Student caught fire during chemistry teacher’s botched lab experiment
ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia high school teacher presenting a flashy demonstration to get her students excited about chemistry made a mistake that caused a fire to burn “out of control” and seriously injure a teenager in the front row, a school district report released Wednesday says.
Malachi McFadden, 16, suffered third-degree burns on his face, neck and torso and was hospitalized after his chemistry teacher bungled the “burning money demonstration” at Redan High School, just outside Atlanta, on the second day of his junior year, his lawyers said. On Wednesday, they released a report by an investigator for the DeKalb County school system that uses witness statements from students and teachers to piece together what happened Aug. 6.
Teacher Bridgette Blowe wrote in a statement included in the report that she’s successfully done the demonstration — lighting an accelerant-soaked bill on fire — in previous years and for two other classes this year. In this particular class, the flame didn’t burn out completely, Blowe wrote, “so I attempted to extinguish the flame with water, but I reached for the alcohol instead, by mistake.”
The report dated Oct. 21 says Blowe violated district standards and that Regional Superintendent Sean Tartt recommended Blowe be fired, but Principal Janice Boger recommended she be suspended and receive training on classroom safety.
The school district said Wednesday that Blowe is on administrative leave with pay, that no disciplinary action has been taken and the district is “reviewing training and safety protocols for its science labs.”
In a letter included in the report, Boger called Blowe a good teacher who, in this case, “made an awful mistake.”
L. Chris Stewart, a lawyer for McFadden, said they will likely end up suing for damages to cover his pain and suffering, as well as past and future medical costs, including plastic surgery.
“The only thing for them to do is to accept responsibility for it,” Stewart said of the school district.
The demonstration Blowe was attempting is popular on the internet and the premise is simple: Soak paper money in a mixture of water and alcohol, light it and amaze your friends when the bill comes through unharmed. But numerous videos also show the experiment going horribly wrong.
Blowe had tried to do the experiment the first day of classes using a mixture of water and alcohol, but it didn’t work, according to witness statements.
She tried the demonstration again the next day using a mixture of water and ethanol. After soaking a $5 bill and lighting it, she put it in a bowl and “added more ethanol to make the flame bigger,” the investigator concluded. That “caused the flame to become out of control,” spread across the lab table and burn McFadden, who had his head down.
Blowe said the glassware was mislabeled, but the report says it was unclear whether she was trying to put the fire out or “trying to make the flames larger so that students could see the flame.” The investigator wrote that it was “inconclusive as to whether or not Ms. Blowe’s use of water or alcohol was accidental.”
Reached by phone Wednesday, Blowe declined to comment.
McFadden told The Associated Press in a September interview that his hands still hurt constantly and he misses playing baritone saxophone in the band along with playing football and basketball. He hopes to return next semester.
He likes math and wants to be an engineer but has never really liked science. He’ll have to take chemistry next year to graduate but said he feels nervous about that.
News outlets across the country have reported about students injured in chemistry class demonstrations in recent years, including one at a Manhattan high school that caused burns over about 31% of a student’s body in 2014. In July, a jury awarded that student nearly $60 million in damages for past and future pain and suffering.
The problem isn’t new, said Ken Roy, chief safety compliance adviser for the National Science Teaching Association. There’s no national database that tracks such accidents, but Roy said he has anecdotal knowledge of at least 30 since the late 1990s that have ended up in court after students were seriously injured.
It may seem like there are more now because word spreads quickly on social media. That has prompted professional associations to step up their efforts to disseminate warnings and provide safety information for educators, Roy said.
“A science laboratory is a dangerous place,” Roy said. “There’s always going to be accidents, but of course you can make it safer to dramatically reduce that.”
Blowe, 36, had worked at Redan since August 2016 and previously as a science teacher at two other DeKalb County high schools from August 2007 through June 2013, according to school system employment records obtained by the AP through an open records request. The system declined to release performance reviews because they are confidential under state law.
While a student at Georgia Southern University, Blowe worked as a teaching assistant in the chemistry department, according to an employment application. Among the responsibilities she listed: “Made sure all laboratory procedures were run safely and properly.”
