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Live From...
Refinery Explosion; Memory Overload
Aired March 24, 2005 - 13:39 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, CNN ANCHOR: Fifteen people reported dead in a massive oil-refinery explosion near Houston we first told you about yesterday. Dozens more workers injured. Some of them hospitalized in serious condition.
Reporter Steven Dean from our Houston affiliate KPRC has more on the hazardous consequence of a dangerous industry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHEN DEAN, CNN AFFILIATE KPRC REPORTER (voice over): In the first few minutes, firefighters poured water from all angles, then more smoke as an entire row of work trucks erupted in flames.
Then, we saw the sheer desperation among the vast pile of debris, where most of the victims were trapped. Watch this. A despondent worker actually walking into the jet of water and right on to the pile of debris, despite several fire hoses being trained on the very spot he's checking. He's hoping to find a coworker he had been with minutes earlier.
Then, eight minutes later, more rescuers fight through the smoke looking for survivors as well, one fireman rushing in, hoping for any sign of life.
One hour after the explosion, a full team of 20 rescuers can finally dig into the rubble now that the fire has died down. A backboard is moved into place, as workers dig into a hole and finally survivors are reached. Workers with even faint signs of life are carried out to waiting ambulances.
Here, firefighters are working loose, large sections of debris, while another team is digging out beyond them. And then come more survivors. A second is carried out at 2:24. A third worker is carried out 10 minutes later. And then once a crane comes in to move a section of collapsed building, there is another.
These rescue teams had to fight flare-ups as they moved piles, putting themselves in danger. And then an emotional sign that there were no more survivors.
Here, the entire search and rescue operation halts as rescuers bow their heads in a moment of silence for those who could not make it out alive.
(END VIDEOTAPE) O'BRIEN: Once again, our thanks to KPRC for that. Those killed were reportedly doing maintenance work on a unit that enhances gasoline octane when the explosion happened.
Sizable oil spill north of Los Angeles won't affect the drinking water supply. That's the word from the L.A. County emergency officials working since yesterday to contain and skim off more than 125,000 gallons of crude, now floating on Pyramid Lake. A landslide this week ruptured a nearby pipeline, workers shut off the pipe, cordoned off the affected part of the lake, and expect the environmental impact to be minimal.
PHILLIPS: Doctors in Florida think that several children may have been exposed to a life-threatening infection at a petting zoo. All parents are going to want to listen up. That story straight ahead.
Then we'll introduce you to a soldier just back from the war. Find out how he's dealing with memories most soldiers would like to forget.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: News across America now. Central Florida, a seventh child sick with a potentially fatal kidney infection. The common link between the kids -- they all touched animals recently at various small town fair petting zoos. Five of the children hospitalized in critical condition. Their illness is believed caused by the E. coli bacteria. Health officials are investigating.
West Coast, San Jose now. Customer at a Wendy's restaurant orders chili and finds a finger, the hard way. Events followed, as you might imagine. A Wendy's spokesman says they're looking into how it happened, not ready to point the finger yet. The finger doesn't belong to any Bay Area Wendy's employees, however. And they did, in fact, check all digits.
And get a look at George Bailey here. You may not think he's getting along well, but consider that he's getting used to his new prosthetic hind legs. There you go, he's doing well. The year-and-a- half-old house cat was born without them and this is the first recipient of an experimental artificial limb procedure. Veterinarians are pleased with his progress and fully expect George Bailey to be up and shredding the sofa in no time at all.
PHILLIPS: All right. For some American troops, returning from the war in Iraq is only -- well, the war is only a heartbeat away, but returning from Iraq is quite sudden and a sudden sight or sound can trigger a flood of overwhelming memories. Now doctors are gaining a new understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder and how it affects the brain.
Here's CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SPC. ESTEBAN LORA, ARMY NATIONAL GUARD: There are a lot of things that I see day to day that remind me of Iraq. Like for the new year's, to walk outside your door and you see all these things flying around and you hear the firecrackers popping. It's like for a second, you're like whoa.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Esteban Lora is 22 years old, a college student in Miami and a war veteran with a Purple Heart. He battled insurgents in the notorious Sunni Triangle.
In the fall of 2003, he was wounded by a roadside bomb and sent home. The scars on his hand and foot have healed over, but mentally...
LORA: I was angry. Very emotional. Very emotional.
GUPTA: A doctor at the Miami V.A. hospital diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder.
PTSD encompasses a wide range of symptoms. Nightmares and flashbacks are common. A signature complaint is that the smallest stimulants, like a noise, triggers a flood of painful, overwhelming memories.
Today standard treatments for PTSD are anti-depressants and group and individual therapy. Lora's doctors say that by seeking and receiving treatment early on, his chance of recovery is excellent. Research also backs up what several doctors and patients told us: social support tends to help as much as anything.
