By Christopher Tuffley

www.newssun.com

SEBRING –Two fatalities have been confirmed by the Florida Highway Patrol in the charter bus crash that occurred at 2:15 p.m. Monday afternoon on U. S. 27 at the intersection with Lake Francis Road.

The bus, chartered by South Florida Community College for its Exploritas program, was traveling north, returning from a tour of the Lake Placid murals at the time of the crash.

FHP Lt. Chris Miller confirms that Alice J. Adams, 81, a resident of Lake Placid, was driving east on Lake Frances Road in a 2010 red Mercury when she attempted to enter the northbound lanes of U. S. 27.

At this time it is unclear why Adams failed to yield the right of way to the bus.

Larry L. Metzer, 69, the bus driver, attempted to avoid the Mercury, but the front right of the car struck the left side of the bus. That blow caused the bus to veer off onto the east shoulder of the highway where it overturned into a ditch.

This resulted in the ejection of several passengers and there were extensive injuries.

Thirty-two people, including the driver, were on the bus at the time of the crash. Only one person was not transported to a hospital.

Two were pronounced dead at the scene, three had critical injuries and the rest had serious to minor injuries. Aeromed and Bay Life were two of the several companies providing helicopter evacuation. At least five helicopters picked up victims.

Becky Rousch, who directs community education for SFCC, was on the bus.

Deborah Bell, spokesperson for SFCC, reports Rousch is resting comfortably and recovering.

Of the 11 victims transported to Florida Hospital in Lake Placid, two were later airlifted to larger hospitals and nine remained hospitalized as of Tuesday morning.

Tiffany Bender, spokes person for Florida Hospital, said Tuesday that Florida Hospital, Heartland Division had been expecting 12 victims at the Sebring emergency room, but half of those victims were airlifted directly from the scene and only six victims were transported to the Sebring campus. Of that number two remain hospitalized locally and four were later flown to Orlando.

Highlands Regional Medical Center received seven victims.

John Dunn, spokesperson for Tampa General Hospital, said Tuesday morning that six victims were airlifted to the hospital, three directly from the scene and three from Highlands County hospitals.

Hospitals in Orlando also took in the injured, and Lee Memorial Hospital in Ft. Myers took in one.

Early reports indicated the bus passengers were all from Boston, Mass.

Exploritas, an independent company which SFCC uses in its community education program, is based in Boston, but the tourists on the bus came from many different states, including Indiana and Virginia. Bell said the day of the crash was the first day of a week-long program.

The bus had been on its way to deliver the tourists to their hotel.

“Right now we are focusing on the individuals and their families,” Bell said. “We are working closely with local authorities and Exploritas.”

Posted February 20, 2010

By Ben Sosenko

NBCConnecticut.com

A school in Winsted will be shut down for the next three school days, after a classroom accident sent a 5th grade teacher to the Bridgeport Burn Unit.

Kristy Ejzak was injured on February 11, 2010 when she attempted to flip a light switch in her classroom at Pearson Middle School and Academy. A circuit breaker failed, causing her to burn her hand, and suffer shock related injures.

 ”Our main concern all along has been the health and safety of our staff and students,” said Blaise Salerno,Winchester School Superintendent.

 Since the incident, all light switches in the school have been replaced, and all electrical outlets are in the process of being replaced.

A local electrical contractor investigated the cause of the incident, and with their findings, Superintendent Blaise Salerno decided in the interest of safety to students and staff, the school will be closed on February 22, 23 and 24, while repairs made.

“We have decided that we would prefer to err on the side of caution,” explained Salerno. “It will take us a day or two to get the equipment, and a day or two to get it installed.”

Back in 2007, an architectural firm found numerous electrical problems at the school. Some of those issues, involved code violations, and outdated equipment. However, a $42 million bonding package to fix the problems was not approved.

“We just have not had the level of resources necessary to address the physical needs of our building,” said Salerno.

The failed circuit breaker in the accident was over 30 years old.

Parents of students at Pearson Middle School and Academy say they hope in the future money does not get in the way of their children’s safety.

