINTYRE: Good morning, Miles.
Well, a senior military official with direct access to the information developed by naval criminal investigators tells CNN that there's some evidence that the killing of an Iraqi man in April in Hamdanya may have been a premeditated act. That is, he said, "They went out to get somebody, perhaps not this person in particular, but someone. That's what the evidence suggests."
It's also based on statements made by some of the Marines who are in confinement now who have essentially admitted that the story that was originally told was not accurate. That story is in a document that was shown to the family, that the family of the victim has, and is posted on a Web site from the Knight-Ridder news service.
It's signed by a Marine sergeant, and it says, "We spotted a man digging on the side of the road from our ambush site. I made the call and engaged. He was pronounced dead at the scene with only a shovel and an AK-47." The implication there was that the man was planting a roadside bomb, but investigators believe he was in fact pulled from his house and that the shovel and weapon were planted next to him to make him appear to be an insurgent.
Now, some of the defense attorneys who were defending the seven Marines and one Navy corpsman who are in the brig are incensed about these kinds of leak coming from the Pentagon, insisting that their clients are being tried in public. One of the attorneys sent us an e- mail, Jeremiah Sullivan, who's representing the Navy corpsman third class.
He says, "These individuals have an unqualified right to a presumption of innocence, and it's an injustice for anyone to rush to judgment based on conjecture and politics. This is the same reactionary frenzy surrounding the cases I handled involving Navy SEALS implicated in the killing of a terrorist. I represented two of those SEALS and am proud to say both were fully exonerated and serve our country today. As in those cases, I am confident my client will be vindicated at the conclusion of this process."
And as I said, Miles, so far there haven't been any charges filed, but they could come as soon as this week.
M. O'BRIEN: Jamie McIntyre at the Pentagon.
Thank you very much -- Soledad.
S. O'BRIEN: This fall, the Supreme Court will deal with affirmative action in public schools. Justices will hear arguments in two cases. In each one, parents contend that white students are penalized by affirmative action rules. Those rules were put in place to desegregate after the landmark 1954 case, Brown versus the Board of Education.
And in New London, Connecticut, anger erupting in a case that came before the high court. Justices had upheld New London's right to eminent domain. People who stand to lose their homes, though, continue to fight back.
We get the story now from Jon Camp of our affiliate in Connecticut, WFSB.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MICHAEL CRISTOFARO, FIGHTING EVICTION: You, you, you, you, and you, and you, you are a disgrace to the city, the state and the nation.
JON CAMP, REPORTER, WFSB (voice over): Strong rhetoric and a strong message for New London City Council members.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Return the keys and leave us alone.
CAMP: The city has been trying to take Michael Cristofaro's home through eminent domain for the last eight years. With others, he's fought it through protests and through the courts. But last June, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with the city, and finally, at this meeting, despite Governor Jodi Rell's attempts to stop it, the city council voted to remove the last two long-time property owners from their homes, upsetting most everyone in the crowd.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The motion passes 5-2.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't want to listen anymore.
CAMP: So why did the city council pass it? Mayor Beth Sebilia.
MAYOR BETH SEBILIA, NEW LONDON, CONNECTICUT: The citizens of New London, the 25,000 citizens, need to have an economic driver to alleviate the tax burden and to improve our schools.
CRISTOFARO: I'll do whatever it takes to stay in that property.
CAMP: Including chaining yourself?
CRISTOFARO: Chaining ourselves to the house, barricading ourselves into the house, a human chain, whatever it takes to send a message that we are not going anywhere. (END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: That was Jon Camp from our affiliate WFSB.
New London officials are going to ask a judge now to order the residents to leave their homes. Connecticut's governor, Jodi Rell, has offered a possible solution, let the residents stay in the homes, but if they ever decide to sell then the state gets first dibs on the property -- Miles.
M. O'BRIEN: In China, out with the old. The old dam, that is. It's not needed anymore. Take a look at these pictures. Listen.
