PATIENT`S DEATH TRIGGERS INQUIRY

Filmmaker’s
tribute to youth
N + D w e e k end
J.J. Abrams’
“Super 8” is tons
of summer fun.
F r iday • J u ne 1 0 , 2 0 1 1
THE DAILY DEAL
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M O R E T H A N 1 , 0 0 0 , 0 0 0 R E A D E R S W E E K LY
S I G N O N S A N D I E G O. C O M
Learning to fight wildfire at camp pendleton
Today’s deal is brought to
you by our paid advertising partner La Jolla Brew
House. Get $50 worth of
amazing food, drinks and
more for only $25, today
at signonsandiego.com
Tim e to vote
U-T editorial cartoonist
Steve Breen asked you
to draw your dad, and he
received some wonderful
responses. He will choose
his favorite entries for
publication in the
newspaper and at
signonsandiego.com.
You can have a say by
going to uniontrib.com/
draw-dad and voting for
the drawing you like most.
(Click on the images to
expand them.) The unscientific poll will close at
5 p.m. June 17.
We’ll highlight the winner,
runners-up and Breen’s
picks on Father’s Day,
June 19. The grand-prize
winner from the online
voting will
receive
four
tickets
for a day
at the
ballpark in
downtown
San Diego.
U.S. Forest Service firefighter Ray Chavez, from the Angeles National Forest, uses flammable liquid to start a fire for training
Thursday at Camp Pendleton. For more photos of the exercise, go to uniontrib.com/firetraining. CHARLIE NEUMAN • U-T
Hundreds of firefighters
from throughout Southern
California have converged
on Camp Pendleton this
week for wildland fire training.
The Fire School is being
conducted through today
and includes real fires for
hands-on training.
About 50 firefighting
agencies are participating in the exercise, which
is designed to give chiefs
and their crews experience
in sizing up and attacking
wildland blazes.
Agencies taking part
include the U.S. Forest
Service, Camp Pendleton
Fire Department, Bureau
of Land Management, Cal
Fire, several tribal fire departments and county and
municipal fire departments
from jurisdictions in Southern California.
J. HARRY JONES • U-T
Major Arizona wildfires
NEVADA
ARIZONA
Las Vegas
Flagstaff
15
40
CALIFORNIA
10
San Diego
100 miles
crews seek gains
against Ariz. fire
UTAH
17
Wallow
Phoenix
8
Horseshoe 2
U.S.
Tucson
-Me
bord xico
Murphy
er
Sources: ESRI; Tele Atlas
10
The gusty winds that have been fueling
the Wallow fire slowed somewhat Thursday, allowing firefighters to make some
headway against the blaze, which has
charred more than 386,000 acres and
caused thousands of people to flee mountain resort communities.
U-T
i ns i de
a5
Th e Wo rld
troop levels in
Iraq: Leon Panetta,
the president’s choice
to head the Pentagon,
predicted on Thursday
that Iraq will ask the
United States to keep
some U.S. forces in that
country beyond year’s
end, the current departure date.
A4 • Turmoil in
Syria: Syrian police-
men turned their guns
on each other, soldiers
shed their uniforms
rather than obey orders
to fire on protesters,
and three young men
who tried to escape
were beheaded by
forces loyal to President
Bashar Assad.
T he nation
patient’s death
triggers inquiry
Chula Vista woman did not
survive stomach-banding
surgery at Tijuana hospital
Sandra Dibble • U-T
Cheronna Marie Williams, who worried about her weight for years, thought
she had finally found a solution. Together
with a friend, she headed to Tijuana for
stomach-banding surgery, a procedure
that normally takes less than an hour.
Williams, a 33-year-old from Chula
Vista, did not survive the May 26 surgery.
This week, Williams’ family filed a
complaint with the Baja California At-
torney General’s Office against Dr. Pedro
Kuri, a Tijuana physician with years of
experience in Lap-Band surgery who
operates at a top private hospital. The
office has launched an investigation.
“I have never been explained what really happened to my daughter and why,”
her mother, Phyllis Ackerman-Gainer,
said from her home in the Eastlake community. Gainer said even though Kuri
has delivered the news by phone and
in person in Tijuana, she still wonders
about the cause of death and how it could
have happened.
Williams’ death comes as Mexico is
preparing a major campaign to promote medical tourism among U.S. and
SEE surgery • a2
blistering heat
continues: A third
day of heat smothered
the eastern half of the
country, making tornado cleanup miserable
in Massachusetts and
causing power outages
in sections of Detroit.
At least seven deaths
have been blamed on
the heat, which is expected to subside today.
Mark Patterson, the
artist behind
the Surfing
Madonna,
attended a
mosaics school
in Italy and
upon his return
to Encinitas
quit his job at a
software company to carry
out his vision.
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John Gastaldo
U-T
Madonna mosaic maker speaks
Encinitas man worked for nine months on now-famous artwork
Jonathan Horn • u-t
Meet the man behind the
Surfing Madonna.
He’s Mark Patterson,
58. He’s lived in Encinitas
since 1983.
He has gray hair. He’s of
average height and slender. He used to work in the
software industry. And
he believes in saving the
ocean. Now, Patterson’s
an internationally famous
artist because of his rogue
piece of Our Lady of Guadalupe riding a surfboard
next to the words “Save the
Ocean.”
“I’m not a public figure.
I don’t feel like a public figure and suddenly becoming one is a little spooky,”
he said in an interview
Thursday with the U-T.
Before Wednesday, the
identity of the artist was
unknown. The novice artist
revealed himself this week
in response to the city progressing with its plan to
remove the mosaic.
The 10-foot-by-10-foot
Madonna appeared mysteriously April 22 (which
was Good Friday and Earth
Day). Patterson and another person dressed as conSEE Madonna • A6
S tat e Bu d g e t Wat c h
lawmakers have
incentive to act
If budget isn’t passed by Wednesday, they
will lose pay each day until a deal is reached
Michael Gardner • U-T
Legislative pay
SACRAMENTO
For decades, lawmakers have routinely blown
through a June 15 deadline
to pass a state budget, knowing there wasn’t a penalty
for breaking the rule even
though it’s enshrined in the
California Constitution.
No more. This year, for
the first time, each rankand-file lawmaker stands
to lose $402.93 in salary
and expense money for every day that they fail to seal
a deal beyond the Wednesday deadline. And they will
not get checks retroactively.
Once it’s gone, it’s gone.
This year, the deadline has
created a sense of urgency.
Rank-and-file lawmakers earn a base salary of
$95,291 in addition to a
daily expense check of
$141.86 on days the Legislature is in session.
Senate leaders announced
Thursday they will work
through the weekend to
seek a budget agreement.
The pay-cut provision was
put in play by voters last fall
when they approved Proposition 25 that tells lawmakers: no budget, no pay.
If the impasse extends as
long as the record 100-day
SEE Budget • a2