Georgia news

COMPILED BY JENNIFER J. HEWETT

Southern Literary Trail, festival kicks off this month

Two stops on the new Southern Literary Trail are Andalusia, the historic home of Flannery O’Connor in Milledgeville, and Erskine Caldwell’s birthplace home in Moreland. (Photo courtesy Milledgeville CVB; inset photo by Jackie Kennedy.)

Georgia joins with Alabama and Mississippi this month to celebrate some of the South’s greatest 20th-century authors and playwrights as well as the designation of the Southern Literary Trail. This historic linking of 18 Southern communities, towns and landmarks across the tri-state area, is the first of its kind on such a scale.

This month, towns, libraries, museums and courthouses between Savannah and Natchez, Miss., will be the backdrop for historic tours, plays, films, readings and discussion panels celebrating Southern literature. Georgia towns on the trail include Atlanta, Clayton, Columbus, Milledgeville, Moreland and Savannah, and writers include Margaret Mitchell, Joel Chandler Harris, Lillian Smith, Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor, Alice Walker and Erskine Caldwell.

For more information, see www.southernliterarytrail.org.

Peanut product recall continues

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have traced back the sources of illnesses caused by Salmonella Typhimurium to peanut butter and peanut paste produced by the Peanut Corp. of America at its Blakely-based processing plant. As a result, both human and pet foods manufactured by a variety of sources have been recalled.

For a link to the FDA and CDC’s Web page with all products affected by the recall, click on the “Peanut Butter Recall” link on GEORGIA Magazine’s home page, www.georgiamagazine.org.

New this year are Dulce de Leche cookies with milk caramel chips and topped with drizzled caramel stripes. Other Girl Scout cookies include Samoas, Trefoils, Tagalongs, Do-Si-Dos, Lemon Chalet Cremes, Sugar-Free Chocolate Chips and the all-time favorite, Thin Mints.

March is cookie time!

With irresistible boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas, Tagalongs and more—this month Girl Scouts will be out and about wrapping up cookie sales as part of their annual entrepreneurial program that helps girls gain money-management, decision-making, cooperative-learning and goal-setting skills.

More than 90,000 Georgia Girl Scouts are participating in this year’s cookie sales.

Each box sells for $3.50, with proceeds benefiting each participating Girl Scout troop, plus program development and resource materials for girls and volunteers.

Troops will be setting up sales booths at local grocery stores, retail stores and festivals throughout the state. To find a Girl Scout Council near you, visit www.girlscoutcookies.org or www.girlscouts.org. To find a cookie booth, visit cookielocator.littlebrownie.com.

The ‘golden hour’: A matter of life and death

Nearly three years ago, Ben Shuman of Morganton was driving his pickup in rural Gwinnett County when another driver ran a stop sign, hitting Shuman’s driver’s-side truck bed at 50 miles per hour, causing the truck to veer off the road and roll twice. Ejected during the accident, the 22-year-old was found 10 feet away from his truck by his brother-in-law, who was following him.

Since his accident, Ben Shuman went on to graduate Feb. 6 from Nashville Auto Diesel College in Nashville, Tenn. (Photo courtesy the Shuman family.)

Gwinnett EMS Station 8 responded, and the LifeNet helicopter medical service transported him to Grady Memorial Hospital, a designated Level I trauma center in downtown Atlanta. Shuman arrived at Grady just a few minutes outside of the “golden hour,” and received trauma resuscitation. Medical imaging scans and X-rays indicated serious skull fractures and brain injuries. He was taken into surgery for an immediate craniotomy.

According to the Georgia Statewide Action Team (GSTAT), a coalition of hospitals, emergency providers, physicians, nurses and others interested in creating a statewide trauma system, a trauma patient’s chances of survival increase dramatically if care is received within the “golden hour” immediately following injury.

“Ben’s evaluation at a trauma center gave him the edge for survival,” says his mother, Sherry Shuman, a nurse practitioner.

Shuman and his family strongly support the expansion of the trauma care system in Georgia, says Sherry. “Most people do not realize that there is inadequate trauma coverage, even in some parts of the Atlanta area,” she says. “Had Ben’s accident occurred outside of the Atlanta area, his chances of survival would have been greatly reduced.”

Consider these statistics:

•  Studies report that as many as one-third of trauma deaths occurring in areas without an organized trauma care system are preventable.

•  Georgia’s trauma death rate is significantly higher than the national average: 63 of every 100,000 people compared to the national average of 56. If Georgia’s death rate improved to the national average, it would mean a difference of as many as 700 more lives saved every year.

•  Although some regions of Georgia have excellent trauma care, gaps exist. Millions of Georgians live and work at least two hours away from timely trauma care.

•  Most hospitals with an emergency room are not trauma centers. In Georgia, only 15 of the state’s 152 acute-care hospitals are trauma centers—an alarmingly inadequate number. Georgia should have approximately 25-30 designated trauma centers in strategic locations.