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Death Count of Mudslide Rises to 10; Firestorms Sweep Across Southern Australia; Man Charged Thousands for Nosebleed; Woman Named McDonald Gives Birth in Front of McDonald's

Aired January 12, 2005 - 13:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Buried under a wall of mud. Views of the amazing devastation from above, while on the ground the frantic search for survivors. We're LIVE FROM La Conchita, California.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CO-HOST: Hospital bill nightmare. The $45,000 nosebleed. Is it a symptom of a bigger problem with American health care?

O'BRIEN: Cosmic collision. Live this hour, NASA launches a mission to -- not a celestial baked potato -- but actually, it looks a little more like a chicken wing. It's a comet 268 million miles away. We'll tell you why.

WHITFIELD: Tarnished image. The image of women in rap and hip- hop music videos. A new campaign to help take back the music and open dialogue.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredricka Whitfield, in for Kyra Phillips.

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. CNN's LIVE FROM begins right now.

Digging, scraping, listening, and praying. Two days after a waterlogged mountain came down on a southern California neighborhood, 10 people are known dead; 10 have been pulled out alive; 10 are still unaccounted for. California's governor expected to tour the ruins of La Conchita any minute now.

CNN's Rusty Dornin is there with an update -- Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Seeing some helicopters in the air right now, Miles, that we believe the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is in one of them. He's scheduled to take an aerial tour of the landslide site. He'll be going over the top of that landslide that came crashing down on La Conchita on Monday.

As I said, he's going to be taking an aerial tour and then a ground tour.

The death toll here has risen to 10. This morning, a grim discovery of four bodies, a mother and her three children. Apparently, the father, the husband went to get ice cream when the landslide occurred. He came desperately trying to dig in the debris to find his children, but he was unsuccessful in doing that. They are still -- searchers are up on the landslide. They are using a lot of sensitive equipment still. It's still a rescue operation. They're trying to use dogs to see if there are any other survivors.

Now we spoke to a firefighter earlier that had tunneled into one of the survivors on Monday. And he told us how it is very important that if they reach a survivor that they don't just pull them out of the rubble.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK PINA, VENTURA COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: When you pull someone away who's pinned, if that patient's pinned for hours and hours if she's got something very large on her thigh, there's a lot of toxins that can be released. You know, you've got clots and you've got other stuff that can develop with that pin.

When you pull them, you free that. That stuff gets into the body and that could end up killing them.

So we need to assess them. And by doing that, we can start I.V.'s. We can give them pain medications. We can give them calcium chloride. We can give them other equipment to help in that toxin release when we do get them out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DORNIN: Firefighters say, though, that they have -- they have already explored the area of the slide that had larger voids, larger air pockets where someone could survive.

They're now back on the area that is more compressed, less likelihood that someone can be alive in there. They're going to be assessing later today to see whether they're going to turn the rescue operation into a recovery operation.

But for now, they're hoping that someone could be in that rubble alive -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, Rusty, I suppose the wreckage of a home could actually offer some sort of air pocket or shelter for somebody, couldn't it?

DORNIN: That's right, but what happens is, the edges of the landslide offer those larger pockets where, perhaps there was a table or someone behind a door that got wedged.

But as you -- the back of the slide is much more compressed. And as time goes on, it continues to compress. So they just have to evaluate whether any of these voids are large enough that someone could truly survive.

O'BRIEN: It's truly horrifying. All right, Rusty Dornin, thank you very much -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: Unbelievable images. This, too, is pretty unbelievable. Now you see it; now you don't see quite so much of it.

It is a giant boulder of Topanga Canyon, 25 feet in diameter. It landed on a major thoroughfare near Malibu and it ended up on the front pages of newspapers around the country.

It was just too big to lift, too dangerous to roll. So road crews blew it up, sort of. They didn't want to make a giant hole in the road, so they're kind of chipping away at it a bit at a time. They're using relatively small detonations to turn the rock slowly into gravel.

Californians aren't suffering alone. This is St. George, Utah.

The same storms that brought historic rains to Southern California and unbelievable snow to the mountains have washed away an estimated 20 homes in southwest Utah.

The governor declared Washington County a state disaster area, although the sheriff says water levels have dropped as much as six feet since yesterday. The Utah floods are blamed for one death so far -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras, scanning her maps, working with her gadgets and her computers. Very busy place up there.

