Two Firefighters Injured As Teen Drives into Accident Scene

Two firefighters were injured early Sunday morning when authorities said a teenager drove her car into an accident scene.  The girl, 16, reportedly ignored emergency lights, road flares and police officers, firefighters J. N. Harvey and L. D. Boone suffered minor injuries. Charges against the driver are unknown as of Sunday afternoon.

Car Accident in Las Vegas Kills One

The driver of the Ford pickup truck was crossing Las Vegas Boulevard as the 18-year-old driver pulled away from the stop sign.

The 18-year-old victim, who was not identified by police, was pronounced dead at the scene. The two passengers in her vehicle were transported to University Medical Center with moderate to critical injuries, police say.

The driver of the Ford pickup, 22-year-old Tasha Stewart-Irwin, and the three young passengers in her vehicle were uninjured.

The collision is under investigation by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department’s Accident Investigation Section. It is the second traffic-related fatality in the agency’s jurisdiction this year.

New Jersey Man Killed in Skydiving Accident

Daniel Kulpa, a 22-year-old skydiver from New Jersey, fell to his death Friday afternoon when his harness came loose during a jump in Florida, sending him into a free fall.

Kulpa was on a sky-diving vacation, was performing his second jump of the day when the accident occurred shortly after 1 p.m., police said. Kulpa was pronounced dead at the scene. Results from an autopsy conducted yesterday are expected to be released in the next few weeks, Sebastian police Detective Ron Carlson said.

Kulpa’s best friend, Adam Gollatz of Williamstown, Gloucester County, said Kulpa, who had more than 100 jumps on his record, was an experienced sky diver but was wearing a “wingsuit,” an outfit with flap-like arms that enables a diver to glide through the air. It was the first time Kulpa had jumped with the wingsuit, said Gollatz, who was on the trip but was jumping at a different location Friday.

The general rule of thumb, he said, is that a diver is qualified to wear a wingsuit after several hundred jumps.

“I just didn’t think he was ready for it,” said Gollatz, 20.

Carlson said officers responding to the scene near the Sebastian Municipal Airport found Kulpa’s body about 1,000 feet from where his parachute had become entangled in power lines.

Kulpa’s group started on the west coast of Florida several days earlier and made its way to Sebastian, a popular sky-diving hot spot about midway between Melbourne and Vero Beach.

The group signed up for an excursion with Skydive Sebastian, a 7-acre recreational center that caters to sky divers of all levels, according to the company’s website. Company officials did not return several calls yesterday.

Reviews of video footage showed that while Kulpa’s parachute had deployed properly, his harness had not been completely attached to his legs, Carlson said.

“It looks like the harness came off,” Carlson said.

Accident Caused By Road Rage Ends Fatally

A mother of five has been killed in an accident and Investigators say “road rage” led to the accident. Now they’re looking for the driver of the car that fled the scene of the crash. The driver of the car that smashed into a tree early Saturday morning lost control and lost her life. But what investigators consider a tragedy that could have been prevented if cooler heads prevailed. IMPD Lt. Jeff Duhamell told Eyewitness News, “There were words exchanged. One thought he had to cut her off, she lost control. “Just before 2 a.m. Saturday morning, police say 38-year old Kathy Slater and two passengers pulled out of the White Castle at 38th street and headed south on Keystone avenue. “Apparently according to witnesses she ran the light there and proceeded to cut off another vehicle,” said Duhamell. Words were exchanged, both were speeding, and police say the driver of the second vehicle cut in front of Slater causing her to lose control and crash into a tree near 35th street. Duhamell said, “Who is the driver? We don’t have a plate, we’re working on it .” Police are now looking for the driver of the second car . One of the city’s crime cameras is at 34th and Keystone is just about a block from the crash site. Police hope if the car they’re looking for passed through this intersection they’ll not only be able to identify it but the driver as well. They’re checking security cameras in the area as well. “He needs to turn himself in,” said an unidentified friend of the victim. Also injured in the crash were 44-year-old Angela Lamb and 19-year-old Clifton Benson. Lamb is in critical condition and Benson is fair condition at Methodist Hospital. They are looking for the driver of the second vehicle who they describe as an Hispanic man wearing a “skull” cap and driving a white Nissan with tinted windows.