“Now it’s concerning the safety,” said parent Dawn Cave. “It’s not just things getting cut. Now it’s the safety of teachers and students, so that’s a little hard.”

Posted February 20, 2010

By KYW’s Michelle Durham

An off -duty Philadelphia Police officer is under arrest in connection with the accident on I-95 that injured a Pennsylvania State Police trooper in the line of duty early Saturday morning. The accident happened around 4am on Northbound I-95 near the Girard Avenue exit:

Philadelphia Police Officer Matthew Sharkey has been charged with DUI and Aggravated Assault, according to Pennsylvania State Police Spokesperson Trooper Danea Durham:

“We got a call in reference to an abandoned vehicle in the travel lanes of I-95 northbound. Two troopers responded. PPA was called to load the vehicle onto the tow truck and while that was happening, unfortunately another driver came and hit the car.”

Durham says the trooper was pinned to the tow truck. He was rushed to Hahnemann Hospital with a leg fracture. The other trooper and the Philadelphia Parking Authority Tow Truck driver both received minor injuries.

The 23-year-old Sharkey has been on the Philadelphia police force three years and is assigned to the 17th district.

Posted Friday, February 19. 2010

www.Fayobserver.com

CLINTON – One person is dead and two more were in critical condition after the trusses of a church roof under construction collapsed Thursday afternoon.

Sampson County Interim County Manager Susan Holder said the accident happened around 4:25 p.m. at Mt. Vernon Baptist Church on the 3700 block of Faison Highway northeast of Clinton.

Holder said the two surviving construction workers were taken by helicopter to UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill, where they were in critical condition Thursday evening. All three victims worked for Clifton Halso Construction of Chinquapin.

The names of the workers were being withheld, Holder said, until the family of the deceased is notified and until the N.C. Department of Labor determines the cause of the accident.

The workers were working on the roof of what was planned to be a new sanctuary for the church, Holder said.

February 7, 2010

Middletown, Connecticut (CNN) — Five people were killed and at least 12 were injured in a gas explosion Sunday at an under-construction power plant in central Connecticut, local officials said.

Residents up to 20 miles away reported hearing the blast at about 11:19 a.m. at the Kleen Power Plant in Middletown, a suburb of Hartford, Connecticut.

“There is no present or continuing threat to anybody from either substances getting into the atmosphere or of a possible subsequent explosion,” Middletown Mayor Sebastian Giuliano said, adding terrorism has been ruled out.

He said plant workers were purging a natural gas pipeline when the explosion occurred.

“Urban search-and-rescue teams are on the premises … with dogs, attempting to locate and account for further victims,” Giuliano said.

It’s unknown how many people were working in the plant, which was about 95 percent complete, at the time of the explosion. Multiple contractors were involved in the project, Giuliano said, complicating efforts to account for those who may have been on the site.

“[Each contractor] has their own foreperson, their own employee list, so we’re trying to sort that out,” Giuliano said.

Deputy Fire Marshal Al Santostefano said later Sunday that no one has come forward with any names of missing people and dogs have not detected signs of life beneath the rubble left by the explosion.

The plant was expected to go online this summer, Giuliano said.

Santostefano initially said about 50 people, most of them construction workers, were working at the time, but Giuliano said “we don’t know that as a hard number right now.”

“What I’ve been told by the owners of the project is that there could be anywhere from 100 to 200 people working on the site on any given day,” Giuliano said.

But Santostefano later said the numbers Giuliano cited were weekday figures, and he repeated his estimate of 50 to 60 people at the site Sunday when the explosion occurred. He said he thought most of those escaped the blast.

A no-fly zone was established over the site because of the unstable structure, Gov. Jodi Rell announced Sunday night.

Middlesex Hospital in Middletown said it received 11 patients from the explosion. One patient with serious injuries was flown to a hospital in Hartford, and another was transferred to Yale New Haven Hospital, according to a statement on Middlesex’s Web site. Two others had minor injuries and were treated and released. The remaining seven patients sustained injuries “mainly to the extremities, including broken bones, blunt trauma and abdominal pains,” the statement said.

