STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
A Navy Cougar jet fighter plane crashed and exploded into a ball of fire yesterday in a farm field near the intersection of Orchard and McCabe roads, three miles south of Holtville.
Its pilot, Lt. Gary Brown, 29, stationed at North Island, said he ejected from the plane when he lost all control of it. He parachuted to safety, complained of a neck injury and was taken to the El Centro Naval Air Facility dispensary for treatment. Hundreds of Valleyites either saw the jet as it whined into a steep climb and then plummeted almost straight down, or heard the thunderous explosion when it hit in a field farmed by Joe Maggio.
One witness, who was driving toward El Centro from Holtville, said that from his vantage point “It looked like they had dropped the atomic bomb on Mexicali.”
40 years ago
Hospital officials in Brawley and El Centro have defended a contractual arrangement with HPI Hospital Pharmacies, a company that has been accused in the past week of providing “kickbacks” to hospitals that contract for their pharmacy services. Both the El Centro Community and Pioneers Memorial hospitals have leases with HPI that provide for a certain percentage of the gross sales revenue to be returned to the hospitals in the form of “space rent.”
News articles in the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee last week questioned whether such a practice is legal, stating it may constitute “kickbacks” to hospitals as well as higher medication charges to consumers.
The articles took the information from a preliminary draft of a report, soon to be released by the state Department of Consumer Affairs. A spokesman for the department said today the report lists ECCH as one of 27 hospitals statewide which has received rebates.
The report, which criticizes the state Pharmacy Board for approving the arrangements, states the 27 hospitals, received between $3.1 million and $5.9 million during 1975-1976 from Daylin, Inc., the parent corporation of HPI. This was in return for hospital-generated business or use of hospital space for the pharmacies.
30 years ago
IMPERIAL — After a worldwide search, an Israeli-based shoe manufacturer has decided to locate in the Calexico Enterprise Zone, officials attending an SBA forum Friday at the Imperial County Airport were told.
George P. Chandler Jr., district director of the U.S. Small Business Administration, San Diego, announced the firm will “create 80 jobs and they’re going to be exporting worldwide.”