with open('data.txt', 'r') as f:
    for line in f:
        number = int(line.split(':')[1])
        array.append(number)
print '+'.join(array)

Basically, use the split function to get the number, and then print it as you wish. Please take care of error handling to check if it is integer or not, or if the line has a : or not

Not sure what you mean by shell, but yes you can make a function, and just call a function:

This uses dateutil to parse the date (e.g. '11/11/2010 - 09:00am'), and parsedatetime to parse the relative time (e.g. '4 hours later'):

import dateutil.parser as dparser
import parsedatetime.parsedatetime as pdt
import parsedatetime.parsedatetime_consts as pdc
import time
import datetime
import re
import pprint
pdt_parser = pdt.Calendar(pdc.Constants())   
record_time_pat=re.compile(r'^(.+)\s+:')
sex_pat=re.compile(r'\b(he|she)\b',re.IGNORECASE)
death_time_pat=re.compile(r'died\s+(.+hours later).*$',re.IGNORECASE)
symptom_pat=re.compile(r'[,-]')

def parse_record(astr):    
    match=record_time_pat.match(astr)
    if match:
        record_time=dparser.parse(match.group(1))
        astr,_=record_time_pat.subn('',astr,1)
    else: sys.exit('Can not find record time')
    match=sex_pat.search(astr)    
    if match:
        sex=match.group(1)
        sex='Female' if sex.lower().startswith('s') else 'Male'
        astr,_=sex_pat.subn('',astr,1)
    else: sys.exit('Can not find sex')
    match=death_time_pat.search(astr)
    if match:
        death_time,date_type=pdt_parser.parse(match.group(1),record_time)
        if date_type==2:
            death_time=datetime.datetime.fromtimestamp(
                time.mktime(death_time))
        astr,_=death_time_pat.subn('',astr,1)
        is_dead=True
    else:
        death_time=None
        is_dead=False
    astr=astr.replace('and','')    
    symptoms=[s.strip() for s in symptom_pat.split(astr)]
    return {'Record Time': record_time,
            'Sex': sex,
            'Death Time':death_time,
            'Symptoms': symptoms,
            'Death':is_dead}


if __name__=='__main__':
    tests=[('11/11/2010 - 09:00am : He got nausea, vomiting and died 4 hours later',
            {'Sex':'Male',
             'Symptoms':['got nausea', 'vomiting'],
             'Death':True,
             'Death Time':datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 11, 13, 0),
             'Record Time':datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 11, 9, 0)}),
           ('11/11/2010 - 09:00am : She got heart burn, vomiting of blood and died 1 hours later in the operation room',
           {'Sex':'Female',
             'Symptoms':['got heart burn', 'vomiting of blood'],
             'Death':True,
             'Death Time':datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 11, 10, 0),
             'Record Time':datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 11, 9, 0)})
           ]

    for record,answer in tests:
        result=parse_record(record)
        pprint.pprint(result)
        assert result==answer
        print

yields:

{'Death': True,
 'Death Time': datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 11, 13, 0),
 'Record Time': datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 11, 9, 0),
 'Sex': 'Male',
 'Symptoms': ['got nausea', 'vomiting']}

{'Death': True,
 'Death Time': datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 11, 10, 0),
 'Record Time': datetime.datetime(2010, 11, 11, 9, 0),
 'Sex': 'Female',
 'Symptoms': ['got heart burn', 'vomiting of blood']}

Note: Be careful parsing dates. Does '8/9/2010' mean August 9th, or September 8th? Do all the record keepers use the same convention? If you choose to use dateutil (and I really think that's the best option if the date string is not rigidly structured) be sure to read the section on "Format precedence" in the dateutil documentation so you can (hopefully) resolve '8/9/2010' properly. If you can't guarantee that all the record keepers use the same convention for specifying dates, then the results of this script would have be checked manually. That might be wise in any case.