Emergency room physician Dr. Jonathan Bankoff told reporters that some patients reported being thrown 30 or 40 feet by the blast.

Two people were airlifted directly to the Hartford hospital from the scene, Middlesex spokesman R. Brian Albert said. A center was being set up at Middletown’s City Hall for relatives of plant workers, he said.

As of late Sunday afternoon, the hospital said it was not expecting more patients from the plant.

After the explosion, it took a while for emergency crews to get into the plant, Santostefano said, because the plant was on fire and the natural gas had to be turned off at the source. No major incidents at the site had been reported since construction began there a couple of years ago, he said.

People miles away reported hearing or feeling the blast.

“It felt like the house was shaking,” Peter Moore, who lives about 10 miles away in Durham, told CNN. He said he thought at first there had been a traffic accident on his street or there was a problem with his house.

Moore said his mother, who lives in Woodbridge, about 20 miles away from the plant, also said she heard the explosion, and said it “sounded like someone pounded on the back door a couple of times.”

“It was almost like an earthquake,” nearby resident Lynn Townsend told CNN affiliate WTNH. She said she heard the explosion and went outside to see “a very big, bright orange flame” between the plant’s two smokestacks, and immediately dialed 911.

“It really shook the house,” she said. “Everybody was scared. The kids started to cry.

Connecticut State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance told WTNH his agency has received “an immense amount of inquiries” from residents who heard or felt the explosion.

If you or anyone you know was injured or killed in the power plant gas explosion, please feel free to contact the Hayes Firm online or call 1-800-603-6833.  We will work to find the best attorney in your area to advise you and fight for your rights. 

By Jan Jarvis

February 4, 2010

It began with a tingling sensation, as if her foot was going to sleep.

Then numbness set in. It crept up to Elizabeth Gilley’s calf and onto her thigh.

Over the next six months, the Mineral Wells woman grew weaker, her skin turned pale, and she could barely walk across the room without gasping for breath.

When she collapsed in 2007, Gilley was taken to a hospital.

“The doctor didn’t know how I was still conscious,” Gilley said.

At first, doctors told her that she had leukemia, but tests didn’t confirm cancer. CT scans, MRIs and blood tests followed. Still Gilley was no closer to a diagnosis.

After a year of seeing doctor after doctor, she finally found out what was causing the symptoms, but she could hardly believe what the physician was telling her.

“Within five minutes of seeing him, he asked me if I wore denture cream,” said Gilley, 26, who was forced to get dentures as a teenager after a genetic condition ruined her teeth. “I handed him the tube; he told me to stop using it.”

By then the damage was done. Gilley could no longer walk, drive a car or get around without a wheelchair. Once an active young woman who had recently gotten married, she was rarely able to leave her home.

Gilley joined a growing number of people nationwide who have filed lawsuits alleging that the makers of some denture creams knew about the health risks associated with high levels of zinc in their products and did nothing about it. Fixodent and Super Poligrip are named in class-action lawsuits filed in Tennessee last year.

Gilley’s suit against GlaxoSmithKline was recently filed in Philadelphia, where the manufacturer is located. About 20 other claimants have also filed suits in mass tort court in Pennsylvania.

GlaxoSmithKline declined to comment on the litigation. But on the Web site for Super Poligrip, the manufacturer addresses issues surrounding zinc.

Both GlaxoSmithKline, the maker of Poligrip and Super Poligrip, and Procter & Gamble, the maker of Fixodent, have said that their products contain zinc at levels recognized as safe. GlaxoSmithKline’s label now states that there have been reports of serious health effects from increased zinc intake over a long period. But the company notes that small amounts swallowed during normal use are not harmful and that consumers should not apply the product more than once a day.

In addition, the Food and Drug Administration classifies the creams as medical devices and does not require zinc to be listed as an ingredient.

But dozens of people have been permanently disabled after using the cream for years, and at least one person has died, said Ed Blizzard of Houston, Gilley’s attorney.

“I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. “I think a lot of people out there have neuropathy and don’t know it could be connected to their dentures.”

