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Summarized by Joyce H Feustel
Balloon Brings Good Out of Deaths of 5 LDS 'Angels'
Deseret News 28Jan00 D4
By Jennifer Toomer-Cook: Deseret News staff writer
WEST JORDAN, UTAH -- One of West Jordan Elementary's drug-free pledge
balloons made it all the way to Michigan, and it so touched the man who
discovered it that he sent the school a gift: trunk releases. He's the
one who created the gadgets for GM after five LDS West Valley children
died while playing in the trunk of a Saturn.
"It's pretty amazing," fourth-grader Timothy "Woody" Burnham said of
balloon's 1,500-mile journey to Hamilton, Mich., where Roger Koops was
hunting near his hometown.
Indeed, this balloon is magical. It floated Koops, down memory lane to
his most fulfilling work. His team was asked to make trunk releases for
General Motors following the 1998 deaths of "the five little angels,"
who were among 11 children nationwide who died trapped in hot trunks
within a three-week period that year.
He sent his creations for show and tell "and as a thank-you to your
state for bringing this very important issue to the highest levels to
see that something finally got done."
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