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Monday, February 19, 2007

Thirteen Canadian soldiers sustained minor injuries yesterday when three light armoured vehicles (LAV III) smashed into each other in Kandahar, Afghanistan. The LAV IIIs are reported to have sustained minor damage.

Seven soldiers were taken to the Canadian-run provincial reconstruction base medical clinic. Six soldiers were transferred by air to the NATO hospital in Kandahar airfield.

The soldiers, who arrived in Afghanistan this month, are from the 2nd Battalion Royal Canadian Regiment and reserve units around Atlantic Canada..

“Our soldiers receive excellent training before they’re deployed to theatre, but I don’t think anything can quite fully prepare anyone for the nature of the roads here in Kandahar,” said a spokesman for the Canadian Forces, Major Dale MacEachern.

They are now safe and will return to their units in a couple of days.

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

At 12:41 p.m. local time (UTC-5), a man opened fire at Dawson College, in Westmount, Quebec, Canada; the college is located near the heart of downtown Montreal. Police report at least 20 people being injured. The gunman was reportedly killed at the scene by police. Students told reporters that they heard several shots in the building at about 12:45 local time. One student told a local radio station that she saw two people who had been shot, including one who was hit at the neck. The student said a friend told her four people had been shot.

Hundreds of students fled the building, and the area has been cordoned off. Nearby Plaza Alexis Nihon and Westmount Square were evacuated and the Green line of the Montreal Metro was shut down between Lionel-Groulx and Peel. Police officers wearing bullet-proof vests are keeping people away from the college. “They’re telling me, ‘Go the other way, lady, you’re in the line of fire,'” said CBC News reporter Nancy Wood, who reported from the scene.

Local media have reported police hotlines have been established for loved ones to gain more information: +1-(514)-280-2880, +1-(514)-280-2805, and +1-(514)-280-2806. The Montreal General Hospital has also set up a hotline at +1-(514)-843-2839.

Police have reported that the situation has been neutralized as of 20:06, September 13, 2006 (UTC). Police have been told to stand down and are no longer looking for new victims or shooters.

Dawson College is a CEGEP that hosts about 10,000 students.

Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Buffalo, New York —Attorney Arthur J. Giacalone has filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court against the city of Buffalo‘s Common Council and Planning board, alleging that the proposed Elmwood Village Hotel was approved “without giving meaningful consideration to either the impact on the adjoining residential neighborhood, or the unique character of this section of Elmwood Avenue.” Giacalone is representing Nancy Pollina and Patricia Morris, who operate the Don Apparel (a vintage clothing and collectibles shop at 1119 Elmwood Avenue), Angeline Genovese and Evelyn Bencinich, owners of residences on Granger Place which abut the rear of the proposed site, Nina Freudenheim, a resident of nearby Penhurst Park, and Sandra Girage, the owner of a two-family residence on Forest Avenue less than a hundred feet from the proposed hotel’s sole entrance and exit driveway.

The Elmwood Village Hotel is a 72-room, seven-million-dollar hotel proposed by Savarino Construction Services Corporation and designed by architect Karl Frizlen of the Frizlen Group. Its construction would require the demolition of at least five buildings, currently at 1109-1121 Elmwood, which house several shops and residents. Although the properties are “under contract,” it is still not known whether Savarino Construction actually owns the buildings. It is believed that Hans Mobius, a resident of Clarence, New York and former Buffalo mayoral candidate, is still the owner. The hotel is expected to be a franchise of the Wyndham Hotels group.

The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court, is seeking annulment of the City of Buffalo’s rezoning and site plan approvals for the hotel.

“Had the Common Council members complied with State law and waited to receive comments from the County’s planning agency, they would have been obliged to address the County’s concerns regarding the replacement of former residential buildings with ‘a much larger commercial structure’, the health effects of placing a 55-vehicle parking area next to existing homes, and the absence of a traffic study to assess the likelihood that the project would add ‘considerable congestion’ to the Elmwood/Forest intersection,” said Giacalone.

“The four-story hotel will overshadow the neighboring homes and backyards, impacting quality of life and property values. Equally as important, the project will displace a unique and diverse group of businesses that have served nearby college students and Buffalo’s arts and theater community for many years, and replace them with upscale retail establishments that will cater, not to local residents, but to affluent tourists and business travelers,” added Giacalone.

On March 22, 2006 the city’s Common Council approved the rezoning for the proposed hotel and on March 28, the Planning board approved the design and site plan of the hotel.