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Kate Brumback
Medical device used during labor falls out of patient 10 weeks later
As Laura Jokinen made her way home from a walk with her newborn son in October 2018, the shooting pain she’d been experiencing in her abdomen for weeks became unbearable.
She limped home and buckled to the floor, screaming for her husband to help.
“It was at that point I reached down and felt a metal device protruding out of my vagina,” said Jokinen, who works in health care as a risks assessment researcher.
“I freaked out … I didn’t know what the device was or where it came from. It looked almost like a battery, and there were wires that were running up inside me. I was afraid to remove it, because I wasn’t sure if it was attached to my insides.”
The experience points to alarming statistics. Canada saw a major jump — 14 per cent over the last five years — in the number of medical items left inside patients after procedures, according to a study released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), a not-for-profit group that collects data on the quality of health care in the country.
CIHI said 553 such objects were left inside patients over the last two years.
Canada has the highest rate among developed countries of medical items being left inside patients, according to a separate study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
That means medical teams across the country need to do a better job of following existing safety procedures, according to Sandi Kossey, senior director of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute (CPSI), a not-for-profit healthcare watchdog.
“There are checks and balances that should happen,” said Kossey. “There are enough preventative measures that should be in place, that these things should not happen.”
Jokinen, who lives in Parksville, B.C., had to have an emergency caesarean section on Aug. 11, 2018, at the Nanaimo General Hospital.
Before surgery, the medical team attached an electrode to the baby’s head while he was still in the womb to monitor his heartbeat.
Part of the monitor was removed during the C-section. But the medical team forgot to take out the rest.
Two weeks after Jokinen was discharged, she started having complications: an infection of her surgical incision and heavy, prolonged vaginal bleeding.
Her doctors prescribed antibiotics but didn’t detect what had been left inside her. It remained there for 10 weeks until it dislodged.
Jokinen tried to find out, through the regional health authority, what the monitor was made of and how the mistake might have affected her health and that of her baby.
“At that point, he was two months old and I was breastfeeding, so I was really concerned about what risks this posed to his health,” Jokinen said.
Jokinen says she was on pins and needles for more than a month waiting to hear back. The response she finally got, she says, was less than helpful.
The Vancouver Island Health Authority told her even the manufacturer couldn’t say what the effect might be since the device was only designed and tested for use over periods of 24 hours or less.
It said it looked at devices made of similar materials and didn’t believe there were any long-term risks to Jokinen or her baby from the breakdown of the components.
Jokinen says she wanted the health authority to take responsibility, but it refused, saying the failure was by the surgeon who is an independent contractor and not an employee.
“Physicians in B.C. are independent contractors who are licensed and regulated by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of B.C.,” the authority said in an email to Go Public.
Jokinen said she was surprised by the health authority’s reaction.
“They’re responsible for their subcontractor’s actions and … providing safeguards to make sure that people aren’t harmed.”
Kossey, at the CPSI, agrees. “Certainly, they are responsible for what happens under their watch and within their facility,” she said.
Jokinen chose not to pursue action against the surgeon.
Go Public reached out to HealthCareCAN, an organization that represents hospitals across Canada, for comment but did not immediately hear back.
‘Systemic flaw’
According to the most recent report on the quality of healthcare in OECD countries, a foreign body — sponges, needles, clamps, scissors, etc. — is left inside a patient in Canada 9.8 times out of every 100,000 surgeries. That’s three times the average.
The next-highest OECD results were Sweden at 8.3 followed by Netherlands with 4.6 per 100,000.
“The data shows that we’re not doing as good as we should be as a developed country,” Kossey told Go Public.
But she also suggests the reason Canada appears to have more mistakes could be in the accuracy of the reporting itself.
“Some of the other countries … being compared against may have different cultures around how they’re collecting and using that information … it’s a bit of a mixed signal,” she said.
Kossey says medical teams need to ensure they do an appropriate inventory of equipment used during all procedures and to communicate clearly with the patient and family members — even in the most chaotic situations — what’s being done so there are no surprises.
