Railroaders place to shoot the shit.

Snippy · Force Majeure

Brokenrail Dead at age 61

Troll · 500 - Internal Server Error

Brokenrail suffers stroke; hospitalized

Calvin · Upgraded Condition?

Troll wrote:
I hope they got to him within 3 hours of the onset of the stroke and administered the clot buster "TPA".

I was reading somewhere that now they pack you in ice and really bring your core temperature down, and that helps stop a lot of damage to your heart muscle. pretty soon, you'll be able ta have a stroke and not have any bad results at all...

Snippy · Force Majeure

Brokenrail dead at age 61

Troll · 500 - Internal Server Error

Recognize a stroke's warning signs

(The death of UTU National Legislative Director James Brunkenhoefer, following a stroke, was tragic. While the UTUs medical consultant, Dr. Norman K. Brown, says some strokes are not remedial," there is much a person can do to avoid serious consequences following a stroke -- but the warning signs must be recognized and immediate treatment is essential.

Dr. Brown has requested we again publish his 2004 essay on strokes. Other essays on medical issues by Dr. Brown can be found at www.utu.org by clicking on "Healthcare" in the blue tile box to the left of the home page and then clicking on "Health Columns by Dr. Norman K. Brown.")

By Dr. Norman K. Brown
UTU Medical Consultant

Most of us would agree that we should do all we can to preserve and protect the working of our brains, the part of us that makes us who we are and different from each other.

Aside from head injuries, the most common damage to our brain comes from circulation difficulties.

These difficulties can occur from too little blood flowing to one area of the brain because of a clot in the blood vessel, or too much blood flowing to one place because of a sudden blood vessel leak, or hemorrhage. Both are commonly referred to as "strokes."

There are steps each of us can and should be taking to reduce the chances of our having either of these types of strokes.

A cholesterol deposit in a brain artery triggers the most common clot-type injury. So, just as we can watch our diets (weight), engage in exercise, reduce or eliminate smoking, and control blood pressure and diabetes to protect our hearts, there are programs to protect our brain's blood vessels.

It is always difficult to start and to stick to such programs, but your doctor will always be pleased to try to help you. Medications for both cholesterol reduction and blood pressure control are available to bolster your efforts. These medications have advanced greatly in effectiveness over the past 20 years.

The occurrence of the hemorrhagic or bleeding type of stroke, which is less common, is also reduced by attention to "blood vessel/heart healthy" programs -- such as control of blood pressure.

Once the possibility of a stroke is present, there are some newer techniques for treating strokes that give us new hope -- in particular, medications or lasers that help break up or dissolve blood clots and even devices such as snares and blades that are being developed to attempt removal of clot material.

These last methods are still experimental, but for some people the results have been encouraging. In all cases, the time from the onset of symptoms to when treatment begins is extremely important.

When I say the sooner the better, I am talking about three to six hours maximum after the first symptoms. Former President Bill Clinton saved his own life by not waiting too long in the presence of symptoms of potential heart-muscle damage.

Let's review some of the symptoms of early or threatened strokes:

-- Sudden onset of weakness or clumsiness or numbness in an arm and/or leg, usually without pain;

-- Walking or balance problems;

-- Speech difficulty;

-- Sudden vision loss;

-- Sudden onset of very severe headaches.

If any of these happen to you or a loved one, please seek medical help immediately.

Your health will always be way ahead if you think prevention because protecting your heart and the blood vessels throughout your body will help you to a longer, healthier life.

December 23, 2008

Snippy · Force Majeure

I think Norman left out "puking in the parking lot".

Troll · 500 - Internal Server Error

-- Sudden onset of weakness or clumsiness or numbness in an arm and/or leg, usually without pain;

-- Walking or balance problems;

-- Speech difficulty;

-- Sudden vision loss;

-- Sudden onset of very severe headaches.

Well I can tell you I had the balance problems and vision loss in my right eye. Loud ringing and pressure in my ears and spewing like a puke fountain. I don't recall any pain but I was unable to answer my cell phone which was in my shirt pocket.