Jacqui, what's the long-term forecast out there?

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Jacqui Jeras, thank you very much -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: Well, old struggles caused new concerns in the tsunami zone today.

Long before Indonesia's Aceh province was racked by an earthquake and monster wave, it was a battlefield. Now, government officials are making aid workers and journalists declare their travel plans in rebel territory or face expulsion.

Officials also are refusing to let U.S. Marines, who were hoping to build roads, to carry weapons or set up camps. Nor will they let U.S. fighter jets based on the USS Abraham Lincoln fly training missions in Indonesian airspace.

In response, the Lincoln, from which many of the aid flights were based, sails into international waters.

And speaking of waters, new computer analysis from scientists shows the killer tsunamis caused ripples around the world. The quake that unleashed them is said to have had the force of a million atom bombs.

O'BRIEN: Indonesia's neighbor to the south is in the grip of ferocious wildfires, meanwhile, that have killed nine already, the most in 20 years. They're still on the move. Australia's Eyre Peninsula has gotten the worst of it, as we hear from correspondent Haden Cooper of Australian broadcasting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HADEN COOPER, AUSTRALIAN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It looks like the end of the world. With the land ablaze, dazed residents of North Shields take to water to escape the searing heat of the flames.

Today in many towns across the lower Eyre Peninsula, the twisted and blackened reminders of yesterday yesterday's devastating horror.

The intense flames caught just about everyone by surprise. In 40-degree plus temperatures, the inferno raced across the countryside, faster than any previous fire in South Australia, taking lives and destroying many homes in its path. It's now rated as one of the nation's worst blazes.

EUAN FERGUSON, COUNTRY FIRE SERVICE: Under those sorts of conditions, there's no power known to mankind which can extinguish those flames.

COOPER: Today, the devastating human cost became clearer. Sue Smith lost everything she owned.

SUE SMITH, FIRE VICTIM: I was in there doing the dishes when they came out and said, "Look, guys, go." Grab the child and the dog and that's it. That's all I'd taken.

COOPER: Just across the street, a popular local schoolteacher was killed. And in this car, a mother and two children died while frantically trying to escape the choking smoke and flames.

JOHN HOWARD, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Express my profound sadness and sympathy, myself and my wife and my colleagues, to those who have been so suddenly devastated for the loss of life.

COOPER (on camera): For all the havoc that this fire caused across the region, it was especially brutal here at this caravan park, north of Port Lincoln. As the flames roared over the surrounding hills, residents were forced to run to the beach.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: All right. Now that reference in that piece to 40 degrees is of course Celsius, which in Fahrenheit would be in excess of 100 degrees.

At last word, the fires had burned almost 400,000 acres. Six were still unaccounted for.

Tonight's edition of CNN's "NEWSNIGHT" will be devoted entirely to extreme weather, from tornadoes to tsunamis. It's an hour of incredible image, accounts and consequences of the awesome power of nature. It all begins at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific, right here on CNN, rain or shine.

WHITFIELD: And this may have slipped under your radar, but recently, quietly, the U.S. abandoned its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

And as you probably know, almost two years after the war that was undertaken largely on WMD claims and concerns, no such weapons have been turned up.

The end of the shoe leather aspect of the investigation was not announced by the Pentagon, but was first reported in today's "Washington Post."

A U.S. intelligence official tells CNN the search team known as the Iraqi Survey Group continues to sift through documents, and we'll follow up on any new leads that might appear -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Hidden costs of your medical care.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CINDY HOLTZMAN, MEDICAL BILLING ADVOCATE: Gauze, gloves, drapes, Band-aids, even the light bulbs for your light. They will charge you for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: A lesson in reading the fine print after a man is billed more than $45,000 for a nosebleed.

An emergency landing on a Florida golf course. One survives. We'll have the rest of the story ahead on LIVE FROM.

And half naked and oversexed, it's the image of women in many rap and hip-hop videos. Should these images be out there? One magazine says it's time for you to take back the music. We'll talk about it with the magazine's editor, ahead on LIVE FROM.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: In medical news if you're trying to lose weight, diet alone won't get you there. New government food guidelines out today stress the need for daily exercise.

The guidelines, which are updated every five years, urge Americans to consume a variety of foods, control calories, exercise 30 to 90 minutes a day and increase daily intake of healthy foods.

