On October 31, 2009 Wadsworth-Rittman Hospital closed the doors of its Labor and delivery ward. Summa’s financial decision to close the ward after 39 years left 33 people unemployed. Many were nurses, and some had worked on the ward for over 20 years.
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The Final DeliveryThe Final Delivery
The labor and delivery ward at Wadsworth-Rittman hospital closed its doors on October 31, 2009. Thirty-three jobs were eliminated, many of them nurses. OB nurse Sylvia Reed had her labor induced so she could deliver her first child among her co-workers and friends. Her daughter, Aaliyah Venice Reed, was the last child delivered at Summa Wadsworth Rittman Hospital.
Losing a Friend on May 4
Multimedia by // Tessa Bargainnier
After a weekend of drinking at J.B.s Bar and partying in the streets, a small group of speech therapy majors grabbed lunch in between classes at the Student Union Monday May 4, 1970.
After sharing stories of placing flowers in soldiers rifles while enjoying the May afternoon, the friends split up and left for class.
“I went one way and Sandy went the other,” Kathy Harris said, a junior speech and mythology major at Kent State in 1970. After that, all hell broke loose.
May 4, 1970, the Ohio National Guard fired into a crowd of Kent State University students, killing four and wounding nine. Sixty-seven shots, fired in 13 seconds, killed Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer.
“We were not a political group of kids,” Harris said. “We were just a party school not taking them (the National Guard) seriously. We were just having a wonderful May afternoon.”
While Scheuer walked toward the Music and Speech building that afternoon, a stray bullet struck her in the throat, killing her.
Harris said she heard the bullets fire but didnt know what was going on.
“Once it erupted, things got crazy,” Harris said. “I was running from it all.”
Not until the following afternoon did Harris hear on the news that her good friend Sandy died.
“News traveled so much slower back then,” Harris said.
Harris said her speech therapy class held a private memorial with Scheuers parents.
“Weeks following Sandys death,” Harris said, “we met at our professors home. We spent no time on school work and all our time on grieving and reliving.”
Flipping through her yearbook from 1971, dedicated to the May 4 shootings, Harris kept repeating, “It is still so surreal.”