I sure hope that was an unmanned camera. It took only 12 seconds to blow up the long but -- I think they call them cofferdams. I don't know if they call them that in China, though.
Anyway, this is the dam that held back the mighty Yangtze River while the giant Three Gorges Dam was under construction. The new dam is the world's largest hydroelectric project.
Wow. They bring them down with a bang. Many bangs.
Ahead in this morning's "House Call," we know extremely long flights can cause blood clots, but now a new theory might explain why. And we'll offer you some tips on prevention.
And the next time you see someone with road rage, he may have an excuse for losing his cool. He might have been born with it. I know. You're not buying it.
S. O'BRIEN: Not even a little bit.
M. O'BRIEN: All right. We'll delve in, nonetheless.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
M. O'BRIEN: Drivers who cut you off or won't let you merge into a lane, and then they gesture to you with something that says how you're -- you know, you're number one. Well, they have an excuse for acting like idiots, apparently.
A University of Chicago study says as much as 7 percent of the population -- that's 16 million, give or take -- suffers from a disorder that could lead to road rage. It is called Intermittent Explosive Disorder, IED. Yes, those are the same letters we use to describe those explosive devices in Iraq, strangely, coincidentally.
As we say, 16 million people. The illness marked by temper outbursts that involve throwing or breaking objects. And those multiple outbursts are often a way to -- way out of proportion to the situation. Doctors say people with the disorder start displaying angry outbursts around the age of 14. S. O'BRIEN: I thought it was around the age of two, because my sons are right in the middle of intermittent explosive whatever -- reaction totally out of proportion to the event.
M. O'BRIEN: They said it was a face-to-face study with 9,200 people. I wonder how many times the people asked the questions got clocked. You know? Boom!
S. O'BRIEN: I don't believe that for a second.
There is a story -- a study, though, that we have a little more faith in this morning's "House Call," the risk of long distance air travel. A number of studies have actually shown that extremely long flights can increase the chances of blood clots. Just why that happens, though, is still up in the air, so to speak. But more than 600,000 people are hospitalized due to blood clots each and every year, and nearly 200,000 of them will die.
Elizabeth Cohen has our report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Doctors have known that sitting in tight quarters on an airplane for long periods of time, eight hours or more, can cause blood clots to form, even in healthy people. It's called Deep Vein Thrombosis, DVT, and most often the clot occurs in the lower leg or thigh. If a clot breaks off and travels to the lungs, it could be fatal.
DR. SEAN O'DONNELL, WASHINGTON HOSPITAL CENTER: It's a huge problem in this country. Probably more people die from thromboembolic problems, or blood clots, than -- that they do from car accidents yearly.
COHEN: The cause is still up for debate, but according to a new study in the "Journal of the American Medical Association," it's not just the reduced pressure in the cabin. Sitting in a cramped position for that long can be downright dangerous.
The legs are down. It's more difficult for the blood to get back to the heart. And they can sit in the legs. The legs can become a little bit swollen, and the blood can occasionally clot.
COHEN: Many seasoned travelers are well aware of the dangers.
CLAI COLLIER, AIRLINE PASSENGER: You definitely have to get up and move around and do your little exercise in your seat.
SUSAN COTTER, AIRLINE PASSENGER: I've travel toward so many years and never had a problem that I don't really worry about it.
COHEN: Not everyone will have symptoms, but some things to look out for include swelling, pain, and tenderness, and red or discolored skin.
O'DONNELL: The reasonable, prudent thing to do when you're on a long trip about every two hours is to get up and walk around, exercise your legs.
COHEN: There are a number of ways to treat DVT. So if you have a history of blood clots, check with your doctor. He may want to put you on a blood thinner before your next long-distance flight.
Elizabeth Cohen, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
S. O'BRIEN: Another just-released study shows success in finding these deadly blood clots by extending chest CT scans to include scans of the leg. Clots were detected in 90 percent of patients.
We're back in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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