Country singer Kristofferson looks to end of road

GENEVA (Reuters) - Kris Kristofferson -- Oxford scholar, athlete, U.S. Army helicopter pilot, country music composer, one-time roustabout, film actor, singer, lover of women, three times a husband and father of eight -- seems ready to meet his maker.

At least, that was the clear impression he left with an audience of middle-aged-and-upwards fans at a concert in Geneva this week, a message underscored by his 28th and latest album, "Feeling Mortal" and its coffin-dark cover.

At a frail-looking 76, his ample beard more straggly than ever and his always gravel-laden voice gasping out the familiar lyrics of his great classics from "Bobby McGee" to "Rainbow Again", the hereafter appears at the front of his mind.

"I've begun to soon descend, like the sun into the sea," runs the title song of the new CD.

On the stage without backing group in Geneva, the first leg of a solo European tour to promote the disc from his own record company, "God" trips off his lips like a punctuation mark.

Even the old songs that made him -- as well as other country artists like Willy Nelson, Johnny Cash, and his one-time girl-friend Janis Joplin -- internationally famous, sound shaped by the fading voice to underscore a spiritual dimension.

"Sunday Morning Coming Down" emerges less as an ode to elderly loners facing old age without family and children and more as a call to prepare for the next life.

Religiosity was never that far from Kristofferson, son of a major-general in the U.S. Air Force, grandson of a Swedish army officer and in the 1ate 1950s a Rhodes Scholar in English Literature at England's Oxford University.
CRUCIFIXION
In the 1971 "Jesus was a Capricorn" he predicts the Christian savior would be crucified again if he came back preaching peace and love among all races and creeds.
In the new album, "Ramblin' Jack" is semi-autobiographical -- a song about a wandering singer "with a face like a tumbled-down shack" of "wild and righteous, wicked ways" who "ain't afraid of where he's goin'."
Kristofferson is adored by many believers, probably the vast majority of U.S. country fans and performers. But his fans among the unreligious and the atheists were also happy just to relish the poetry of his lyrics and the idiosyncrasy of his voice.
In Geneva, despite its Calvinist past as secular today as any major European city, the ageing 1,000-odd audience in a theatre seating twice that number, were certainly ready to enjoy anything he gave them.

They cheered and applauded his political declaration, an aside injected after a song line: "nobody wins." "But somebody has just won. Obama won, so the whole world has won!" he rasped, waving his electric guitar in the air.

SELF-MOCKERY

They loved his self-mockery when, overcome briefly by a sniffle and pulling a blue bandana -- cousin of the red one in "Bobby McGee"? -- from his jeans pocket, he asked them if they minded having paid $100 "to watch an old fart blow his nose."

And they laughed with him when -- in the full flood of lyrics on the pleasure of being around "a lot of lovely girls in the best of all possible worlds -- he confided: "I wrote this song a LONG time ago."

His 22-year-old angel-faced daughter Kelly, a banjoist and vocalist, joined him on stage for a handful of numbers, while in the hall outside son Jesse manned a stall selling the new CD and the black "Feeling Mortal Tour" t-shirts.

Children -- their dreams and the dreams of their parents for them -- have also long been a central theme of his music.

"I wrote this for my little girl," he says of a father's song pledging he will be "forever there" for a daughter through life, and after. "Spread your wings," he tells her.

More prosaically, he recalls a rebuke from Jesse at age five over his 1970s hit: "The Silver-Tongued Devil": "That's a bad song. You're blaming all your troubles on someone else."

After the concert, the Kristofferson family left for Zurich and Vienna to continue the tour. "This may be our last goodbye," he sang in a final song. "We may not pass this way again."

"We'll miss you," called a voice from the audience.

Gymnast Paralyzed After Fall From Bars

Jacoby Miles, a 15-year-old competitive gymnast from Puyallup, Wash., stepped up to the uneven bars on Friday to practice a move she'd done successfully a thousand times. As she spun through the air, she later told her coach, Melanie Roach, she remembered "getting lost" before completing her second flip. Disoriented, she landed on her neck, with only an 8-inch mat to break her fall.

Miles was immediately taken to St. Joseph Hospital in Tacoma, where a CAT scan showed her C4 vertebrae had been dislocated, though not severed. That leaves the door open for recovery, but doctors have told the family that the chances of using her legs again would be in the "miracle category."

"I think this is one of the worst nightmares for a parent," said her father, Jason Miles. It's definitely up and down emotionally and you have moments of grieving, but rely on the hope and the support we've been shown."

When most people think of gymnastics, they think of the breathtaking flips, leaps and spins that won gold for America's "Fierce Five" at this summer's London Olympics. But it can be a dangerous sport.

Of the three million children between the ages of 6 and 17 who do gymnastics, more than 25,000 of them are treated for gymnastics-related injuries in U.S. emergency rooms each year, according to a report by the Center for Injury Research and Policy in Columbus, Ohio. That's on par with the injury rates from hard-hitting contact sports like lacrosse and hockey.

