Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 6

1 EllTEnTAIIILlBlT: OD DON'T WORRY, SCUD: The battle between networks and cable nears a showdown, but Ch. 13 weather dog Is in no danger. section SUNDAY, OCTOBER 3,. 1993 I TIMES 7 Broad! irtsw rySs will change off Ece syrcpeiry COLtMjIST By CAROL GENTRY Time Staff Writer MARY JO MELOHE The state Board of Medicine says it's trying to protect the public because there is no regulation or oversight of surgery in a doctor's office. Edward Dauer.

The board delayed the effective date of the rule until Feb. 1, so the state will have time to notify Florida's 30,000 physicians and they can adapt their practices accordingly. Dr. Richard Cavallaro, chairman of the committee that drew up the rules, said he was prodded by the memory of two healthy patients who died because of anesthesia mistakes in office procedures. One was toddler Bethany Morris, who died in a laser operation in Palm Harbor three years ago.

Board of Medicine members say they're trying to protect the public because there is no regulation or oversight of surgery in a doctor's office. Cost-containment efforts and strict hospital standards have pushed many procedures out of their traditional hospital settings and into lower-cost alternatives. In addition, increasingly strict hospital credentialing has pushed marginal surgeons out the door. When operations are done in a hospital or Please see SURGERY 6B MIAMI Sweeping new rules that will govern Florida doctors who perform surgery in their offices were adopted Saturday by the Florida Board of Medicine. Office surgery, currently unregulated, would be barred unless the physician has appropriate qualifications, properly trained assistants and resuscitation equipment.

"This is going to have a major impact on physicians," said medical board chairman Dr. The angels won't let her stumble SPRING HILL You should get a load of this. It is a picture that belongs in the Nike ads. But it is too messy, and too true, to make the magazines and their u-flsroh-J 1 i perfect pictures. So there is only this moment, on a I surprisingly cool morning on a flat residential street in this supposed retirement paradise.

Some paradise. A lunatic is on the loose. He's already murdered four older women, burned their houses, terrified everybody else, Elaine O'Brien included. But that's too bad. Elaine is in train ppopair area for tiomnie An aerial photograph at left shows the destruction at Park Royale Mobile Home Village in Pinellas Park after a tornado roared through on Oct.

3, 1992. Below is the park a year later. Pf-: -r IS ing. We are not kidding, even though her Nike Airs are still on layaway. The New York Marathon is in six' weeks, right there in her hometown that is far more dangerous than Spring Hill, although at the moment, who can tell? Elaine already In three minutes one year ago, a tornado ripped parts of Pinellas County.

What have people learned? I JzzliL -Kr-- iJ By WAYNE GARCIA Timet Staff Writer jhas her official number. F6650. She'll finish those 26 miles, through Manhattan, over the bridges, through the other boroughs, even if it kills her. But it will not kill her. She is what used to be called one tough cookie, even though the part about tough is mostly show.

So here we are on the street where mLtMUmtr-m t.M i mm 4. i 1 4 I rlZ Elaine lives with her husband and daughter, the youngest of her children. Elaine is checking the watch that measures her David Bilodeau got up about 5 a.m. that Saturday because he knew a powerful line of thunderstorms was heading through the Tampa Bay area. Bilodeau, director of Pinellas County's emergency management service, went back to bed five hours later after he saw the storms pass on radar.

It was 10:30 a.m. Oct. 3, 1992. Three minutes later, the first tornado was reported. 1 pulse.

It can go over 180, she says. Not jbad for a 59-year-old woman who raised 'nine kids. Her feet are already moving, I first walking, then trotting almost, then faster, faster, off on her training loop. And her mouth is working. "I run 2Vi 17 i-v-, miles.

I talk 20. Really. Words fall as fast as her feet, in a string of bittersweet one-liners. It may be because she is half-Irish, and Catholic, but I swear she is talking to God. I only eavesdrop.

I also try to keep up. Eavesdropping is easier, i husband and I got married on Sept. 15, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. I tell him. 'Joe.

if I had known it ONE YrjAn LATER 1 1 1 tilt wi i Winds can whip up memories of fear Bilodeau soon learned his 911 dispatch center was going to "Condition 5," meaning emergency operators were swamped with calls and could send help to only the most dire cases. Miles away, Pinellas Park City Manager Ron Forbes got the news firsthand. His wife was about to fix him a bowl of soup for lunch at 11:30 a.m. when howling winds reached a fevered pitch outside his home in the Autumn Run-Beacon Run neighborhood. The Forbeses ran for cover.

A block and a half away, homes were being flattened by winds that may have reached 206 mph. The tornadoes a year ago today touched down in at least eight heavily populated neighborhoods in Pinellas County. They killed four people, injured 130 others and left 30,000 homes and businesses without power. Damage was tens of millions of dollars. But for all their devastation, the tornadoes brought some valuable lessons.

"We feel we're prepared to respond again if necessary," Forbes said. "I hope we won't have to." Please see LESSONS 7B end of that sentence, the kitchen windows imploded." She scooped up Tooch and headed for the bathroom, narrowly escaping a barrage of flying glass. "The house was total blackness. I couldn't really see anything. But I could feel the force of the wind in my face.

It was like standing up in a convertible that is moving 100 mph right inside your house." Once the twister rolled away, four people were dead and neighborhoods from the south beaches to mid-Pinellas County had been ripped apart. The Thomases were left Please see WINDS 7B before." She gained that respect Oct. 3, 1992, when black clouds and whirling winds turned a lazy Saturday morning into the most frightening 20 seconds of her life. Thousands of Pinellas County residents were caught off guard by the killer tornadoes. "The rain had just stopped and my husband had walked out to the back porch," Mrs.