The new guidelines will be taken into account when the government makes its first ever revision to the food pyramid later on this year.

O'BRIEN: The latest caution in the back and forth research over cell phone safety concerns your kids. The head of a British advisory group saying children under age 8 should not be given cell phones.

There's no hard evidence linking cell phones to health troubles, but some studies suggest possible links between cell phone use and nonmalignant tumors. And the safety panel says any long-term impact on children won't be known for years.

The British group recommends children use these cell phones sparingly, or text message people, instead of putting the phones up to their ears.

WHITFIELD: And imagine going to hospital for something as common as a nosebleed and getting a bill for tens of thousands of dollars. That's exactly what happened to a Georgia man.

CNN's Sharon Collins tells us how he fought back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHARON COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On September 15, Jim Carpenter was rushed to the hospital with a nosebleed.

TRACY CARPENTER, WIFE: When we walked into that emergency room that first morning at 6 a.m. with his nose -- hemorrhaging, I mean, filling up a cup, hemorrhaging, bleeding, and when we walked into the emergency room and said, "Help us," I would have paid $80,000.

COLLINS: But the bleeding did not stop. And the next day, Jim was rushed to another hospital.

(on camera) So you're scared?

JIM CARPENTER, PATIENT: Yes.

T. CARPENTER: We were terrified.

COLLINS: And you're not thinking about, like, insurance and the bills and all that?

J. CARPENTER: No. You're thinking about, what do we have to do to get this stopped?

COLLINS (voice-over): That changed when they got the hospital bills. The bill from North Fulton, the Atlanta area hospital where Jim was first taken, was $30,300.01. The bill from the second hospital, Northside, was $14,558.40.

T. CARPENTER: And we had that experience of a $30,000 bill versus a $15,000 bill, and went, uh-oh, something is wrong here. We probably would have been like every other Joe Consumer out there and paid -- our insurance companies paid what we pay.

J. CARPENTER: Paid our 20 percent.

T. CARPENTER: And we would have paid the balance.

COLLINS: Instead, frustrated and suspicious, they looked for help and hired a medical billing advocate to determine if they were overcharged.

Cindy Holtzman says common billing problems include typo, double billing and something called unbundling. HOLTZMAN: It could also be something included in the cost of your room like gauze, gloves, drapes, Band-aids, even light bulbs for your light, they will charge you for that. And those are usually bundled in the cost of a room charge, an operating room charge.

COLLINS: For example, North Fulton charged $5,852 for recovery room fees. But didn't break it down any further.

In a statement, North Fulton tells CNN, "Cooperation among hospital staff, the patient and insurance companies is helping to resolve the issue. Although this claim has not been closed, all parties are continuing to work together."

But does everyone's bill get a second look? The answer is no. And hospitals often charge to cover losses, including those caused by uninsured patients. And the uninsured can often face the highest charges, because insurance companies can negotiate lower rates.

CARMELA COYLE, AMERICAN HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION: As an example, for hospitals that do treat large number of low-income patients, large numbers of senior citizens, they may have to charge insured patients higher prices to be able to keep their doors open.

COLLINS (on camera): But $33.70 for a disposable plastic spit basin? We found one for about $3 retail.

We've all grown accustomed to paying more for things than they actually cost, be it a hot dog at the ballpark or a pair of jeans at the mall.

But let's face it; going to the hospital is no trip to the ballpark. And unlike those jeans at the mall, there aren't any price tags. Even if those price tags existed at the hospital, when you're in pain and need help, it's the last thing you're thinking about.

(voice-over) The experts we talked with agreed. America's health care system is, at times, costly, complicated, and cumbersome. At issue is how to fix it. The Carpenters say taking a closer look at the hospital bill might be a good start.

T. CARPENTER: How many people pay that kind of bill and never -- never, you know -- their insurance company never questions it and they never question it. Everybody just pays it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM...

ANN MCDONALD, MOTHER: Everyone's still like, "Are you going to name him Ronald?" And I'm like no.

O'BRIEN: What's your sign takes on a whole new meaning for this baby, born before mom makes it to the hospital. Later on LIVE FROM, drama over a Florida golf course. A plane crash caught on tape. If they'd had a parachute it might have been a different story. Later, you'll meet a pilot who's lived to tell the tale.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Well, McDonald's has always been a favorite fast food joint for kids. Well, a Missouri boy learned about the magic of Mickey D's a bit early last week.

