Only 10 days remain until Black Friday.-- All year, Wal- Mart has been busy, busy - occupied with damage control, lawsuits and district attorneys, making sure the bordering-on-poor American consumer will not let last season's incident in which a Wal-Mart worker was trampled to death stop her from living better by spending the little she has at the world's largest retailer.

Jdimytai Damour, 34, died Nov. 28 after a mindless herd pressed heavily on the glass door of the Valley Stream, N.Y., store, breaking it off its hinges moments before the 5 a.m. opening, with the crush of shoppers stampeding over Damour and injuring other workers.

Damour, a 6-foot-5-inch, 270-pound temporary employee, was hired for the holidays. The bargain-hungry mob knocked him to the floor amid broken glass and trampled him. He died not long after of asphyxiation.