Archive for December, 2009

A 19-year-old man died in New Orleans early this morning after he lost control of his vehicle and struck a guardrail, police said.

The accident occurred just before 3 a.m. near the intersection of Washington Avenue and Short Street, according to New Orleans Police Department spokeswoman Officer Shereese Harper.

Emergency medical technicians were summoned to the scene, where the man was pronounced dead. Police are investigating whether alcohol was a factor in the crash.

His name is being withheld pending notification of family members, Harper said.

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A Monroe fire official says a 76-year-old man has died of burns suffered when his clothes caught fire after he backed his wheelchair into an open flame propane heater during last week’s cold snap. Family members put out the flames and called for help last Friday. The King County medical examiner’s office says the man suffered burns to 40 percent of his body.

He died at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Monroe Fire Department spokeswoman Richelle Risdon says it’s not uncommon to use alternative heat sources during cold winter months but notes that heating equipment is a leading cause of home fire deaths. She says it’s important to keep any flammable material at least three feet away from a heat source. If clothing does catch fire, stop, drop and roll or smother the flames with a towel or blanket.

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Maybe that ribbon of pavement connecting River Road to the city of Tacoma should be renamed “Pay Street.”

A radar-triggered camera erected on the Bay Street curve near the Emerald Queen Casino snapped photos of close to 2,100 speeders during its first week of operation, city officials said Thursday.

Nearly 830 tickets – at $101 a pop – already have been mailed and another nearly 1,260 are being prepared for the registered owners of cars caught speeding between Dec. 2 and Wednesday, Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum said Thursday.

The infractions are treated like a parking ticket and do not go on a driver’s record.

If that rate holds, the camera could generate up to $11 million a year in citations.

“Those numbers surprised us,” Fulghum said. “It’s a fairly sharp corner and people take it too fast coming from River Road.”

By contrast, another speed camera erected recently near Downing Elementary School in the city’s North End has yet to record a speeder, Fulghum said.

“We expected some violators,” he said. “We knew there were some concerns there.”

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WASHINGTON – A Metro spokesman says four people were transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries after a Metro bus collided with a pickup truck.

The accident happened about 1:30 p.m. Thursday at 15th and I in northwest Washington. There were fifteen people on the bus at the time.

Metro said it did not have any information about the driver of either vehicle.

If you have been injured or perhaps someone close to you has been injured in a Washington truck accident you should be financially compensated. However, this is ALWAYS easier said then done. You are welcome to contact our office of experienced WA trial attorneys for a free initial consultation at a time and place of your convenience.

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An elderly woman has died from injuries suffered in a weekend shooting in northeast Kansas that also left her granddaughter and two great-granddaughters dead.

Kansas’ attorney general on Wednesday announced the death of 89-year-old Dorothy Wight of Osage County.

Spokeswoman Ashley Anstaett says Wight died at a Topeka hospital on Tuesday, three days after the shootings at her home outside Burlingame.

Forty-six-year-old James Kraig Kahler, a former Columbia, Mo., city official, already is charged with capital murder in the deaths of his 44-year-old estranged wife, Karen, and their daughters, 18-year-old Emily and 16-year-old Lauren. Dorothy Wight was Karen Kahler’s grandmother.

Authorities say the Kahler’s 10-year-old son, Sean, also was at the home at the time of the shootings but was not injured.

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