Rebecca Wu from CNN affiliate KSDK has the story of baby McDonald.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REBECCA WU, KSDK CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Baby Chayse was supposed to be due this Wednesday. But he was ready for the world by Sunday. So when Ann McDonald and her mom had a 45-minute drive to the hospital, they were in for quite a ride.

LINDA CUNEIO, GRANDMOTHER: And she said, "Mom" -- she was real calm. "Mom, is there a hospital in Union?"

And I said, "No, why?"

And she said, "Because I feel some pressure."

WU (on camera): It was outside of this McDonald's in Union where the baby was born. Apparently, he didn't want to wait another 10 to 15 minutes to get to the hospital in Washington.

CUNEIO: I was standing right by her. I thought, "Well, I better get something. I better catch this baby." And about that time, just at that instant, the EMT walked up.

WU (voice-over): Mom and grandmom didn't even realize Chayse was born under the golden arches. But the irony isn't lost on others.

MCDONALD: And of course everyone's still like, "Are you going to name him Ronal?"

And I'm like, "No."

And since his middle name is Weston, I said, "Well, I guess we could name him Windstar since he was born in the front seat of the minivan."

WU: Even Ann's husband, who is currently serving in Iraq, joked about it when he heard the good news.

MCDONALD: Instead of cigars, we'll send McDonald's hamburgers.

WU: At least Rangers will always know his name, whether they realize it or not.

CUNEIO: But I went up to the nursery and this man was saying, are you the McDonald grandmother? And I said yes. And he says, "Do you know that baby will always be heard -- be thought of as the McDonald baby?"

And I said, "Yes, he will, because his name really is McDonald."

And he said, "Are you going to name him McDonald?"

I said, "No, his last name is McDonald."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Increased trade with China might have cost the U.S. technology industry more than a million jobs. Susan Lisovicz joins us from New York.

Hopefully, not the Pacific Rim. Hopefully you haven't been outsourced, Susan. But it's a tough, tough world we live in, this global economy.

(STOCK REPORT)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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Aired January 12, 2005 - 13:00   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CO-HOST: Buried under a wall of mud. Views of the amazing devastation from above, while on the ground the frantic search for survivors. We're LIVE FROM La Conchita, California.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CO-HOST: Hospital bill nightmare. The $45,000 nosebleed. Is it a symptom of a bigger problem with American health care?

O'BRIEN: Cosmic collision. Live this hour, NASA launches a mission to -- not a celestial baked potato -- but actually, it looks a little more like a chicken wing. It's a comet 268 million miles away. We'll tell you why.

WHITFIELD: Tarnished image. The image of women in rap and hip- hop music videos. A new campaign to help take back the music and open dialogue.

From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredricka Whitfield, in for Kyra Phillips.

O'BRIEN: And I'm Miles O'Brien. CNN's LIVE FROM begins right now.

Digging, scraping, listening, and praying. Two days after a waterlogged mountain came down on a southern California neighborhood, 10 people are known dead; 10 have been pulled out alive; 10 are still unaccounted for. California's governor expected to tour the ruins of La Conchita any minute now.

CNN's Rusty Dornin is there with an update -- Rusty.

RUSTY DORNIN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Seeing some helicopters in the air right now, Miles, that we believe the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is in one of them. He's scheduled to take an aerial tour of the landslide site. He'll be going over the top of that landslide that came crashing down on La Conchita on Monday.

As I said, he's going to be taking an aerial tour and then a ground tour.

The death toll here has risen to 10. This morning, a grim discovery of four bodies, a mother and her three children. Apparently, the father, the husband went to get ice cream when the landslide occurred. He came desperately trying to dig in the debris to find his children, but he was unsuccessful in doing that. They are still -- searchers are up on the landslide. They are using a lot of sensitive equipment still. It's still a rescue operation. They're trying to use dogs to see if there are any other survivors.

Now we spoke to a firefighter earlier that had tunneled into one of the survivors on Monday. And he told us how it is very important that if they reach a survivor that they don't just pull them out of the rubble.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK PINA, VENTURA COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: When you pull someone away who's pinned, if that patient's pinned for hours and hours if she's got something very large on her thigh, there's a lot of toxins that can be released. You know, you've got clots and you've got other stuff that can develop with that pin.

When you pull them, you free that. That stuff gets into the body and that could end up killing them.