If you see anyone with these systems, note the time they started and tell the paramedics to pass on the time to the doctor in ER. TPA is clot busting drug which minimizes the affects of the stroke but has to be given within 3 hrs of the onset of a stroke.

Troll · 500 - Internal Server Error

Snippy wrote:

I think Norman left out "puking in the parking lot".

I added that......

Troll · 500 - Internal Server Error

Brokenrail memorial set Jan. 28 on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON A memorial service honoring James "Brokenrail" Brunkenhoefer, the UTUs longest serving national legislative director, will be held Wednesday, Jan. 28, at 3 p.m. eastern time in Room 2167 of the Rayburn House Office building here.

That is the main hearing room of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee and its Rail Subcommittee, and was where Brokenrail spent thousands of hours during his career monitoring hearings and testifying on rail, bus and air-related hearings affecting UTU members.

Among the speakers at the memorial service will be House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn.) -- a long-time and close friend of Brokenrail and UTU International President Mike Futhey. Other speakers will be announced at a later date.

The service will be beamed electronically to a video screen in Room 2253 of the Rayburn Building should there be an overflow crowd, and it will be available live on the Internet, and, later, on the UTU Web site.

Following the service, refreshments will be served.

Brunkenhoefer died Dec. 19, at age 61 after suffering a stroke two days earlier.

Also a member of the UTU and United Transportation Union Insurance Association (UTUIA) boards of directors, he was serving his fifth term as the UTU's chief lobbyist and was one of the mostly widely recognized individuals on Capitol Hill.

Futhey said on the day of Brokenrail's passing:

"Our union lost a congressional lobbyist considered by his peers, by the lawmakers he lobbied, and by their senior staff as one of the most effective in Washington at his trade.

"Brokenrail prided himself on making friends for us on both sides of the congressional aisle. Whether explaining our issues to Democrats or Republicans, he was interested in only one result: Do they understand the issue from a UTU member's perspective?

"He didn't win all lawmakers over to our point of view, but he continued cultivating those who voted against us, recognizing that tomorrow is another day, and it is better to have friends in Congress than enemies.

"Brokenrail made for this union a lot of good friends in high places, which helped us to achieve many legislative and regulatory agency goals we might otherwise have failed to achieve. He will be sorely missed."

Brunkenhoefer was born July 23, 1947, in Texas, and began his railroad career in 1966 as a trainman for the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. on the Dallas-Sabine District.

He was promoted to engineer in 1971, and held seniority in train and engine service crafts over those Union Pacific lines in Texas and Louisiana.

He was elected vice local chairperson of Local 83 in Houston in 1969. Brunkenhoefer also served the members of Local 83 as local president, local vice president, member of the local's board of trustees, local chairperson, local legislative representative, delegate and special organizer.

In 1980, he was elevated to alternate Texas state legislative director, and in 1982 assumed the full directorship of the Texas State Legislative Board.

At the UTU's Fifth Quadrennial Convention in 1987, Brunkenhoefer was elected national legislative director, and was re-elected to that post at subsequent UTU conventions in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007.

He is survived by his wife, Judy Sinkin, of McLean, Va.

January 8, 2009

Troll · 500 - Internal Server Error

The unshakable legacy of James Brunkenhoefer

(Pat Foran, editor of Progressive Railroading magazine, wrote the following article)

He was "Brokenrail" to all who knew him and those who simply knew of him. He sometimes spoke in parables, and his passion as an advocate -- for rail labor, for rail, for people -- spoke volumes about what he valued most in this life: the people he shared it with. Last month, his many friends reflected on how fortunate they'd been to be on the receiving end of that sharing.

On Dec. 19, James Brunkenhoefer, longtime national legislative director for the United Transportation Union, died after suffering a stroke two days earlier. He was 61.

"On the professional side, he was UTU first -- you knew that, everybody knew that," says Union Pacific Railroad Vice President of External Relations Michael Rock, a friend for 20 years. "But to me, his life was much more than that."

Just as it was for countless others who call the transportation industry home. The Texas-born Brunkenhoefer began his railroad career in 1966 as a trainman for the Southern Pacific Transportation Co. on the Dallas-Sabine District. He earned his nickname shortly thereafter. ("None of the old switchmen where he hired out could pronounce his name," Rock says.)

