Dr. Elmer A. Hankins Jr.; Riverside County Surgeon

Dr. Elmer A. Hankins Jr., 85, a surgeon and a pioneer treating cancer in Riverside County. A native of Santa Rosa, Calif., Hankins received his medical training at Loma Linda University and practiced medicine in Riverside for more than half a century. For many years he was the only doctor trained and equipped to provide radiation treatment for the area’s cancer patients. As a surgeon, Hankins once successfully reattached the scalp of a woman whose long hair had gotten caught in machinery at an orange crate factory. That case wound up in the Annals of Surgery. Hankins also was a Federal Aviation Administration examiner for pilots and a major promoter of the construction of the Riverside Seventh-day Adventist Church. On Jan. 15 in Loma Linda, Calif., of pneumonia.