Jokinen was surprised to hear how often something goes wrong. “That points at a systemic flaw in our healthcare system,” she said.
“In order to address that, we need to first acknowledge that it’s happening. The health authorities need to take responsibility for the actions of their subcontractors and they also have to come up with a mitigation plan to avoid these types of events,” she said.
The Vancouver Island Health Authority told Jokinen it has made changes. Non-surgical devices like the monitor that was left inside her were added to a checklist of items that need to be retrieved after medical procedures.
“We deeply regret that this patient had a poor care experience and we sincerely apologize to her,” a spokesperson wrote in its email to Go Public.
via: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/fetal-monitor-left-inside-surgical-medical-error-1.5349111
Photo Credit: Laura Jokinen
A 10-year-old boy was shot in the head while walking home from school
A 10-year-old boy walking home from school in Philadelphia was critically injured Wednesday when he was shot in the back of the head by a stray bullet, according to police.
Philadelphia police said a man involved in the shooting has been arrested, but the gunman remains on the loose, CNN affiliate KYW reported.
Authorities said Semaj O’Branty was not the intended target, KYW reported. He was walking home from school in Frankford around 3:30 p.m. when police say a man driving a red Pontiac G6 fired at the man in custody, who tried to shield the boy and fired back, the station reported.
“He tries to cover the kid and protect the kid, but the kid takes a shot,” Philadelphia Police Capt. John Walker said, according to the station.
The shooting comes just weeks after a 2-year-old girl was killed and an 11-month old critically wounded in two separate shootings. So far this year, there have been more than 300 homicide victims in Philadelphia, according to statistics by Philadelphia police. It’s the highest number since 2007.
CNN has reached out to the Philadelphia Police Department.
“I heard about anywhere from 11 to 13 shots, right in a row,” Harry Stork told the station. “Next thing I knew, there was a lady down the street holding the boy’s back of his head and they rushed him off to the hospital.”
Semaj was transported to St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. He is currently in critical condition, but doctors say he is stable and expected to survive, the station reported.
via: https://currently.att.yahoo.com/att/10-old-boy-shot-head-102955578.html
Photo Credit: KYW / KYW
Teenager dies following marathon-long gaming session
A teenager in Thailand died from a stroke following a marathon-long computer gaming session, the Mirror reports.
Piyawat Harikun, 17, had purportedly spent several nights playing multiplayer battle games at his home in Udon Thani, northern Thailand, when his sessions finally took a toll on him.
On Monday afternoon, Harikun’s father Jaranwit went into his bedroom, only to find that his son had collapsed from his chair. There was a pile of takeout containers on Harikun’s desk and a soda by the boy’s feet, according to the tabloid.
“I called his name and said ‘Wake up, wake up,’ but he did not respond,” Jaranwit, an air force officer, recalled. “I could see he was dead.”
Jaranwit said he had warned his son, whom he called an excellent student, about his gaming addiction before he died. Medics believe the 17-year-old died from playing constantly throughout the night, which, in turn, caused a fatal stroke.
“I tried to warn him about his relentless long hours playing games and he promised to reduce it, but it was too late,” the father said. “He had already died before he had a chance to change.”
Now, Jaranwit hopes his son’s death serves as a lesson to other children who are similarly addicted to video games.
“I want my son’s death to be an example and warning for parents whose children are game addicts,” he said. “They need to be more strict on their children’s playing hours otherwise they could end up like my son.”
Photo Credit: currently.att.yahoo.com
Pilot fired after letting woman pose for cockpit photo during flight
He grounded for life.
A Chinese pilot was axed on Monday for allowing a female passenger to pose for a photo inside the cockpit mid-trip.
The woman posted the image, showing her smiling and making a “V” sign with her fingers next to refreshments, on the social media site Weibo with the caption: “Super thankful to the pilot! I am really so excited,” CNN reported.
It was snapped on an Air Guilin flight from Guilin to Yangzhou in January, but only came to the airline’s attention Sunday when an aviation blogger reposted it on Weibo and it racked up 22,000 likes.
