A 57-year-old woman died early Wednesday after rescuing her grandchild from a rip current off Old Orchard Beach in Maine, and officials warned there may be more of the treacherous currents in the area this year.

Anne Farley of Westbrook, Maine, jumped in the water at Saco Beach Tuesday afternoon when she saw one of her grandchildren struggling in the water, Old Orchard Beach Fire Chief John Glass said. Farley managed to push her grandchild to the point the child could swim back to shore, but was unable to make it back herself, the family told officials.

Witnesses at neighboring Old Orchard Beach spotted Farley face down in the water and alerted lifeguards, who pulled her out and performed CPR, Glass said. She was transported to Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford, then transferred to Maine Medical Center in Portland, where she died Wednesday morning, he said.

Lifeguards rescued five other swimmers at the same time as Farley; they were unharmed. Glass said he was unsure if Farley, who was unconscious when lifeguards pulled her out of the water, had been caught underwater in a rip current or became too exhausted to continue swimming.

The area has experienced unusually strong rip currents this year, Glass said. Over Fourth of July weekend alone, lifeguards rescued about 50 people who were caught in the currents, he said. Farley was the first unsuccessful rescue this season, he said.

Unprecedented erosion up and down the New England coastline may be to blame for the unusual currents, said Stephen Dickson, a marine geologist for the Maine Geological Survey said. Strong storms wore away at beaches earlier this year in ways not seen for 20 years, he said.

“It’s a possibility,” Dickson said. “Lifeguards and swimmers are experiencing new rip currents in places they’ve never seen before. It will probably remain hazardous to swimming for the rest of the summer.”

via Maine woman dies rescuing grandchild; officials warn of rip currents – Local News Updates – MetroDesk – The Boston Globe.

MEMPHIS, TN— Police still have not charged anyone connected to a deadly pit bull attack. William Parker, 71, died after two pit bulls attacked him while he was walking home from the store. His wife, Bessie, says her husband had a heart attack while being attacked by the dogs.

Memphis police have confirmed an officer was called to the apartment complex where the attack happened on July 18, 2010. The officer responded to a “dogs on the loose” call. Police say the viscous dogs had a person trapped inside a car. A spokesperson for the Memphis Police Department said animal control was never called to pick up the dogs because the owner was able to get the dogs back in the apartment.

The dogs belong to Bernard Humphrey. When police responded to the dog call, they discovered Humphrey was a sex offender who failed to register his new address. Humphrey was arrested for violating the sex offender registry law and the dogs were left at the apartment.

In addition to Parker, four others were injured. One was Gardenia Parker. She was attacked trying to save her father. “These little cuts and bruises is nothing. I can get over that part. I can’t get over losing my daddy,” said Parker. “I ain’t ever going to get my daddy back. I think justice needs to be done.”

Bessie Parker thinks Humphrey needs to be criminally charged. “The way I feel right now, they could give him the death penalty because he killed my husband,” said Parker, “I miss my husband. I can’t bring him back.”

The dogs are now at the animal shelter under quarantine.

The Parker’s had been together for more than fifty years. Bessie Parker now has to come up with the money needed to bury her husband. The couple had no insurance. Parker said, “I try to be strong for my daughter and my grand baby, this is all I got left now.”

via Wife Talks About Pit Bull Attack That Killed Her Husband|myEyewitnessNews.com, Memphis News, Entertainment, Videos, Business Search and Shopping.

A 14-year-old boy struck by lightning in McDonough has died, authorities said Wednesday. A girl who was also struck survived and is recovering at a local hospital.

Henry County Coroner Greg Cannon told the AJC  that Eric West died overnight at Henry Medical Center.

A 15-year-old girl, Ceyara Taylor, was also struck by the lightning bolt Tuesday night as heavy storms slammed the south side of the metro area.

Taylor was taken to Henry Medical Center and was later tranferred to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. She was in good condition Wednesday afternoon, an Egleston spokeswoman told the AJC.

McDonough fire Chief Steve Morgan told WSB Radio that the teens were outside a house in the Huntington Ridge subdivision off Ga. 42 when they were knocked to the ground by a lightning bolt around 8 p.m.

West was in cardiac arrest when emergency crews arrived and was pronounced dead at the hospital. Taylor regained consciousness at the scene, Morgan said.

Two weeks ago, on June 19, a teen was struck by lightning in Acworth. The victim in that incident survived after a friend quickly summoned help by flagging down an Acworth police officer near the intersection of Lake Acworth Drive and West Lakeshore Drive.

Storms also delayed some arriving flights at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen told the AJC late Tuesday. For about 30 minutes, beginning around 9:45 p.m., the weather prevented flights from landing in Atlanta, Bergen said.

There is a 60 percent chance of  rain and storms on Wednesday, according to WSB-TV Chief Meteorologist Glenn Burns.

“It’s going to be very hot and very muggy,” Burns said.

Temperatures are expected to cool slightly, with Wednesday’s high expected to be 87 degrees in Atlanta, down from Tuesday’s high of 93.

So far, the upcoming holiday weekend looks like it will be sunny and dry, Burns said.

via Henry County lightning strike: Teen killed, girl survives  | ajc.com.