LORA: Relief came when -- when you're sitting around with your -- you know, the same guys you were in Iraq with and they say, "Hey, man, I'm having these problems." And you open up to them. And they're like, "Dude, let's get help. Let's go."
The most painful thing for me is to -- is to sit in a room or go to drill and know that you're among heroes. That's my thing. It's not painful; it's just painful because it's so joyful. I know people who are heroes, real life heroes, and they're my friends.
GUPTA: With a wedding planned for June and two years left to a political science degree, this hero is putting his life back together. He's one of the lucky ones.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Now Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks further into the mystery of memory Sunday night. What causes our all too frequent memory lapses and what can you do to improve your memory. That's Sunday, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.
Now still ahead on CNN LIVE FROM, an entertainment system that fits right into your pocket. That's right. The latest must-have gadgets coming up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right, great news today for you gadget heads out there, young and old. The must-have gizmo of the next 10 minutes has arrived, if you can find one, that is. Hardcore geeks longed up before dawn today to get their hands on one. Our technology guru, the God of geekdom, Daniel Sieberg, fills us in.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If your pockets feel a bit full, well, you might need to make room for the latest got to have it gadget. Sony's PSP or PlayStation Portable, is now on sale in the U.S. for about $250.
SCOTT STEINBERG, VIDEO GAME REVIEWER: The PlayStation portable plays movies. It plays music. It plays games. And it functions as a PDA. It even has wifi Internet access.
SIEBERG: "Spider-Man 2" is one of the first movies available, along with about two dozen games for starters.
One glance at the sleek device and you know it's going to make waves. Sony unveiled the PSP with much fanfare at a trade show last May, then released it in Japan in December, where the black cased palm player went white hot.
Sony reportedly delayed the upcoming European launch to make more units available in the states.
But the PSP faces fierce competition. Nintendo, which has long been the hand held leader, has a new one called the DS. Nokia's N- Gage, a combination cell phone and game device, is also out there. And hundreds of game titles are downloadable to many cell phones, offering a continuing way to get games on the go.
(on camera) Apple's iPod isn't aimed at gamers, but Sony clearly has the popular music player in its sights. Just a coincidence: they both have white head phones.
STEINBERG: I think iPod is probably going to be the predominant gadget in terms of the casual user. But certainly, as an all-purpose gadget, the PlayStation Portable is unmatched.
SIEBERG (voice-over): Sony brought us the first portable more than 20 years ago and touts the PSP as the Walkman of the 21st Century.
Retailers say preorders for the PSP were through the roof. And with demand so high, analysts are predicting more than a million could be sold in the first few days. The trick may be getting your hands on one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: And incidentally, if you do get your hands on one, one of the complaints is that the scene, although very nice, tend to get marked up fairly easily if you start touching it, it sort of smudges very easily. So I want to show you something here...
O'BRIEN: Why did you just do that?
SIEBERG: I know, I'm sorry about that. But see, Sony actually of that, and they included a cleaning cloth to so you can get in here and get intimate with your PSP and start cleaning off the screen, so.
O'BRIEN: That's one of those, wait, there's more -- a cleaning cloth included. The truth of the matter is, we can talk about all of these, but this one in particular, Sony really needs a hit in this realm. And the iPod is just cleaning their clock. The one thing about this is may do too much, may be too big to really eat away at the iPod customer base. What do you think?
SIEBERG: Right, because it is a very multimedia type of device. It's a little cheaper than an iPod, but of course the storage space of an iPod is much bigger, and this is Sony's first foray into the handheld market. They're really going up against Nintendo as well. And you talk about competition, I mean, these -- Nintendo's been around for about 15 years doing this. They just came out with the Nintendo DS not too long ago. It has the dual screen, the touchscreen, and they had the Gameboy of course forever. So they're also competing with them in that system.
O'BRIEN: All right, the one you have to buy these proprietary Sony discs, which is kind of like shades of Betamax. It's a risky move, isn't it?
SIEBERG: Exactly. Sony's pushing these discs. They look the same, the universal media discs, whether it's the movie or the game. They about 20 bucks for the movie, about 40 to 50 bucks for the game. And you just pop it in the back. But you know, it's getting a lot of good reviews, I have to say. I mean, so if you want to spend the money on it and, you know, stay up on latest gadget, then it may be something you have to have.
O'BRIEN: And a thumbs up from you as a gamer, right?
SIEBERG: This is a loaner, but I'm going to hold on to it as long as I can.
O'BRIEN: All right, thank you, Daniel Sieberg, appreciate that.
Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, trouble for some massive rulers of the Arctic ice pack, polar bears.
PHILLIPS: We're going to take you to Churchill, Manitoba where climate change is a matter of life and death for the bears in Hudson Bay.
LIVE FROM's second hour begins right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired March 24, 2005 - 13:39 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Fifteen people reported dead in a massive oil-refinery explosion near Houston we first told you about yesterday. Dozens more workers injured. Some of them hospitalized in serious condition.