Posted February 1, 2010

The Record.com

KITCHENER — A dog that bit a two-year-old boy in the face has been declared a dangerous animal by officers with the Kitchener-Waterloo Humane Society.

That means the dog’s owners will have to abide by several rules if they want to keep the animal, including caging the dog when children are around, keeping a muzzle on it and having it microchipped.

The toddler and his parents were visiting an apartment on Queen Street South in the late afternoon Saturday when the homeowner’s 30-pound Jack Russell terrier cross bit him.

Kathy Innocente, spokesperson for the Humane Society, said the dog was startled before biting the child.

The toddler lost the end of his nose and was taken to hospital. He underwent plastic surgery Monday.

The Patriot Ledger

January 24, 2010

State Police have identified the Abington jogger who was struck and injured by an unmarked State Police cruiser Friday as Paula Domenico, 39. She is recovering at South Shore Hospital from serious injuries. An investigation continues.

Earlier, spokesman David Procopio said a lieutenant was heading north on Route 18 in an unmarked Ford Taurus State Police cruiser at 2:26 p.m. when he struck the jogger crossing where Route 58 intersects.

The lieutenant was heading to the South Boston barracks to start his shift at the time of the accident

Both Weymouth police and State Police responded to the scene.

Weymouth Police Lt. Neal Ahlstedt said the lieutenant’s vision was believed to have been blocked by a bus traveling north in the adjacent lane.

State Police said the accident is still under investigation and declined to give the lieutenant ’s name. Weymouth police said Saturday evening that they do not yet have the report.

Posted January 7, 2009

By CBS Broadcasting

AURORA, Ill. (CBS) ― We know winter weather has its hazards. But there’s one hazard that most might not even think about. CBS 2’s Dana Kozlov reports one Aurora man had no choice.

One look at Pete Morano’s windshield and you’d think he’d been in a terrible accident. One look at Pete Morano and you’d know he was in an accident.

“The bones in my nose are broken,” said Morano. “So were the orbital bones, I think they’re called, underneath the eye, those were all shattered, and there’s also a break in the corner here.”

The left side of Morano’s face is purple. His eye is stitched and swollen shut. He may never see out of it again.

So what did all that damage to his face? An ice chunk that seemed to come out of nowhere likely fell off a passing semi.

“It was pure white out,” Morano said.

Morano was driving his Cadillac eastbound on Butterfield Road Monday between Eola and Route 59 when he believes the ice was jarred loose under a viaduct. It them came flying through his windshield.

The impact was so great that it didn’t only shatter the windshield, it also bent the steering wheel.

Morano’s wife, Debbie, says she knows how lucky they are. But they say the freak accident has also made them painfully aware that there are no laws requiring drivers to clear snow or ice from the tops of their trucks or cars.

They want their story to be a wake-up call.

“There needs to be more awareness,” said Debbie Morano.

Pete Morano would like some sort of law to be passed.

“The bottom line is it’s not being taken seriously,” he said.

The driver of the truck didn’t stop, but Morano acknowledges he may not have realized what happened.

Morano says he’ll probably have to have more surgery, but he is just thankful to be alive.

Posted January 5, 2009

By The Daily Reporter

Bethel Township, Mich. -

The Branch County Sheriff’s Office responded to a vehicle buggy crash Tuesday afternoon on Block Rd., north of Pearl Rd. in Bethel Township.
The driver of the vehicle called central dispatch at approximately 3:30 p.m. to tell them several people were injured in the crash.

Deputies arrived on scene and found a pick up truck had struck a buggy from the rear and the vehicles were still in the roadway.

The buggy was occupied by seven school aged children ranging in age from 8 to 14. Four of the seven were injured. None of the injuries were life threatening.

All occupants were transported to the Community Health Center of Branch County, where they were treated.

The driver of the truck was Brian Wolf, 53, of E. Pearl Rd. He was not injured and was issued a citation for failing to stop in a sure clear distance. Wolf was wearing his safety belt and alcohol was not a factor in the crash.

Deputies were assisted on the scene by LifeCare Ambulance and Bronson Fire Department. Block Rd. was closed to traffic for nearly two hours while the crash was cleared.