Promoted to engineer in 1971, Brunkenhoefer held seniority in train and engine service crafts over UP lines in Texas and Louisiana. In 1969, he was elected vice chairperson of Local 83 in Houston. Brunkenhoefer also served Local 83 as local president, VP, a member of the board of trustees, chairperson, legislative representative, delegate and special organizer. In 1980, Brunkenhoefer was named alternate Texas state legislative director, and in 1982, he assumed the full directorship of the Texas State Legislative Board.

At UTU's Fifth Quadrennial Convention in 1987, he was elected national legislative director. He was re-elected in 1991, 1995, 1999, 2003 and 2007. For good reason.

"Whether explaining our issues to Democrats or Republicans, he was interested in only one result: Do they understand the issue from a UTU member's perspective?" said UTU International President Mike Futhey in a prepared statement. "He didn't win all lawmakers over to our point of view, but he continued cultivating those who voted against us, recognizing that tomorrow is another day, and it is better to have friends in Congress than enemies."

Brunkenhoefer also counted many friends in the railroad realm. "He believed in labor, like all labor union people should, but he also wanted the railroads to do well," says longtime friend Dewey Garland, director of the Railroad and Shipyard Department for the Sheet Metal Workers' International Association. "For union people to do well, the company they worked for had to do well. He knew that."

And rail advocates knew that he knew it. Brunkenhoefer's rail-world view set him apart on the Hill; he played a role in the passage/defeat of most every key piece of rail industry legislation during the past two decades.

"It was his integrity, his honesty. He didn't leave you hanging as to what he was thinking," says Association of American Railroads President and CEO Ed Hamberger. "When he made a commitment, he stood by it. He was dedicated to his union brothers and sisters, but also to the industry, to railroading."

Adds rail analyst/transportation consultant Tony Hatch: "He truly did look at the bigger picture. He understood that, above and beyond the intramural disputes, the pie, as he put it, needed to grow in order to argue about the size of the slice. He was a very effective advocate for the industry as a whole."

Brunkenhoefer also had his own way of advocating. Well-versed in a range of subjects ("He knew a little about everything, and a whole lot about a few things," Garland says), the well-traveled Brunkenhoefer was a good listener, an intuitive communicator and, when required, an idiosyncratic educator.

"He had a way of conveying things -- all those colorful aphorisms," says BNSF Railway Co.'s VP of Federal Government Affairs Amy Hawkins, a fellow Texan who in the early 1990s served as a staffer for former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. "If you were trying to learn something, he would bring it to you in a way that would help you understand. He actually did speak in parables."

For Hawkins, the morals of Brunkenhoefer's stories sunk in; he taught her "more about the X's and O's of railroading" during her early years in the industry than anyone else. But Hawkins, like everybody else contacted for this story, considered Brunkenhoefer a friend first. "He took a personal interest in my life," she says. "He always knew what my kids were up to." He always knew because he always asked.

"'How's that boy of yours doing?' is what I would hear, and he always asked about my wife," says Garland. "He cared. It went way beyond the normal call of duty."

That's because for Brokenrail, it wasn't about duty at all.

"The thing that really stood about him is that he was just a great person," says UP's Rock. "No matter what side of an issue we were on, one thing that was constant was he was still your friend. There wasn't anything that was going to shake that."

Likewise for his legacy.

"He was a great ambassador for every trade," Hawkins says. "In his passing, that will even become more true because it causes all of us to stop and appreciate each other."

'It's just such a big loss," adds Hatch, who had the honor of attending minor league baseball games in "obscure parts of the country" with Brunkenhoefer, an avid fan. "He was one of the real characters in this business. I can't tell you how much I will miss him."

Brunkenhoefer is survived by his wife, Judy Sinkin. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions in his name to be made to: So Others May Eat, 71 O Street NW, Washington, DC 20001.

(The preceding article by Pat Foran appeared on the Web site www.progressiverailroading.com on January 12, 2009.)

January 12, 2009

Railroaders place to shoot the shit.

This is the official end of my post.