The pilot, who wasn’t publicly named, violated the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s rules, which forbid passengers from entering the cockpit, the airline said.
He was banned from flying for Air Guilin “for life” but could still find work with another carrier, a company representative told state-run Beijing Youth Daily.
Air Guilin said it had a “zero-tolerance policy towards any unprofessional and improper acts that could endanger air safety.”
Other crew members involved in the photo were suspended pending an investigation. A handful of senior executives were also reprimanded and had their salaries cut over the incident, Beijing Youth Daily reported Tuesday.
The woman is a student taking a flight attendant course at the Guilin Tourism University, according to the state-run People’s Daily, CNN reported. It’s unclear whether she knows the pilot personally.
via: https://nypost.com/2019/11/06/pilot-fired-after-letting-woman-pose-for-cockpit-photo-during-flight/
Photo Credit: Weibo
Ex-church leader admits he took photos of a woman inside H&M dressing room
A former official for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has pleaded guilty to taking photos of a woman inside an H&M dressing room at a Tennessee mall, according to reports.
Steven Murdock, a onetime bishop and high councilor at several congregations in Salt Lake City, Utah, pleaded guilty Monday to unlawful photography for the August incident at the Opry Mills shopping mall in Nashville, the Tennessean reports.
Murdock, 55, was busted at an H&M after guiding a woman to an empty dressing room inside the store. As the woman got undressed, she then noticed a cellphone peering into the stall, according to an arrest affidavit.
The victim told WSMV that she “kind of slapped the phone” out of Murdock’s hands before he and his wife begged her several times not to call cops.
“They both offered us multiple times if we could please, you know, make a deal with them without involving law enforcement,” the woman, identified as Alondra Alcala, told the station.
Alcala also spotted several photos of herself on Murdock’s phone as he tried to delete the images, according to the affidavit.
Photo Credit: MNPD
Billionaire’s wife claims she can use N-word because she knows Alicia Keys
The wife of a billionaire hedge funder claims she’s not racist for using the n-word because she’s friends with Alicia Keys.
Lisa Falcone, the wife of beleaguered hedge funder Philip Falcone, told her former personal chef she wasn’t racist after using the n-word — and said he could ask her black friend Alicia Keys to confirm, according to new court papers.
Falcone allegedly dropped the n-bomb after meeting cook Brian Villanueva’s girlfriend, who is black, according to a wage-dispute lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court Wednesday against the socialite and her Harbinger Capital hubby.
Villanueva said his gal pal came in to help him cook for a Hamptons dinner party the Falcones were hosting on July 13, 2019 — attended by Keys and her husband Swizz Beatz — and the next morning Lisa commented on how articulate his partner was.
“Your girlfriend speaks very well. She seems educated. I would describe her as a chocolate-covered marshmallow,” the chef claims Lisa said.
Despite Villanueva appearing visibly offended, she went on to ask “Do you use the word ‘n—-’ at home with your girlfriend?” say the court papers.
“Defendant Lisa Falcone noticed the shocked and offended expression on Plaintiff’s face, however, rather than apologize, she said defensively, ‘I’m Puerto Rican and grew up in Spanish Harlem so I can speak like that,’” the suit reads.
The lawsuit says Villanueva asked his boss to explain the comments, and she responded that neither Keys nor her hubby, whose real name is Kasseem Dean, were as well-spoken.
“I meant she speaks really eloquently. Alicia [Keys] doesn’t speak that way. She didn’t have an education and was just discovered by Clive Davis when she was fifteen years old. Swizz [Beatz] definitely doesn’t speak that way either,” Lisa allegedly told him.
Later that day, Villanueva claims he delivered pizza to the Falcones on the beach, and told them he was quitting due to the racist remarks.
“Rather than accepting Plaintiff’s resignation, Defendant Lisa Falcone asked Plaintiff not to resign and stated ‘talk to my black friends’ (seemingly referring to Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz — both of whom were at the beach with the Falcones at that time), and emphasized ‘they will tell you that I am not racist,’” the documents read.
He’s suing for discrimination and violation of New York labor laws, saying he’s owed $4,230.76 in unpaid wages.