The lawsuit, entitled Pollina et al. v. Common Council of the City of Buffalo et al., [Index No. I-2006-3885], has been assigned to the Honorable Rose H. Sconiers, and is scheduled for oral argument at 9:30 A.M. on Thursday June 8, 2006.

Saturday, November 9, 2013

With the 2014 Winter Paralympics set for March, Wikinews sought comment from U.S. Representative Jackie Speier, who serves California’s 14th congressional district about the event and how current U.S. policies impact people with disabilities. Elected to the U.S. House in 2008, she serves on the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the House Armed Services Committee. For the first time ever, the Paralympics will be broadcast live in the U.S. on network television.

((Wikinews)) : Will “Obamacare” have a positive or negative impact on the lives of people with disabilities?

Jackie Speier: By-and-large the Affordable Care Act will have a significant and lasting beneficial impact on persons with disabilities […] Most importantly, pre-existing conditions will no longer prevent persons with disabilities from obtaining health insurance. Lifetime limits on medical expenses will be removed and preventive services will be free. All of these provisions of the law create health insurance that is highly supportive of good health outcomes for everyone, but in particular for those who have a disability.

((WN)) : Are there any Paralympic athletes or elite athletes with disabilities from your district that people should know more about?

Jackie Speier: There are currently two Paralympic athletes who train or live in my district that people will definitely hear more about in the coming years. One is a young woman named Allie Hyatt who trains in Judo with Willy Cahill, [whom] I have also trained with. Allie, who is visually impaired and just 15, has already won numerous awards and will participate in the Youth Olympic Games next year. She is sure to be a force in the Judo world for many, many years. Hyatt lives in San Francisco and Cahill is the founder and CEO of the Blind Judo Foundation.

Another great athlete is Mohamend Lahna who is training for the Rio Olympics in 2016 for the paratriathlon,” Speier continued. “He is from Morocco originally but lives now in San Mateo and trains daily at the College of San Mateo. He runs marathons with a prosthetic leg and has his sights set on winning several medals atworld and Olympic events in the future. Lahna has proximal femoral focal deficiency (PFFD), a birth defect that affects the hip and pelvis. He is married and has a 1-year-old child.

Wikinews also sought comment from other members of Congress, including John K. Delaney, Mike Honda, Kyrsten Sinema, Eric Swalwell, Raúl M. Grijalva and Ann Kirkpatrick but at publication time, had received no response.

Monday, August 28, 2006

A Comair commuter jet crashed on takeoff from Lexington, Kentucky yesterday, killing 49 people on board and seriously injuring the plane’s first officer, James M. Polehinke.

The early-morning Flight 5191 was operating as Delta Connection and was headed from Lexington’s Blue Grass Airport to Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. It crashed about a mile west of the airport at 6:07 a.m. Eastern Time. The plane was a Canadair Regional Jet CRJ-100.

Polehinke was taken to the University of Kentucky‘s Chandler Medical Center, where he was listed in critical condition. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the aircraft departed from a shorter runway than it was cleared to take off from.

According to Gary Ginn, the Fayette County coroner, there was a significant fire on board the aircraft after impact, after which it continued to move forward several hundred yards before coming to a stop. The aircraft, however, is largely intact, Ginn said, and most of the passengers remained inside the cabin. Ginn said he expects the cause of death to be fire for the majority of the victims. The tail number has been confirmed as N431CA.

Based on information recovered from the flight’s data recorder and physical evidence on the scene, the National Transportation Safety Board is focusing on the theory that the pilot attempted to take off from a 3,500-foot or 1067-meter runway that is not certified for airline traffic. That runway is only for general aviation aircraft.

Investigators believe the plane did not get enough speed to lift off the ground before running out of runway. Air traffic controllers in the tower had cleared the flight for takeoff from an adjacent 7,000-foot or 2135-meter runway used for commercial airlines.

Local police and fire fighters responded to the scene within minutes, and it has been reported that two off-duty police officers helped pull Polehinke from the cockpit of the burning jet.

Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration told CNN that there is no indication that terrorism was involved in connection with the crash.

Family members and friends who suspected that their loved ones may have been on Flight 5191 began arriving at Blue Grass Airport shortly after the crash. They have been taken to a local hotel, where staff from Comair as well as airport officials are caring for them and providing them with information. Comair has also set up a hotline where family and friends can receive information: the number is 1-800-801-0088.

Among the dead were Jon Hooker and Scarlett Parsley, who had married just the night before and were off to their honeymoon.

