Stunning Statistics On The Health Of Children.

I forgot. Well I didn't but according to the following article 18.5 percent of doctors working in hospitals forgot to return to the task that they were working on.

http://health.yahoo.com/news/healthday/interruptionsmakedoctorslosetrackoftasks.html

I honestly don't find this surprising because doctors are people too. I know when I am interrupted it takes me a bit of time to get back to what I was doing. Sometimes never returning to the task at hand. However, my work would hardly be considered life saving while the doctors' would be.

Are you surprised by the article? How do you handle being interrupted?

I was stunned by some statistics in the following article:

http://health.yahoo.com/news/healthday/almosthalfofdeathsinkidsunder5occurin5countries.html

"Infectious diseases such as pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and blood poisoning account for more than two-thirds of the 8.8 million annual deaths in kids under five years of age worldwide, a new report shows. Almost half of these deaths occurred in just five countries -- China, Nigeria, India, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Pakistan."

I am completely stunned that in today's world we are losing 8.8 million children under five per year. Wow have we ever failed.

What is your reaction to the article?

WHO AM I?

Yesterday's answer was the late great Mary Ludwig "Molly Pitcher" Hays. Although most people remember me as being underground I am more well known than most of The Dahn Report's Who Am Is. Because slave owners didn't record the birth of slaves the year of my birth is uncertain being either 1820 or 1821 in the great state of Maryland. I died in 1913 in Autumn, New York. My ancestors were brought to America from Africa in shackles. I began working at a young age first being sent away from home when I was five and loaned out to another plantation checking muskrat traps in icy cold rivers. I quickly became too sick to work and was returned, malnourished and suffering from the cold exposure. Once she recovered I was loaned out to another plantation, working as a nurse to the planter's infant child. By the age of 12 I was working as a field hand, plowing and hauling wood. At 13 because I defended a fellow slave who tried to run away, my overseer struck me in the head with a two-pound weight. This resulted in recurring narcoleptic seizures, or sleeping spells, that plagued me the rest of my life. In 1844 I married John, gaining permission to marry him from my owners. When I told my husband that my dream was to one day be free, he told me that I would never be free and if I tried running away, he would turn me in. On one of my first return visits to Maryland, I went to John's cabin in hopes of getting him to go north with me. I found that he had taken another wife. Later in 1869, I married again but never had any children. In the years before the Civil War I freed over 300 blacks from slavery in the South to freedom in the North. They nicknamed me Moses. In 1849 alone and on foot I ran away from the plantation in the middle of the night and followed the north star to free land in Pennsylvania. It came about after my master died and I heard rumors that I and two of my brothers were to be sold to a chain gang. my brothers left with me, but became scared, deciding not to take the risk, returning to the plantation. I had bravely won my freedom but realizing how alone I was I vowed that I would help my family and friends win their freedom. I found work cooking, laundering and scrubbing, and saved money to finance rescue trips. I became involved with the city's large and active abolitionist organizations and with organizers of the Underground Railroad, a secret network through which slaves were helped in escaping from bondage in the South to freedom in the North and Canada. I undertook some 20 hazardous missions in which I covertly journeyed down south, pinpointed slaves, and led them to freedom up north, at times going as far as Canada. In leading these flights, with a long rifle in hand, I warned my escapees that, if any of them even considered surrendering or returning, the penalty would be death. My persuasiveness was evident in that never on any of my missions did I lose a "passenger." My name quickly spread throughout the slave quarters and abolitionist societies, angering the Southern slaveholders, who offered $40,000 for my capture. I always avoided capture, even when my illiteracy nearly got me caught when I fell asleep under my own wanted poster. During the Civil War I served with the Union Army as a cook, laundress, nurse, scout, and spy. I continued helping others after the war. I raised money for freedmen's schools, helped destitute children and continued caring for my parents. In 1868 I transformed my family's home into the Home for Aged and Indigent Colored People. When I died in 1913 I was given a full military funeral and was buried in Fort Hill Cemetery. Who is this woman that in 1944, Eleanor Roosevelt christened the Liberty Ship after?