Latest news with #Kase
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
WV woman travels six hours for life-saving abortion; calls for abortion access to be placed on voter ballot
SAINT ALBANS, WV (WVNS) — A woman has called for West Virginia voters to decide the issue of abortion access in the state after she was forced to check herself out of a Charleston hospital in 2021 and travel six hours for a life-saving abortion. 'The only decision in this sensitive situation should be in the hands of voters. They're the ones going through it,' said Kristyn Fruit, 33, on Thursday, June 12, 2025. 'They're the ones that matter.' In the case of a voter ballot, West Virginia voters and not elected officials would decide situations in which abortion is legal in West Virginia. In 2023, West Virginia lawmakers passed a near-total abortion ban in the state. Fruit said that she grew up attending pro-life rallies with her mother, protesting against legal abortion. In 2021, she said she was a mother of three following three uneventful pregnancies when she learned she was pregnant for the fourth time. 'It was a boy, and we named him Kase, and at my 20-week ultrasound, I found out he had a rare abnormality,' she said. 'He couldn't make amniotic fluid. All of his urine was backed up into his kidneys and his bladder.' Bright Life Mental Health & Recovery hosts ribbon cutting with BRCCC Fruit said doctors diagnosed Kase with fetal lower urinary tract obstruction (LUTO), which left him unable to produce the amniotic fluid necessary for healthy fetal development. Fruit traveled to Cincinnati, Ohio, she said, and underwent two highly invasive surgeries to try to save her son's life. She said she had planned a third surgery when a midwife told her Kase would not be able to survive, and that Fruit was not a viable candidate for the third surgery. The midwife recommended she terminate the pregnancy, Fruit said, adding that she agreed it was the best choice for Kase. Mother questions policies at Southern Regional Jail after son reportedly overdoses in jail 'I just did not want him to suffer,' Fruit explained. 'I did not want him to be born to suffocate and die.' In 2021, prior to West Virginia lawmakers' ban on abortion, elective abortion was legal in West Virginia up to 20 weeks. Fruit made an appointment for an abortion in Washington D.C. as quickly as possible, she said, and concentrated on being present for her three children, despite being in physical and emotional pain. 'Four days before that appointment, I started having complications with my health,' said Fruit. 'I was putting up Halloween decorations, and I started having gushes of blood.' Fruit said she later learned that her placenta had started to slowly detach from her uterine wall, as a result of the second surgery she'd undergone to save her pregnancy. She said she ended up at a West Virginia hospital, two years before lawmakers had passed the near-total abortion ban. WV Board of Education to keep vaccine requirements against governor's wishes She said the high-risk obstetrician at the hospital was the only one in the region, and claims he was well-known for being vocally anti-abortion. She said she was bleeding profusely and was in extreme pain, but that the OB-GYN told her he did not want to perform an abortion, despite the diagnosis by Fruit's medical care team regarding Kase's chance of survival. Instead, Fruit stated, the doctor informed her that he wanted her to continue the pregnancy until she'd lost more blood and that he would perform a C-section, a surgery Fruit said she'd never experienced. 'He wanted me to wait to the point of my bleeding getting to the rate of 'a fountain of blood,'' Fruit quoted. 'Those were his exact words. I wasn't close enough to death for the 'life of the mother' exception to apply to me.' Fruit said the medical advice was 'scary' and contradicted her own providers' directions. Against the advice of staff nurses, she said, she was forced to check herself out of the hospital and to travel six hours to Washington D.C. Medical staff in Washington D.C. performed a life-saving pregnancy termination, she said, and the doctors also confirmed her own providers' diagnosis that Kase also would not have survived a delivery. President of West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys Association explains how state law protects abortion and miscarriage patients from prosecution Medical staff in D.C. provided Fruit with ink prints of Kase's hands and feet. In Fruit's medical records, the 27-week abortion she received in Washington D.C. was recorded as 'elective,' meaning it was performed by the patient's choice, even though she was experiencing a slow placental abruption, she said. Fruit said she has since welcomed a fourth child, although she had been reluctant to get pregnant in West Virginia because of lawmakers' 2023 abortion ban. She called on Thursday for a reproductive rights amendment to appear on the voter ballot in the state, giving West Virginians the right to decide on legal abortion. Pointing to her experience at the West Virginia hospital, Fruit said the narrow exceptions in the state's abortion ban to protect the pregnant patient's health and life could actually delay or deny care for women, particularly when politics- such as a ban- play a role in health care decisions. 'Nothing was good enough for him until I got to the point of hemorrhaging,' she said of the obstetrician who had denied her abortion in 2021. Fruit has also shared her story on podcasts and in national publications. Fruit made the call for the voter referendum shortly after the Trump Administration rescinded federal guidance that hospitals provide emergency abortions in state hospitals. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Potentially life-saving app developed at Illinois State University