The lawsuit also claims Philip said he would only pay Villanueva if he and his girlfriend signed a confidentiality agreement promising to not repeat Lisa’s utterances. They declined to sign.
Reps for Keys and Beatz did not respond to requests for comment.
Philip declined to comment. Lisa did not return messages.
Photo Credit: FilmMagic
Cyclist Who Lost Job for Flipping Off Trump Motorcade Wins Local Office in Virginia
The cyclist who flipped off President Donald Trump’s motorcade in 2017, and lost her job because of it, has won her bid for local office in Virginia.
CNN projected that Juli Briskman on Tuesday night won her race to become supervisor for the Algonkian District in Loudoun County, Virginia. The win comes just over two years after a photo of Briskman flipping off the President’s motorcade as it made its way back to the White House from Trump’s golf course in Sterling, Virginia, went viral in October 2017. Her lawyer said she was forced to resign from her job as a marketing executive at Akima LLC over the photo.
Briskman was able to leverage her viral rebuke of Trump into Tuesday’s win with a campaign that made the image central to her political message.
She announced her campaign on Twitter in September 2018 by sharing a Washington Post article titled “The cyclist who flipped off Trump’s motorcade is running for public office.”
“Today, I am filing my organizational papers in a bid for local office in Loudoun County, Va. Loudoun deserves transparency in government, fully funded schools & smarter solutions to growth,” she said. “It’s time for a change.”
Speaking to CNN’s Jeanne Moos in 2017, Briskman contended she’s “really not” the bird-flipping type, but still made her feelings toward Trump clear.
“Health care doesn’t pass, but you try to dismantle it from the inside,” she said. “Five hundred people get shot in Las Vegas; you’re doing nothing about it. You know, white supremacists have this big march and hurt a bunch of people down in Charlottesville and you call them good people.”
“My finger said what I was feeling,” Briskman said at the time. “I’m angry and I’m frustrated.”
Photo Credit: ktla.com
Pennsylvania Woman Accused of Faking Cancer, Collecting Over $10,000 in Donations
A Pennsylvania woman faces theft charges for allegedly faking cancer and collecting donations exceeding $10,000 through GoFundMe and Facebook, according to a complaint obtained by CNN affiliate KYW.
Chester County resident Jessica Smith, 32, started a GoFundMe page and a Facebook fundraiser claiming she had been diagnosed with hereditary nonpolyposis colorectal cancer (HNPCC) and was “facing tremendous medical bills, travel costs, and paying for the care of her children and missed work,” according to the criminal complaint filed by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in Chester County. Smith said she was receiving chemotherapy at Penn Medicine, the complaint said.
All the money raised by the fundraisers — which totaled more than $10,000 — was deposited into Smith’s joint bank accounts with her husband, according to the complaint.
In a statement to CNN, GoFundMe maintained that misuse of the platform is very rare.
“In this case, the campaign was reported to our team and we are working with local law enforcement to assist in the investigation,” said GoFundMe spokeswoman Meghan Scripture. “All donations will be refunded to the donors in full and the user has been banned from the platform.”
Smith’s formal charges are theft by deception and receiving stolen property. Her lawyer, Michael DiCindio, told CNN he had no comment at this time.
Uwchlan Township Police Department launched an investigation in June when a friend of Smith’s filed a report alleging that she did not believe Smith had cancer.
Smith’s husband came forward a month later to report the same to police, stating that his wife is covered on his medical insurance through his employer, the complaint said. He provided documentation proving that Smith’s medical bills had not even met the $1,250 deductible, according to the complaint.
Terri Coleman, who helped interview Smith twice for The Ever Evolving Truth podcast, said she was suspicious of Smith very early on.
The podcast invited Smith for an interview after comments circulated on Facebook accusing Smith of lying about her cancer diagnosis.
“We found her to be very vague when discussing her cancer treatment and diagnosis,” Coleman told CNN of the July interview with Smith. “She had no documentation to prove her claims and she told us so many things that turned out to be lies.”
The complaint states that while Smith was a patient at Penn Medicine, she never received chemotherapy there.
