Carmina, at 23, readies for the next chapter

An advance copy of Carmina Salcido's book, which goes on sale Tuesday, leaves me longing for the sequel.

Most of us know the basics of what happened to Carmina when her father decided 10 days before she turned 3 in 1989 to strike out against her mother and a world that wasn't showing him sufficient respect.

Ram? Salcido took up a knife in Boyes Hot Springs, then a gun. What he did to his three pre-school daughters, his wife, her mother, his wife's two young sisters and two co-workers needn't be described again.

"Not Lost Forever," the auto-biography Carmina has written with veteran author Steve Jackson, offers a moving, first-person account of the unfathomable bloodfest that concluded with a near-miracle: the discovery at a South County garbage transfer station that little Carmina, though deeply slashed, was alive.

I was far more interested in what became of Carmina once she healed, at least physically. The book shares how she suffered more at the home of her bizarre adoptive parents in Missouri and at an Idaho horse ranch for girls before she made her way home to Sonoma County four years ago, when she was 19.

One of the best things ever to happen to her was that she met Mike Brown, the retired Sonoma County Sheriff's captain who 20 years ago studied the nightmarish carnage and helped bring in Ram? Salcido.

Brown figures prominently in the book and, apparently, in the ABC 20/20 special that's set to run on Oct. 16. Carmina, who's living in Sonoma and soon will launch an ambitious book tour, went to the retired cop in '05 with brave questions about the crime that took her family and left the scar across her throat.

Brown gave her the answers, and much more. He's become a father to her. A real one. He's one reason the coming chapters of Carmina's life look to be much happier.

AT A BARBECUE in front of Memorial Hospital, co-workers surprised nurse Kitty Durborow and physician's assistant Atoosa Molanazadeh by cheering their roles in Memorial's latest distinction: a survey showed it restores blood flow to heart-attack patients faster than any other U.S. hospital.

The pair said it helps to start a stop-watch as a cardiac patient arrives in the ER, to review each case for opportunities to trim crucial seconds - and to imagine that each patient is their father or mother.

DOUG KEANE WAS STARTLED when the Cyrus chef pulled up to Big John's Market in Healdsburg recently and saw a man sprint out the door clutching something, and a second man running close behind.

Keane didn't know that the fleeing man had tried to leave the market with 16 ounces of mixed nuts and slugged the female employee who'd asked him to pay for it. Nor did the chef know that the good Samaritan in pursuit was Vincent Herrera.

He did know he had to do something. He joined the chase in his car, then saw the suspect pick up a pointy 16-foot pole and threaten to run it through Herrera.

Keane was ready to bump suspect John Bierholm with his car when another man, James Fay, rushed Bierholm from behind and bear-hugged him.

A grateful city will thank the trio at Monday's council meeting.