So we need to assess them. And by doing that, we can start I.V.'s. We can give them pain medications. We can give them calcium chloride. We can give them other equipment to help in that toxin release when we do get them out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DORNIN: Firefighters say, though, that they have -- they have already explored the area of the slide that had larger voids, larger air pockets where someone could survive.

They're now back on the area that is more compressed, less likelihood that someone can be alive in there. They're going to be assessing later today to see whether they're going to turn the rescue operation into a recovery operation.

But for now, they're hoping that someone could be in that rubble alive -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Well, Rusty, I suppose the wreckage of a home could actually offer some sort of air pocket or shelter for somebody, couldn't it?

DORNIN: That's right, but what happens is, the edges of the landslide offer those larger pockets where, perhaps there was a table or someone behind a door that got wedged.

But as you -- the back of the slide is much more compressed. And as time goes on, it continues to compress. So they just have to evaluate whether any of these voids are large enough that someone could truly survive.

O'BRIEN: It's truly horrifying. All right, Rusty Dornin, thank you very much -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: Unbelievable images. This, too, is pretty unbelievable. Now you see it; now you don't see quite so much of it.

It is a giant boulder of Topanga Canyon, 25 feet in diameter. It landed on a major thoroughfare near Malibu and it ended up on the front pages of newspapers around the country.

It was just too big to lift, too dangerous to roll. So road crews blew it up, sort of. They didn't want to make a giant hole in the road, so they're kind of chipping away at it a bit at a time. They're using relatively small detonations to turn the rock slowly into gravel.

Californians aren't suffering alone. This is St. George, Utah.

The same storms that brought historic rains to Southern California and unbelievable snow to the mountains have washed away an estimated 20 homes in southwest Utah.

The governor declared Washington County a state disaster area, although the sheriff says water levels have dropped as much as six feet since yesterday. The Utah floods are blamed for one death so far -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras, scanning her maps, working with her gadgets and her computers. Very busy place up there.

Jacqui, what's the long-term forecast out there?

(WEATHER REPORT)

O'BRIEN: Jacqui Jeras, thank you very much -- Fred.

WHITFIELD: Well, old struggles caused new concerns in the tsunami zone today.

Long before Indonesia's Aceh province was racked by an earthquake and monster wave, it was a battlefield. Now, government officials are making aid workers and journalists declare their travel plans in rebel territory or face expulsion.

Officials also are refusing to let U.S. Marines, who were hoping to build roads, to carry weapons or set up camps. Nor will they let U.S. fighter jets based on the USS Abraham Lincoln fly training missions in Indonesian airspace.

In response, the Lincoln, from which many of the aid flights were based, sails into international waters.

And speaking of waters, new computer analysis from scientists shows the killer tsunamis caused ripples around the world. The quake that unleashed them is said to have had the force of a million atom bombs.

O'BRIEN: Indonesia's neighbor to the south is in the grip of ferocious wildfires, meanwhile, that have killed nine already, the most in 20 years. They're still on the move. Australia's Eyre Peninsula has gotten the worst of it, as we hear from correspondent Haden Cooper of Australian broadcasting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HADEN COOPER, AUSTRALIAN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It looks like the end of the world. With the land ablaze, dazed residents of North Shields take to water to escape the searing heat of the flames.

Today in many towns across the lower Eyre Peninsula, the twisted and blackened reminders of yesterday yesterday's devastating horror.

The intense flames caught just about everyone by surprise. In 40-degree plus temperatures, the inferno raced across the countryside, faster than any previous fire in South Australia, taking lives and destroying many homes in its path. It's now rated as one of the nation's worst blazes.

EUAN FERGUSON, COUNTRY FIRE SERVICE: Under those sorts of conditions, there's no power known to mankind which can extinguish those flames.

COOPER: Today, the devastating human cost became clearer. Sue Smith lost everything she owned.

SUE SMITH, FIRE VICTIM: I was in there doing the dishes when they came out and said, "Look, guys, go." Grab the child and the dog and that's it. That's all I'd taken.

COOPER: Just across the street, a popular local schoolteacher was killed. And in this car, a mother and two children died while frantically trying to escape the choking smoke and flames.

JOHN HOWARD, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: Express my profound sadness and sympathy, myself and my wife and my colleagues, to those who have been so suddenly devastated for the loss of life.