World Champion Women’s Boxer Dies In Accident

Women’s world boxing champion Jizelle Salandy has died at the Port of Spain General Hospital after she crashed into a concrete pillar. The collision caused massive head and internal injuries and she was  rushed to the hospital, but died while undergoing emergency surgery. The passenger, Tammie Watson a Trinidad and Tobago national woman footballer , was also hospitalized. The accident came just three days after Olympic bronze medalist Richard Thompson and another member of the Trinidad Olympic team were injured in a car accident. The country’s Sports Minister Gary Hunt described young Salandy as an “icon” and had been a “tremendous and great motivator to the young people in Trinidad and Tobago”. “Not every day a country produces a world champion,” he said. “It is a sad loss.”

She had been named by Women Boxing Archive Network (WBAN) Top History Making Fighter for 2006 and had also been chosen as Trinidad and Tobago’s Sportswoman of the Year that same year.

Street race ends in fatal crash in Mission Viejo

An 18-year-old man was killed Friday when his car rolled several times, then crashed into a light pole and a tree during a street race with another car, police said.

According to a release from the Coroner, Jose Merino Pacheco of Mission Viejo was pronounced dead at 11:48 p.m. on Friday night at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center.

The crash occurred around 10:30 p.m. at Olympiad Road near Jeronimo Road, but it was not yet known which directions the cars were going or how fast they were traveling, said Orange County Sheriff’s Lt. Hal Brotheim.

The 18-year-old Mission Viejo man was traveling with three other passengers in a 2001 Volkswagon Jetta during the street race against a 17-year-old driver in a 2008 Scion TC, Brotheim said. That driver’s name was not released because he’s a minor.

One of the passengers was moderately injured, while the other two were not injured at all.

The collision remains under investigation.

1 dead and 18 injured after skywalk collapses at Atlanta Botanical Gardens

A construction worker was killed and 18 others have been injured Friday after an elevated pedestrian walkway they were building fell apart at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.

Fourteen of those hurt were taken to the hospital, eight of them in serious or critical condition at Grady Memorial Hospital. Their injuries ranged from fractures to head and spinal damage.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration immediately began looking into the matter. William A. Pinto, president of the Hardin Construction Company, the contractor for the job, said in a statement that OSHA was in control of the accident scene and that his company could not begin its own investigation until it had full access.

“Our present concerns are for those injured and their families,” said Mr. Pinto, who, like other officials, declined to identify the worker killed.

An official of Atlanta Fire Rescue said the workers were pouring concrete into the steel skeleton of the 600-foot-long Canopy Walk, a new attraction at the garden that was supposed to open next spring. The walk, which rises to a height of as much as 45 feet, was to give patrons a view of the canopy and the Atlanta skyline.

Former Texas Tech football player dies in car accident

Texas Tech defensive player Derrick Briggs, who played for coach Mike Leach during his first season in Lubbock, was killed in an car accident in Houston, according to the Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Briggs was killed early Wednesday after being involved in an accident on Interstate 10, a spokeswoman at the ME’s office said on Thursday. Briggs turned 31 Wednesday.

While playing for Texas Tech in 2000, Briggs started every game as a corner back under coach Mike Leach.

Fire claims the lives of 5, including 4 children

Fire officials in Columbus say a blaze responsible for killing five people began near a second-floor electrical panel.

Battalion Chief Doug Smith of the Columbus Fire Department says the fire started on Saturday, which began near the panel in the apartment’s living room, has been ruled an accident.

Smith says the department will have the electrical panel tested but says the results may be inconclusive.

The fire claimed the lives of a 40-year-old woman and four children ages 5, 7, 10 and 12. Authorities believe the victims may have been members of the same family.

Fatality after freak horseback accident

Experienced equestrian rider Buddy Dean Lilly, 61, was out riding around 12:30 p.m. Sunday in the Orcas-Gabrielino Equestrian Center when the animal seems to have been spooked and started galloping, said Los Angeles police Sgt. Rudy Alaniz of the Foothill Station.

Lilly started sliding sideways on the saddle while the horse ran through a wooded area.

The horse then crashed Lilly’s head and upper chest into a tree, causing him to fall to the ground. Lilly was killed instantly.

The horse was unhurt in the accident and kept running after Lilly had fallen off.

Lilly, a veteran rider, was reportedly not wearing a helmet at the time of the collision.

Authorities have called this a freak accident, seeing as no one knows why the horse spooked.

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