Whatever Happened to ... 1993 : Revisiting some of View’s most talked-about stories, we find progress for anxious parents and neon signs, second thoughts about a controversial sect - and pregnant women still craving “magic” salad. : Waiting Room Has More Than a View

Thumbing through Life magazine’s “Year in Pictures” issue last week, Bill and Dana Schreiner realized they had no memory of many important world events that occurred after March 19.

That was the day their 5-month-old son, Elliot, rolled out of bed and caught his head in an open drawer, cutting off oxygen to his brain.

For 48 hours, doctors and nurses in County-USC Medical Center’s pediatric intensive care unit worked to save the baby, while the Schreiners and Elliot’s 5-year-old brother, Quinn, waited in impotent despair in the hospital’s “stark, dark” sixth-floor waiting room.

On March 21, Elliot died peacefully in his mother’s arms.

The Schreiners knew there was nothing they could do to lessen the pain and fear other families would feel as they waited for sick or injured children in the intensive care unit. But they wanted to do something.

At Elliot’s memorial service the couple requested, in lieu of flowers, that contributions be made to a fund to refurbish the grim room where they had awaited word of their baby’s fate. A Times story about their efforts attracted additional support (“Elliot’s Legacy,” View, June 13, 1993).

To date, the Schreiners have received about $19,000 in individual contributions, ranging from $5 and $10 donations to $500 from a woman whose own baby had died years earlier. A 13-year-old boy contributed his bar mitzvah money, and more than a dozen artists have offered to contribute paintings, sculptures and murals.

Architect Gregory Baker and designer Annette Wiley volunteered plans for the new waiting area, and have worked with hospital personnel to polish them.

Meanwhile, Steel Case donated more than $30,000 in custom furniture, Artemide Inc. Ron Rezek Lighting contributed fixtures, and other firms have come through with carpeting, paint and storage units.

Linda Smith, a pediatric unit administrator, says the remodeling should be completed by mid-March. The new area, pleasantly painted and decorated, will include a lounge with a microwave and sink, a shower room with a changing table and lockers, a privacy room, a family room with sofas, and a long “runway” with exterior windows where healthy children can burn off pent-up energy.

“At five months, Elliot really left no legacy. To some, he was just a . . . poof!” Bill Schreiner said in June.

Now, when the couple looks out from the porch of their Mt. Washington home to the distant medical center, they’ll feel that in some small measure, their baby made his mark.