COOPER (on camera): For all the havoc that this fire caused across the region, it was especially brutal here at this caravan park, north of Port Lincoln. As the flames roared over the surrounding hills, residents were forced to run to the beach.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: All right. Now that reference in that piece to 40 degrees is of course Celsius, which in Fahrenheit would be in excess of 100 degrees.

At last word, the fires had burned almost 400,000 acres. Six were still unaccounted for.

Tonight's edition of CNN's "NEWSNIGHT" will be devoted entirely to extreme weather, from tornadoes to tsunamis. It's an hour of incredible image, accounts and consequences of the awesome power of nature. It all begins at 10 p.m. Eastern, 7 p.m. Pacific, right here on CNN, rain or shine.

WHITFIELD: And this may have slipped under your radar, but recently, quietly, the U.S. abandoned its search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

And as you probably know, almost two years after the war that was undertaken largely on WMD claims and concerns, no such weapons have been turned up.

The end of the shoe leather aspect of the investigation was not announced by the Pentagon, but was first reported in today's "Washington Post."

A U.S. intelligence official tells CNN the search team known as the Iraqi Survey Group continues to sift through documents, and we'll follow up on any new leads that might appear -- Miles.

O'BRIEN: Hidden costs of your medical care.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CINDY HOLTZMAN, MEDICAL BILLING ADVOCATE: Gauze, gloves, drapes, Band-aids, even the light bulbs for your light. They will charge you for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: A lesson in reading the fine print after a man is billed more than $45,000 for a nosebleed.

An emergency landing on a Florida golf course. One survives. We'll have the rest of the story ahead on LIVE FROM.

And half naked and oversexed, it's the image of women in many rap and hip-hop videos. Should these images be out there? One magazine says it's time for you to take back the music. We'll talk about it with the magazine's editor, ahead on LIVE FROM.

ANNOUNCER: You're watching LIVE FROM on CNN, the most trusted name in news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: In medical news if you're trying to lose weight, diet alone won't get you there. New government food guidelines out today stress the need for daily exercise.

The guidelines, which are updated every five years, urge Americans to consume a variety of foods, control calories, exercise 30 to 90 minutes a day and increase daily intake of healthy foods.

The new guidelines will be taken into account when the government makes its first ever revision to the food pyramid later on this year.

O'BRIEN: The latest caution in the back and forth research over cell phone safety concerns your kids. The head of a British advisory group saying children under age 8 should not be given cell phones.

There's no hard evidence linking cell phones to health troubles, but some studies suggest possible links between cell phone use and nonmalignant tumors. And the safety panel says any long-term impact on children won't be known for years.

The British group recommends children use these cell phones sparingly, or text message people, instead of putting the phones up to their ears.

WHITFIELD: And imagine going to hospital for something as common as a nosebleed and getting a bill for tens of thousands of dollars. That's exactly what happened to a Georgia man.

CNN's Sharon Collins tells us how he fought back.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SHARON COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On September 15, Jim Carpenter was rushed to the hospital with a nosebleed.

TRACY CARPENTER, WIFE: When we walked into that emergency room that first morning at 6 a.m. with his nose -- hemorrhaging, I mean, filling up a cup, hemorrhaging, bleeding, and when we walked into the emergency room and said, "Help us," I would have paid $80,000.

COLLINS: But the bleeding did not stop. And the next day, Jim was rushed to another hospital.

(on camera) So you're scared?

JIM CARPENTER, PATIENT: Yes.

T. CARPENTER: We were terrified.

COLLINS: And you're not thinking about, like, insurance and the bills and all that?

J. CARPENTER: No. You're thinking about, what do we have to do to get this stopped?

COLLINS (voice-over): That changed when they got the hospital bills. The bill from North Fulton, the Atlanta area hospital where Jim was first taken, was $30,300.01. The bill from the second hospital, Northside, was $14,558.40.

T. CARPENTER: And we had that experience of a $30,000 bill versus a $15,000 bill, and went, uh-oh, something is wrong here. We probably would have been like every other Joe Consumer out there and paid -- our insurance companies paid what we pay.

J. CARPENTER: Paid our 20 percent.

T. CARPENTER: And we would have paid the balance.

COLLINS: Instead, frustrated and suspicious, they looked for help and hired a medical billing advocate to determine if they were overcharged.