Aches and pains of the shoulders, wrists and other upper body extremities dominate the list of gymnastic-related injuries. Ankle, knee and spine injuries are also common. Some are the inevitable trauma of overuse. Others, like Miles' accident, are the result of a misstep or a short landing.

Melanie Roach, Miles' coach and owner of Roach Gymnastics in Sumner, Wash., where the teen worked out, said that catastrophic accidents such as Miles' are an uncommon occurrence.

"Millions of gymnasts work out all over the country every day and after this happened I had to scour gyms all across the country to find three other similar incidences," she said. "I think the chances of winning the lottery are actually more likely, that's how rare this is."

"Safety is the number-one priority for USA Gymnastics, its members, and the industry," said USA Gymnastics President Steve Penny. "Over the years, we have taken numerous steps to promote a safe environment for gymnastics activities."

Penny said that USA Gymnastics coaches and facilities have consistently emphasized safety and training over the years. And the Center for Injury Research report does say that only about 40 percent of injuries take place while athletes are training at a gym under the watchful eye of a coach. Another 40 percent happen during school recreation programs and the remaining 20 percent are home mishaps.

The injury report also noted that for gymnasts between the ages of 6 and 11, sending them to the gym is likely to prevent harm. A much higher percentage of accidents for kids in this age group are the result of jumping off coffee tables and bouncing on couches without the benefit of a mat or coaching.

Coach Roach's own daughter is a budding gymnast, and though this has been a devasting experience for her, she said she has no plans to pull her 7-year-old from the sport.

"I certainly understand the fear that is involved as a parent. But I know the qualities and attributes that gymnastics teaches, kids can't get anywhere else."

Miles' father also said he would also not discourage other parents from allowing their kids to participate in gymnastics. He said he believes his daughter's injuries were a freak accident.

"I don't think it is anything you can really plan for. An inch this way, an inch this way…. It's something you can't make not happen," he said. "God has a purpose for everything that does happen."

Infections linked to tainted steroid injections nears 500 cases

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Reuters) - A deadly outbreak of infections linked to tainted steroid injections is approaching 500 cases nearly two months after it began, and health experts said on Wednesday it was unclear whether the epidemic had peaked amid new risks facing patients.

Many patients initially stricken with fungal meningitis are developing secondary infections, prompting a renewed effort to contact people who received the injections, said health officials in Tennessee and Michigan, the two hardest-hit states.

The outbreak, first detected in Nashville, Tennessee, in September, has stricken at least 490 people in 19 states, with 34 deaths, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

"I wouldn't want to characterize the epidemic as having reached a peak or (say) that we are over the worst part," Dr. J. Todd Weber, the CDC's incident manager, said on Tuesday.

Weber said many patients face weeks to months of additional treatment, more people may get sick, and there is more to learn about the infections to ensure the best care for those stricken.

The CDC has estimated that 14,000 patients received potentially tainted steroids believed to have been prepared in unsanitary conditions by a Massachusetts-based compounding pharmacy and shipped to customers in 23 states from May to September.

The rate of infection, based on 500 cases out of 14,000 people exposed mainly through injections to relieve back and joint pain, has been about 3.5 percent so far, somewhat lower than the 5 percent rate Tennessee first forecast, Weber said.

Tennessee was the epicenter of the outbreak early on and through Wednesday had reported 84 infections, including 13 deaths. Michigan through Wednesday had reported 64 meningitis cases and 91 incidences of epidural abscesses among a total of 164 patients, a number of whom had both.

Most of the early cases were of meningitis, but reports more recently have been of abscesses at the injection sites, many times in patients already being treated for meningitis, officials in Michigan and Tennessee said on Wednesday.

INCUBATION TIME UNCERTAIN

That makes it hard to determine how long the outbreak of steroid-related infections might yet last, officials said.

"These are presenting well into the course and I don't think with the epidural abscess that we've been able to establish a real concrete incubation time," said Jim Collins, director of the Michigan health department's communicable disease division.

Tennessee has seen 49 patients with localized infections, most of whom also had fungal meningitis, Dr. John Dreyzehner, the state's health commissioner, said on Wednesday.

"While these infections are not as serious as meningitis, they need to be identified and treated to prevent them from becoming a more significant health problem," Dreyzehner said.

Dr. Robert Latham, chief of medicine and director of the infectious diseases program at Nashville's St. Thomas Hospital, echoed Weber's words of caution about the outbreak.

"Because this is an ever-evolving situation, we still don't know how long patients will need treatment and when we'll really see the end," said Latham, who said he has spent some time with all 45 patients the hospital has treated in the outbreak.

St. Thomas Hospital was hit with an early influx of patients and was the first facility where doctors began to realize something had gone horribly wrong with medications from the New England Compounding Center.

Healthcare officials first predicted the outbreak would run its course in roughly six weeks, based on the incubation period initially estimated for the meningitis infections.

That six-week period passed in early November, and the number of cases being reported to state health agencies and the CDC has slowed "but it has not stopped," the CDC's Weber said.

Some patients have seen quick onset or much longer incubation periods, so doctors and patients have been warned to keep a close watch for at least several months.