Praising local rehabilitation hospital

Editor: I wrote a letter to the editor a few weeks ago about the excellent care my wife received at the Lodi Memorial Hospital Acute Rehab Unit. After she left Lodi Memorial she transferred to Fairmont Rehabilitation Hospital across the street. It too is an excellent facility.

After having a severe stroke on Feb. 2 my wife received excellent speech, occupational, and physical therapy at Fairmont. She also received excellent nursing care, and her overall condition continued to improve. Even though she is partially paralyzed on one side, she was taught how to walk again, and she is able to perform many of the tasks of daily living, that she couldn’t even begin to do previously. She was given all of the medication that was prescribed by her physician, and we were given a lot of excellent advice on how to take care of her at home.

Randy Tu is the administrator at Fairmont and he manages an excellent organization. I was told that no less than 27 different hospitals from throughout the region send patients to Fairmont for therapy to help them with their extended recovery because Fairmont has a physical therapy department with such a good reputation.

My wife is home now, and she still has a long way to go, but she is continuing to improve. And I want the Lodi community to know how fortunate they are to have such excellent medical facilities as Lodi Memorial and Fairmont.

Without such facilities, recovery from a catastrophic injury or illness would be much more difficult. So we should all be grateful that they are there, and that they are doing such a great job to help people from throughout the region. May God bless them always!

Incident a reminder to be vigilant

Editor: I am a Lodi resident of two years and just finished reviewing the Lodi Police Department page where I discovered that the recent crime committed against me was not listed with all the others.

I don’t understand why as I feel it is an issue of public safety, especially for women of Lodi and one simple step would likely have prevented the whole thing, if only I’d known about it.

At 9:14 p.m. on March 23, I was robbed while sitting in my car, parked, motor running in the lot of a local restaurant. I had pulled over to take a phone call, not wanting to be a distracted driver. When I put the car into park the doors automatically unlocked. Five minutes later the interior lights came on, cold air rushed in and I looked up so briefly see the face of a young black male as he robbed me. By the time I turned around the back seat was also cleared out. When I ran in to the restaurant to call the cops they came back and stole my car.

If I’d just been more aware, if I hadn’t chosen the darkest part of a mostly empty lot ... and if I’d only locked my doors it probably wouldn’t have happened.

After seeing how many weapons have been repossessed lately on the Lodi Police Facebook page and knowing about other robbery incidents, I feel there is enough evidence to be concerned that this is likely to occur again. And next time the outcome might be far worse.

I just want other women to know that simply keeping your doors locked while parked may prevent what happened to me and maybe, even something far more tragic.

Letters invited

The Lodi News-Sentinel welcomes opinions from its readers. Letters must be signed and include the writer’s address and phone number for internal verification purposes. All letters are subject to editing. Letters from local readers dealing with local issues are given priority. Letters from outside the local area are published at the editor’s discretion. Letters longer than 350 words will be cut to fit or returned to their writers. There is a holding period of 30 days between publication of letters by the same person unless no other letters are queued. Send letters to P.O. Box 1360, Lodi, CA 95241-1360; or email to