Cindy Holtzman says common billing problems include typo, double billing and something called unbundling. HOLTZMAN: It could also be something included in the cost of your room like gauze, gloves, drapes, Band-aids, even light bulbs for your light, they will charge you for that. And those are usually bundled in the cost of a room charge, an operating room charge.

COLLINS: For example, North Fulton charged $5,852 for recovery room fees. But didn't break it down any further.

In a statement, North Fulton tells CNN, "Cooperation among hospital staff, the patient and insurance companies is helping to resolve the issue. Although this claim has not been closed, all parties are continuing to work together."

But does everyone's bill get a second look? The answer is no. And hospitals often charge to cover losses, including those caused by uninsured patients. And the uninsured can often face the highest charges, because insurance companies can negotiate lower rates.

CARMELA COYLE, AMERICAN HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION: As an example, for hospitals that do treat large number of low-income patients, large numbers of senior citizens, they may have to charge insured patients higher prices to be able to keep their doors open.

COLLINS (on camera): But $33.70 for a disposable plastic spit basin? We found one for about $3 retail.

We've all grown accustomed to paying more for things than they actually cost, be it a hot dog at the ballpark or a pair of jeans at the mall.

But let's face it; going to the hospital is no trip to the ballpark. And unlike those jeans at the mall, there aren't any price tags. Even if those price tags existed at the hospital, when you're in pain and need help, it's the last thing you're thinking about.

(voice-over) The experts we talked with agreed. America's health care system is, at times, costly, complicated, and cumbersome. At issue is how to fix it. The Carpenters say taking a closer look at the hospital bill might be a good start.

T. CARPENTER: How many people pay that kind of bill and never -- never, you know -- their insurance company never questions it and they never question it. Everybody just pays it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN (voice-over): Next on LIVE FROM...

ANN MCDONALD, MOTHER: Everyone's still like, "Are you going to name him Ronald?" And I'm like no.

O'BRIEN: What's your sign takes on a whole new meaning for this baby, born before mom makes it to the hospital. Later on LIVE FROM, drama over a Florida golf course. A plane crash caught on tape. If they'd had a parachute it might have been a different story. Later, you'll meet a pilot who's lived to tell the tale.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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WHITFIELD: Well, McDonald's has always been a favorite fast food joint for kids. Well, a Missouri boy learned about the magic of Mickey D's a bit early last week.

Rebecca Wu from CNN affiliate KSDK has the story of baby McDonald.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

REBECCA WU, KSDK CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Baby Chayse was supposed to be due this Wednesday. But he was ready for the world by Sunday. So when Ann McDonald and her mom had a 45-minute drive to the hospital, they were in for quite a ride.

LINDA CUNEIO, GRANDMOTHER: And she said, "Mom" -- she was real calm. "Mom, is there a hospital in Union?"

And I said, "No, why?"

And she said, "Because I feel some pressure."

WU (on camera): It was outside of this McDonald's in Union where the baby was born. Apparently, he didn't want to wait another 10 to 15 minutes to get to the hospital in Washington.

CUNEIO: I was standing right by her. I thought, "Well, I better get something. I better catch this baby." And about that time, just at that instant, the EMT walked up.

WU (voice-over): Mom and grandmom didn't even realize Chayse was born under the golden arches. But the irony isn't lost on others.

MCDONALD: And of course everyone's still like, "Are you going to name him Ronal?"

And I'm like, "No."

And since his middle name is Weston, I said, "Well, I guess we could name him Windstar since he was born in the front seat of the minivan."

WU: Even Ann's husband, who is currently serving in Iraq, joked about it when he heard the good news.

MCDONALD: Instead of cigars, we'll send McDonald's hamburgers.

WU: At least Rangers will always know his name, whether they realize it or not.

CUNEIO: But I went up to the nursery and this man was saying, are you the McDonald grandmother? And I said yes. And he says, "Do you know that baby will always be heard -- be thought of as the McDonald baby?"

And I said, "Yes, he will, because his name really is McDonald."

And he said, "Are you going to name him McDonald?"

I said, "No, his last name is McDonald."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

O'BRIEN: Increased trade with China might have cost the U.S. technology industry more than a million jobs. Susan Lisovicz joins us from New York.

Hopefully, not the Pacific Rim. Hopefully you haven't been outsourced, Susan. But it's a tough, tough world we live in, this global economy.

(STOCK REPORT)

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