Thomas said, recalling the seconds before the tornado touched down. "I was sitting at the kitchen table writing a letter and all of a sudden he screamed, 'Lynn, there is a tornado. Grab Tooch and get in the By the time he got to the An expert says surviving a tornado can be as traumatic as surviving a war. By NICHOLE M. CHRISTIAN Times Staff Writer PINELLAS PARK On days when the wind rumbles and the hedges rustle behind her house, Lynn Thomas runs for cover.

"I grab Tooch," Mrs. Thomas said of her white Lhasa apso, "and we go sit in the bathroom. I know what the wind can do. I have more respect for it now than ever Jthen, I might have thought twice before I jsaid But nobody knows. You just take jwhat comes.

The love. The losses. You 'get a lot of both when you have your own jdemons, plus a big family. The rape of a daughter. The death of a son, the youngest, in a train accident, and a daughter-in-law.

And now, the daily knowledge that another son, the loldest, is HIV-positive, Is this too much for one person, or jwhat? "Those who are closest to God do have to carry the burden. Those who are 'farthest from God also have to carry the I never know which one I am." i She prays anyway. And she runs. It icalms her. "The only thing that calmed down before," she says, not joking, Valium and booze." I "My mentor is a buddy down the 'street." He has bone cancer.

He uses a jcane. "He has to be able to get around coffee table, and I have to run two miles. Progress is relative." She runs three times a week. "Two 45-minute runs and one good one. I'm bot going to be breaking any records.

I just want to finish (the marathon) with a ilittle dignity." She figures she will run a 15-minute mile. If she is really lucky, it'll be more like 12, 13. All she has to do is hold back for the first 7 miles. Then let loose. Anybody can finish even a first-timer late middle age, who carries the record of her life in her face and her words and who got married on the feast day of Our Lady of Sorrows, "The only thing that will defeat me is 'my feet or my attitude.

Deep down inside, I still think I'm a loser." I Know anybody who doesn't? I don't. The main difference between people, as far as I can tell, is whether they can mask this terrible feeling about themselves, and whether they can beat it. Elaine O'Brien can't hide a thing, and she is fighting like hell. I am out of breath. Elaine is slowing down for my benefit.

I am almost 20 years younger, and she is very pleased, This is like a stroll in the park," she says, talking not at all like a loser. "I am in good shape, aren't Yes, I say, still gasping. Finally, we slow down, then stop. We are at her home again. Elaine O'Brien makes a joke.

On marathon day, she will be the last to start, except for the handicapped runners. Another joke. The nice thing about the New York marathon is it is the one day of the year that the city is really safe, She promises to play her marathon number in the lottery. And she makes a prediction. "I'm going to run it in eight or nine hours.

And I won't even start until 11 o'clock so I'll finish in the dark. But I always pray for miracles. Maybe the angels will wing me home." CSiiilss: To dwb or ircot to cyo TIMES DIGEST Will the governor suffer the slings and arrows of campaigning? State Democrats hope so. By BILL MOSS Timet Staff Writer the convention was a defense of trying to get things done even if they're not popular. "Our focus has been to do the right thing, not the safe thing," he said.

"You can have safe sex, but you can't have safe public policy. You can't do that if your first concern is what will it cost me politically." The crowd gave him a warm reception, but not a raucous one. Hillary Clinton swept the Democrats off their feet. U.S. Sen.

Bob Graham more committed, more consistent or better governor in the entire country than Lawton Chiles," she said, igniting a chorus of "Four more years." Campaign trappings and an adoring crowd in place, the timing looked perfect for Chiles to announce his reflection plans. The only thing missing was Chiles' cooperation. As always, he goes by his clock and gut feeling, what he calls his "inner voice." "I think people certain II Death rumors exaggerated? TAMPA A man claiming to be cult leader David Koresh stood on top of a roof in downtown Tampa on Saturday and said he had returned from the dead. But only a handful of people showed up for the resurrection, and most were reporters. "I expected hundreds of thousands of Christians to be out here," said Charles Eidson, head of the Church of the Avenger on Kennedy Boulevard, site of Koresh's alleged return.

Late last week, Eidson distributed a news release alerting the media that an unknown survivor of the Branch Davidian compound would deliver a statement at 4 p.m. Saturday outside the Tampa Freedom Center, 1902 Kennedy Blvd. The man's message, however, was muffled by the rush of traffic on the heavily traveled street. Koresh died in a fire with 85 of his followers April 19 when the FBI attempted to tear-gas the compound and end a 51 -day siege in Waco, Texas. Correction A television column published Saturday gave a different name for the Civil War novel the Killer Angels, written by the late Michael Shaara, a former St.

Petersburg police officer. Lawton Chiles won't say yet if he'll run for re-election next year. ORLANDO Florida Democrats wore buttons and waved placards Saturday urging Gov. Lawton Chiles to "Just Do It" run for re-election. Party leaders heaped on the praise.

A video chronicled the first term so far of Chiles and Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay. The hall of 2,000 delegates at the Democratic convention clapped to a recording of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers singing, "I won't back down. I'll stand my ground." A splendid endorsement came from featured speaker Hillary Rodham Clinton.

"I don't think there is a braver, said he expects Chiles to run, and win. "Has he made the decision himself? I doubt it," Graham said. "I think if he had made it, particularly if the decision was not to run, his actions would be more obvious and would Please see CHILES 6B ly would like to know what's going on, but they're not the strategists involved in the campaign," said state Sen. Ron Silver of Miami. "I think it's to his advantage the longer he waits." Chiles acts like a candidate and sounds like one, too.

He just doesn't say he is one. His 20-minute speech to.