NORMAL, Ill. (WMBD) — A new mixed-reality app out of Illinois State University allows you to train to save a life from anywhere. VENT, which stands for Virtual Reality-Embedded Training, is a program on the Apple Vision Pro goggles that teaches you how to administer Narcan should an overdose event happen. The app was developed solely by Matt Kase, who was a graduate student from Illinois State University when he came up with the app. Roy Magnuson, director of emerging technologies for instruction and research, had Kase in his class, where Kase was taught this kind of software. 'I was getting a master's degree [at ISU], and I was in his virtual reality development class, and that was the first time I was introduced to that,' Kase said. Magnuson had come up with the idea, and tasked Kase to make the plan into a reality, or a mixed-reality at that. 'He knew that I kind of had a background in neuroscience,' Kase said. 'So this was a project that he was already planning without me, and then he had asked me to be the developer on it.' Kase worked on it from February to May of last year, and then it went to testing at SIU from May to December. Magnuson said this kind of a tool is to add a convenience to work that would otherwise take a lot of time to do. 'Technology should be there to create this one solution that you can't get in some other way,' Magnuson said. 'I do feel pretty confident, you know, this app… it's not it's not a replacement for a human, but it does allow for that scalability. You can solve that problem [so we don't] have 10,000 trainers running out to 10,000 places all at the same time.' The program was developed through a partnership between ISU's Mennonite College of Nursing, Southern Illinois University and OSF Peoria. Kase said he would like to develop it into a game at some point that gives you points for doing the training, and change it up a little to make it more competitive. 'What I'd like to do in the future,' Kase said, 'is make it fully virtual after you complete that mixed reality training where there's distractions in your environment and you have to run through the process that you just learned and you get a score or something.' The app is only available on the Apple Vision Pro goggles currently, but they hope to distribute the program to other virtual reality devices at a later date. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
12-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
WSI® Unveils its New Order Fulfillment Brand, Kase™, a True Omnichannel 3PL
Complete omnichannel fulfillment solutions for today's multichannel retailer APPLETON, Wis., March 12, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- WSI® (Warehouse Specialists, LLC®), one of the largest privately held U.S. logistics, distribution, storage and fulfillment enterprises, unveiled its new omnichannel 3PL brand to the market today. Kase™ was created to enhance the success-generating synergy between WSI and ShippingTree™—a tech-forward ecommerce fulfillment provider that WSI acquired in February 2024. While the two brands will continue to operate separately, Kase serves to provide better market clarity on the robust omnichannel solutions WSI/Kase offers. "With many North American companies pivoting to nearshoring and onshoring, suppliers and manufacturers are looking for cost-effective, time-efficient and secure fulfillment solutions," said Paul Simmons, President at WSI. "Kase offers brands the fulfillment reach, technology and expertise that retailers are searching for in today's market." With 60 years of logistics and fulfillment experience, WSI will support the Kase brand as it did when it operated as ShippingTree. While both WSI and Kase will continue to offer order fulfillment services, the customer profile and their business-specific requirements will separate the two fulfillment offerings. "Our facility footprint is definitely unique; some locations handle hazardous materials with strict safety and regulation requirements, while others are suitable for perishables with specific temperature and cleanliness requirements," said Peter Davis, VP of Fulfillment at WSI/Kase. "We have warehouses set up with rail transloading in mind as well as your modern fulfillment warehouse network equipped to handle fast-moving ecommerce and retail orders. Kase will focus on providing high-growth brands a truly customer-centric, scalable omnichannel fulfillment solution." With an emphasis on the customer experience, brand expansion, technology and fulfillment expertise, Kase plans to take 3PL services Beyond Fulfillment™. Its mission is simple: to empower exceptional customer experiences through seamless, end-to-end logistics solutions. About Kase Kase, formerly known as ShippingTree and now a part of the WSI family of brands, is a premier provider of direct-to-consumer, retail and omnichannel order fulfillment services. With strategically located facilities across the U.S. totaling over 13 million square feet, we offer brands and retailers the scale and supply chain expertise they need to grow. Our proprietary fulfillment technology platform was developed specifically with the needs of ecommerce merchants and omnichannel retailers in mind, providing real-time order tracking, order routing, inventory control and parcel rate selection. Kase goes Beyond Fulfillment to deliver exceptional customer experiences, helping brands keep their promises with every order. Visit to learn more. About WSI WSI (Warehouse Specialists, LLC) is one of the largest privately held logistics, distribution and storage companies in the nation. With facilities in Arizona, California, Iowa, Illinois, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Texas, WSI's warehouse network totals 13 million square feet of space. This includes rail-accessible warehousing, temperature-controlled facilities and secure hazardous material facilities. WSI's commitment to safety, transparency, operational excellence and effective communication are realized through people, process and technology—in perfect sync. Visit to learn more. Contact:WSIMariana Vieth Director of Marketing 920-252-2735viemar@ KaseMary Berko Marketing Manager 201-615-7632berkma@ View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE WSI Sign in to access your portfolio