A moment of silence was held for the crash victims before the Los Angeles Dodgers-Arizona Diamondbacks baseball game in Phoenix, where Brandon Webb, a former University of Kentucky baseball teammate of Hooker, is a pitcher. Another passenger, Charles Lykins of Naples, Fla., wanted an early flight so he could get home to his two young children after visiting friends and family in the Lexington area, said Paul Richardson of Winchester. Mike Finley, 52, who lived in Corbin and owned the Finley Fun Centers, was headed to Reno, Nev., for a rollerskating convention, said his son, David Taylor. “I’d say there’s thousands of kids who grew up with our father,” he said.

Rick Queen, who works for Turfway Realty in Lexington, said his father-in-law, Les Morris, was on the flight. Queen and Taylor were both frustrated with how Comair handled the families. “I just felt Delta ran families around this morning for three hours. I finally got some help from a Lexington firefighter,” Taylor said.

Flight attendant Kelly Heyer was single and lived in the Cincinnati area. He had been working for the airline since 2004 and was recently appointed base representative for the flight attendant union said Tracy Riley, a union secretary and fellow Comair flight attendant. “He was a standup individual,” Riley said. “He was very professional, loved the job.”

Bornhorst described his own reaction as “complete devastation” and he lamented the frustration of the families as they awaited word. “When tragedies like this happen, information can just not be relayed fast enough and I certainly understand the frustrations related to that,” Bornhorst said.

Thursday, July 19, 2007

The Capital & Coast District Health Board today issued a “code red” for two Wellington hospitals. Both Wellington Hospital and Kenepuru Community Hospital have a staff shortage of about 20 nurses, and the hospital is calling on any help available.

Dr Robyn Toomath, director of clinical support services at the Health Board, is calling for “any qualified nurses in the community who are between jobs, are on extended leave or are semi-retired, who might be able to help fill in, or to do some short term work for us.”

“As of today we are around 20 nurses down compared to our usual staffing levels, primarily due to illness” said Dr Toomath. “We have physical beds available, but we can’t admit patients unless there are appropriate levels of staff to safely resource those beds.”

The message to the general public was to “please save our Emergency Department for emergencies”, she said. “We want to be able to focus our Emergency Department resources on patients who genuinely need hospital-level care.”

Any qualified nurses who are willing to help at either of the two hospitals should contact Steve Crew in the Patient Services Coordination Unit, at the Capital and Coast District Health Board.

Tuesday, March 29, 2005A team of Australian surgeons yesterday reattached both hands and one foot to 10-year-old Perth boy, Terry Vo, after a brick wall which collapsed during a game of basketball fell on him, severing the limbs. The wall gave way while Terry performed a slam-dunk, during a game at a friend’s birthday party.

The boy was today awake and smiling, still in some pain but in good spirits and expected to make a full recovery, according to plastic surgeon, Mr Robert Love.

“What we have is parts that are very much alive so the reattached limbs are certainly pink, well perfused and are indeed moving,” Mr Love told reporters today.

“The fact that he is moving his fingers, and of course when he wakes up he will move both fingers and toes, is not a surprise,” Mr Love had said yesterday.

“The question is more the sensory return that he will get in the hand itself and the fine movements he will have in the fingers and the toes, and that will come with time, hopefully. We will assess that over the next 18 months to two years.

“I’m sure that he’ll enjoy a game of basketball in the future.”

The weight and force of the collapse, and the sharp brick edges, resulted in the three limbs being cut through about 7cm above the wrists and ankle.

Terry’s father Tan said of his only child, the injuries were terrible, “I was scared to look at him, a horrible thing.”

The hands and foot were placed in an ice-filled Esky and rushed to hospital with the boy, where three teams of medical experts were assembled, and he was given a blood transfusion after experiencing massive blood loss. Eight hours of complex micro-surgery on Saturday night were followed by a further two hours of skin grafts yesterday.

“What he will lose because it was such a large zone of traumatised skin and muscle and so on, he will lose some of the skin so he’ll certainly require lots of further surgery regardless of whether the skin survives,” said Mr Love said today.

The boy was kept unconscious under anaesthetic between the two procedures. In an interview yesterday, Mr Love explained why:

“He could have actually been woken up the next day. Because we were intending to take him back to theatre for a second look, to look at the traumatised skin flaps, to close more of his wounds and to do split skin grafting, it was felt the best thing to do would be to keep him stable and to keep him anaesthetised.”

Professor Wayne Morrison, director of the respected Bernard O’Brien Institute of Microsurgery and head of plastic and hand surgery at Melbourne’s St Vincent’s Hospital, said he believed the operation to be a world first.