Veterans Hospital

With the aroma of chili and baked potatoes in the air, more than 50 veterans and staff members from the Veterans Administration hospital in North Hills got a taste Friday of healthy cooking. Before any food was consumed, the packed conference room became a classroom as culinary arts students from James Monroe High School and two VA dietitians provided a lesson on how to prepare healthy and delicious meals.

Federal investigators have documented almost 3,000 medical mistakes and mishaps in less than two years at veterans hospitals around the country, and more than 700 patients have died in those cases, according to a New York Times report. The Department of Veterans Affairs says in a new report that the accidents and deaths occurred from June 1997 to December 1998, in the first 19 months of a new policy that requires employees to report medical errors and "adverse events."

The University of California has agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle a federal whistle-blower lawsuit charging falsification of records and poor supervision of patients by UC Irvine anesthesiologists. The suit said anesthesiologists at the university's medical center filled out patient care reports before procedures started, “making it appear the anesthesiologist was present” when he or she wasn't.   The lawsuit was brought by Dr. Dennis O'Connor, a former professor of anesthesiology at UCI School of Medicine, who will receive $120,000 of the settlement.

Area residents have an opportunity to show their gratitude to veterans by signing a giant greeting card that will be delivered Thursday to veterans at Long Beach Veterans Hospital. The eight-foot card will be in the grocery store at Newport Dunes aquatic resort, Pacific Coast Highway and Jamboree Avenue, from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. today and Thursday morning. At noon on Thursday, there will be a signing ceremony and at 1:30 p.m. the card will be delivered to the hospital.

It was Aug. 12, 1975, when Herb Oles had what he calls "the accident." He was teaching his 4-year-old daughter, Jody, to dive in an above-ground swimming pool while on vacation in New York state. The water was 40 inches deep, just enough for a child to dive in safely. Oles was standing on a ladder at the water's edge when the ladder slipped and he fell in, head first. "I went right to the bottom and hit the top of my head, and as far as I know, that's all she wrote," he said.

About This Story Italics designate statements recalled by subjects in the story. Statements heard by the writer are enclosed in quotation marks. [Unpublished Note: The italics may not display depending upon the archiving system you are using.] * ON THE WEB To see recent Column One articles, visit latimes.com/ columnone * The timekeeper carried his bell. Once he had used it to control boxing matches. Now he used it to honor the dead.

Veterans' hospitals are prepared for a new responsibility of treating U.S. military personnel wounded in the war against Iraq, Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward J. Derwinski told Congress today. "We will be able to absorb the flow of casualties," Derwinski said in testimony to the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the department. "The morale is high. We are ready to go," added Dr. James Holsinger, chief medical director of the department.

She was a self-described "cartoon," a zany housewife-turned-comedian with an electrified hairdo who broke into the male-dominated world of stand-up comedy in the 1950s with an outlandish wardrobe and a barrage of self-deprecating jokes punctuated by her trademark guffaw. "I spent seven hours today at the beauty parlor; hell, that was just for the estimate," Phyllis Diller would say on stage, firing off one joke after another. "I'm in the 14th year of a 10-day beauty plan. " Diller, whose stand-up career spanned nearly 50 years, died in her sleep Monday at her longtime home in Brentwood, said her agent, Fred Wostbrock.

Brush in hand, UCLA junior Jacob Castaneda was hard at work Tuesday, spreading a fresh coat of brown paint on the exterior of a classroom bungalow at Samuel Gompers Middle School. He was among an army of about 4,600 UCLA volunteers who came to the South Los Angeles campus and seven other spots around the region for a day of community service. "It's always nice to reach out to the community and it's always great to help out kids," said Castaneda, a Mid-City resident who recently transferred to UCLA from Santa Monica College.

A man who abducted his two daughters 20 years ago, told them their mother was dead and made a new life for them under assumed names in Florida pleaded guilty Friday to kidnapping and was sentenced to probation and a $100,000 fine. Stephen Fagan, who could have gotten 20 years in prison, struck a plea bargain that called for five years of probation.