Reporter Steven Dean from our Houston affiliate KPRC has more on the hazardous consequence of a dangerous industry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEPHEN DEAN, CNN AFFILIATE KPRC REPORTER (voice over): In the first few minutes, firefighters poured water from all angles, then more smoke as an entire row of work trucks erupted in flames.
Then, we saw the sheer desperation among the vast pile of debris, where most of the victims were trapped. Watch this. A despondent worker actually walking into the jet of water and right on to the pile of debris, despite several fire hoses being trained on the very spot he's checking. He's hoping to find a coworker he had been with minutes earlier.
Then, eight minutes later, more rescuers fight through the smoke looking for survivors as well, one fireman rushing in, hoping for any sign of life.
One hour after the explosion, a full team of 20 rescuers can finally dig into the rubble now that the fire has died down. A backboard is moved into place, as workers dig into a hole and finally survivors are reached. Workers with even faint signs of life are carried out to waiting ambulances.
Here, firefighters are working loose, large sections of debris, while another team is digging out beyond them. And then come more survivors. A second is carried out at 2:24. A third worker is carried out 10 minutes later. And then once a crane comes in to move a section of collapsed building, there is another.
These rescue teams had to fight flare-ups as they moved piles, putting themselves in danger. And then an emotional sign that there were no more survivors.
Here, the entire search and rescue operation halts as rescuers bow their heads in a moment of silence for those who could not make it out alive.
(END VIDEOTAPE) O'BRIEN: Once again, our thanks to KPRC for that. Those killed were reportedly doing maintenance work on a unit that enhances gasoline octane when the explosion happened.
Sizable oil spill north of Los Angeles won't affect the drinking water supply. That's the word from the L.A. County emergency officials working since yesterday to contain and skim off more than 125,000 gallons of crude, now floating on Pyramid Lake. A landslide this week ruptured a nearby pipeline, workers shut off the pipe, cordoned off the affected part of the lake, and expect the environmental impact to be minimal.
PHILLIPS: Doctors in Florida think that several children may have been exposed to a life-threatening infection at a petting zoo. All parents are going to want to listen up. That story straight ahead.
Then we'll introduce you to a soldier just back from the war. Find out how he's dealing with memories most soldiers would like to forget.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: News across America now. Central Florida, a seventh child sick with a potentially fatal kidney infection. The common link between the kids -- they all touched animals recently at various small town fair petting zoos. Five of the children hospitalized in critical condition. Their illness is believed caused by the E. coli bacteria. Health officials are investigating.
West Coast, San Jose now. Customer at a Wendy's restaurant orders chili and finds a finger, the hard way. Events followed, as you might imagine. A Wendy's spokesman says they're looking into how it happened, not ready to point the finger yet. The finger doesn't belong to any Bay Area Wendy's employees, however. And they did, in fact, check all digits.
And get a look at George Bailey here. You may not think he's getting along well, but consider that he's getting used to his new prosthetic hind legs. There you go, he's doing well. The year-and-a- half-old house cat was born without them and this is the first recipient of an experimental artificial limb procedure. Veterinarians are pleased with his progress and fully expect George Bailey to be up and shredding the sofa in no time at all.
PHILLIPS: All right. For some American troops, returning from the war in Iraq is only -- well, the war is only a heartbeat away, but returning from Iraq is quite sudden and a sudden sight or sound can trigger a flood of overwhelming memories. Now doctors are gaining a new understanding of post-traumatic stress disorder and how it affects the brain.
Here's CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) SPC. ESTEBAN LORA, ARMY NATIONAL GUARD: There are a lot of things that I see day to day that remind me of Iraq. Like for the new year's, to walk outside your door and you see all these things flying around and you hear the firecrackers popping. It's like for a second, you're like whoa.
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Esteban Lora is 22 years old, a college student in Miami and a war veteran with a Purple Heart. He battled insurgents in the notorious Sunni Triangle.
In the fall of 2003, he was wounded by a roadside bomb and sent home. The scars on his hand and foot have healed over, but mentally...
LORA: I was angry. Very emotional. Very emotional.
GUPTA: A doctor at the Miami V.A. hospital diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder.
PTSD encompasses a wide range of symptoms. Nightmares and flashbacks are common. A signature complaint is that the smallest stimulants, like a noise, triggers a flood of painful, overwhelming memories.
Today standard treatments for PTSD are anti-depressants and group and individual therapy. Lora's doctors say that by seeking and receiving treatment early on, his chance of recovery is excellent. Research also backs up what several doctors and patients told us: social support tends to help as much as anything.
LORA: Relief came when -- when you're sitting around with your -- you know, the same guys you were in Iraq with and they say, "Hey, man, I'm having these problems." And you open up to them. And they're like, "Dude, let's get help. Let's go."