Penn Medicine told CNN that they don’t comment on patient matters.
A court docket shows Smith was arraigned Monday and will return to court next week for a preliminary hearing.
Photo Credit: ktla.com
Kansas City votes to remove Martin Luther King’s name from historic street
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved removing Dr. Martin Luther King’s name from one of the city’s most historic boulevards, less than a year after the city council decided to rename The Paseo for the civil rights icon.
Unofficial results vote showed the proposal to remove King’s name received nearly 70% of the vote, with just over 30% voting to retain King’s name.
The debate over the name of the 10-mile (16.1 kilometer) boulevard on the city’s mostly black east side began shortly after the council’s decision in January to rename The Paseo for King. Civil rights leaders who pushed for the change celebrated when the street signs went up, believing they had finally won a decades-long battle to honor King, which appeared to end Kansas City’s reputation as one of the largest U.S. cities in the country without a street named for him.
But a group of residents intent on keeping The Paseo name began collecting petitions to put the name change on the ballot and achieved that goal in April.
The campaign has been divisive, with supporters of King’s name accusing opponents of being racist, while supporters of The Paseo name say city leaders pushed the name change through without following proper procedures and ignored The Paseo’s historic value.
Emotions reached a peak Sunday, when members of the “Save the Paseo” group staged a silent protest at a get-out-the-vote rally at a black church for people wanting to keep the King name. They walked into the Paseo Baptist Church and stood along its two aisles. The protesters stood silently and did not react to several speakers that accused them of being disrespectful in a church but they also refused requests from preachers to sit down.
The Save the Paseo group collected 2,857 signatures in April — far more than the 1,700 needed — to have the name change put to a public vote.
Many supporters of the Martin Luther King name suggested the opponents are racist, saying Save the Paseo is a mostly white group and that many of its members don’t live on the street, which runs north to south through a largely black area of the city. They said removing the name would send a negative image of Kansas City to the rest of the world, and could hurt business and tourism.
Supporters of the Paseo name rejected the allegations of racism, saying they have respect for King and want the city to find a way to honor him. They opposed the name change because they say the City Council did not follow city charter procedures when making the change and didn’t notify most residents on the street about the proposal. They also said The Paseo is a historic name for the city’s first boulevard, which was completed in 1899. The north end of the boulevard is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The City Council voted in January to rename the boulevard for King, responding to a years-long effort from the city’s black leaders and pressure from the local chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a civil rights organization that King helped start.
U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a minister and former Kansas City mayor who has pushed the city to rename a street for King for years, was at Sunday’s rally. He said the protesters were welcome, but he asked them to consider the damage that would be done if Kansas City removed King’s name.
“I am standing here simply begging you to sit down. This is not appropriate in a church of Jesus Christ,” Cleaver told the group.
Tim Smith, who organized the protest, said it was designed to force the black Christian leaders who had mischaracterized the Save the Paseo group as racist to “say it to our faces.”
“If tonight, someone wants to characterize what we did as hostile, violent, or uncivil, it’s a mischaracterization of what happened,” Smith said. “We didn’t say anything, we didn’t do anything, we just stood.”
The Rev. Vernon Howard, president of the Kansas City chapter of the SCLU, told The Associated Press that the King street sign is a powerful symbol for everyone but particularly for black children.
“I think that only if you are a black child growing up in the inner city lacking the kind of resources, lacking the kinds of images and models for mentoring, modeling, vocation and career, can you actually understand what that name on that sign can mean to a child in this community,” Howard said.
If the sign were taken down, “the reverse will be true,” he said.
“What people will wonder in their minds and hearts is why and how something so good, uplifting and edifying, how can something like that be taken away?” he said.
But Diane Euston, a leader of the Save the Paseo group, said that The Paseo “doesn’t just mean something to one community in Kansas City.”
“It means something to everyone in Kansas City,” she said. “It holds kind of a special place in so many people’s hearts and memories. It’s not just historical on paper, it’s historical in people’s memory. It’s very important to Kansas City.”
Photo Credit: pix11.com