The most painful thing for me is to -- is to sit in a room or go to drill and know that you're among heroes. That's my thing. It's not painful; it's just painful because it's so joyful. I know people who are heroes, real life heroes, and they're my friends.
GUPTA: With a wedding planned for June and two years left to a political science degree, this hero is putting his life back together. He's one of the lucky ones.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN, Atlanta.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PHILLIPS: Now Dr. Sanjay Gupta looks further into the mystery of memory Sunday night. What causes our all too frequent memory lapses and what can you do to improve your memory. That's Sunday, 10:00 p.m. Eastern, only on CNN.
Now still ahead on CNN LIVE FROM, an entertainment system that fits right into your pocket. That's right. The latest must-have gadgets coming up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
O'BRIEN: All right, great news today for you gadget heads out there, young and old. The must-have gizmo of the next 10 minutes has arrived, if you can find one, that is. Hardcore geeks longed up before dawn today to get their hands on one. Our technology guru, the God of geekdom, Daniel Sieberg, fills us in.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECHNOLOGY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): If your pockets feel a bit full, well, you might need to make room for the latest got to have it gadget. Sony's PSP or PlayStation Portable, is now on sale in the U.S. for about $250.
SCOTT STEINBERG, VIDEO GAME REVIEWER: The PlayStation portable plays movies. It plays music. It plays games. And it functions as a PDA. It even has wifi Internet access.
SIEBERG: "Spider-Man 2" is one of the first movies available, along with about two dozen games for starters.
One glance at the sleek device and you know it's going to make waves. Sony unveiled the PSP with much fanfare at a trade show last May, then released it in Japan in December, where the black cased palm player went white hot.
Sony reportedly delayed the upcoming European launch to make more units available in the states.
But the PSP faces fierce competition. Nintendo, which has long been the hand held leader, has a new one called the DS. Nokia's N- Gage, a combination cell phone and game device, is also out there. And hundreds of game titles are downloadable to many cell phones, offering a continuing way to get games on the go.
(on camera) Apple's iPod isn't aimed at gamers, but Sony clearly has the popular music player in its sights. Just a coincidence: they both have white head phones.
STEINBERG: I think iPod is probably going to be the predominant gadget in terms of the casual user. But certainly, as an all-purpose gadget, the PlayStation Portable is unmatched.
SIEBERG (voice-over): Sony brought us the first portable more than 20 years ago and touts the PSP as the Walkman of the 21st Century.
Retailers say preorders for the PSP were through the roof. And with demand so high, analysts are predicting more than a million could be sold in the first few days. The trick may be getting your hands on one.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: And incidentally, if you do get your hands on one, one of the complaints is that the scene, although very nice, tend to get marked up fairly easily if you start touching it, it sort of smudges very easily. So I want to show you something here...
O'BRIEN: Why did you just do that?
SIEBERG: I know, I'm sorry about that. But see, Sony actually of that, and they included a cleaning cloth to so you can get in here and get intimate with your PSP and start cleaning off the screen, so.
O'BRIEN: That's one of those, wait, there's more -- a cleaning cloth included. The truth of the matter is, we can talk about all of these, but this one in particular, Sony really needs a hit in this realm. And the iPod is just cleaning their clock. The one thing about this is may do too much, may be too big to really eat away at the iPod customer base. What do you think?
SIEBERG: Right, because it is a very multimedia type of device. It's a little cheaper than an iPod, but of course the storage space of an iPod is much bigger, and this is Sony's first foray into the handheld market. They're really going up against Nintendo as well. And you talk about competition, I mean, these -- Nintendo's been around for about 15 years doing this. They just came out with the Nintendo DS not too long ago. It has the dual screen, the touchscreen, and they had the Gameboy of course forever. So they're also competing with them in that system.
O'BRIEN: All right, the one you have to buy these proprietary Sony discs, which is kind of like shades of Betamax. It's a risky move, isn't it?
SIEBERG: Exactly. Sony's pushing these discs. They look the same, the universal media discs, whether it's the movie or the game. They about 20 bucks for the movie, about 40 to 50 bucks for the game. And you just pop it in the back. But you know, it's getting a lot of good reviews, I have to say. I mean, so if you want to spend the money on it and, you know, stay up on latest gadget, then it may be something you have to have.
O'BRIEN: And a thumbs up from you as a gamer, right?
SIEBERG: This is a loaner, but I'm going to hold on to it as long as I can.
O'BRIEN: All right, thank you, Daniel Sieberg, appreciate that.
Coming up in our second hour of LIVE FROM, trouble for some massive rulers of the Arctic ice pack, polar bears.
PHILLIPS: We're going to take you to Churchill, Manitoba where climate change is a matter of life and death for the bears in Hudson Bay.
LIVE FROM's second hour begins right after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