A newborn baby is dead after being attacked by a dog, Quebec provincial police say.

The attack happened in Saint-Barnabé-Sud, Que., on Monday afternoon.

Police said they received a call about the three-week-old girl around 3:30 p.m. ET.

Neighbours said the baby was in the home on Rang Bas-Saint-Amable with a pair of huskies — a male and a female.

The dogs did not belong to the family, but to a couple visiting the home, they said.

For an unknown reason, one of the dogs, believed to be the male, attacked the baby, said police.

A baby died in a dog attack in Saint-Barnabé-Sud, 60 kilometres east of Montreal. (CBC)”The investigation is just starting. What happened exactly, we will learn more over the coming hours,” said provincial police Sgt. Claude Denis.

The incident has shocked members of the small community and many people gathered outside the home where it happened, Radio-Canada's Jean-Philippe Cipriani reported from the scene.

Both of the dogs were taken away by humane society officials, who said tests would be done to confirm which of the animals was responsible for the attack and whether it was suffering from any problems, such as rabies.

“They are not aggressive dogs,” said Claude Dionne of the St-Hyacinthe SPCA. “They are just territorial dogs.”

Dionne said it was likely the dog responsible for the attack would be euthanized.

Since 1990, there have been 28 fatalities related to dog attacks in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. Of those killed, 85 per cent were children under 12 years of age.

Saint-Barnabé-Sud is about 60 kilometres east of Montreal.

via CBC News – Montreal – Dog kills Quebec newborn.

CODY — Authorities are investigating the circumstances surrounding the fatal mauling by a grizzly bear Thursday of a Shoshone National Forest cabin owner. The incident occurred at a site where a bear had been captured and released earlier that day.

Erwin Frank Evert, 70, of Park Ridge, Ill., was reported missing to a member of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team who had been conducting research in the Kitty Creek drainage, about seven miles east of Yellowstone National Park.

Researchers had earlier trapped and released an adult male grizzly in the area, according to information released by Park County Sheriff Scott Steward.

A longtime friend and professional colleague said Evert was aware that researchers had been trying for several days to trap a bear in the area, and that friends and family members were unsure why he had hiked into the capture site despite knowing the risks.

“None of us understand it and apparently never will,” said retired ecologist Chuck Neal, author of “Grizzlies in the Mist.”

Neal said he often hiked the woods around Yellowstone with Evert, a botanist, sharing a common interest in researching the region’s plants and animals.

Neal, a survivor of several close encounters with grizzlies, said Evert had called him last week asking about a sign posted at Kitty Creek warning about bear-trapping activities, and that Evert was “absolutely aware” of the risks of hiking in the area.

Neal said bear researchers were returning from the capture site when they were told by Evert’s wife, Yolanda, that he was missing.

A study team member went back to the capture site and found Evert’s body. Wardens with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department and a sheriff’s deputy responded at 8:30 p.m. to the remote location, about two miles from Highway 14-16-20.

Members of Park County Search and Rescue recovered Evert’s body around midnight, with assistance from Game and Fish workers, who provided armed security, Steward said in a written statement released Friday afternoon.

Steward said that Evert, who was not armed and was not carrying bear spray, apparently wandered into the capture site sometime after the bear had been released.

Neal said he did not know how researchers returning from the site failed to cross paths with Evert while he was hiking in, unless the botanist had left the trail at some point.

Bear not relocated

The bear had not been captured before Thursday, and had not been relocated from another area, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Researchers drew blood from the captured bear and fitted it with a radio collar before releasing it, Servheen said, but it has not yet been determined whether the previously captured bear was the same one that killed Evert.

Servheen said that wildlife officials will try to compare any DNA left by the attacking bear, most likely in its saliva, with blood drawn from the captured bear.

It is uncertain whether that difficult process of analysis will prove possible, he said.

Steward said that the U.S. Forest Service had issued a closure order for the Kitty Creek drainage and that federal wildlife and law enforcement agents are searching for the bear using electronic tracking equipment.

Servheen initially said Friday morning that wildlife officials would not try to trap the bear again. But he said later that efforts were being made to recapture it.

“If we get a chance to trap it, we will trap it,” he said.

He said that the investigation of the mauling is in its early stages, and that authorities will work to try and re-create what happened.

If it is determined that the bear trapped Thursday is the one that killed Evert, federal wildlife officials will decide the bear’s fate, he said.

“We’ll try to make a decision as to whether the actions of the bear were natural aggression,” Servheen said.

“We will try to make that decision based on what we know after we put all the facts together,” he said, adding that re-creating an attack without any witnesses can prove difficult.

Some cabin owners have said they were unaware of research work being done in the area, and questioned whether wildlife and land management agencies were communicating effectively with the public about such activities. The press is not routinely notified of study team field work.

Servheen said that interagency partners including the Wyoming Game and Fish and Shoshone National Forest personnel are aware of researchers’ work in the area, and that signs are posted in areas where bears are being captured.

He said he was unaware of what other public notifications, if any, were routinely made about bear capture efforts.

“The people doing this are highly trained professionals who follow very detailed protocols. One of the most important protocols is public safety,” he said.

“We want to make sure people don’t walk into these places, so they place signs lower down on the trail” warning people to avoid the area, he said.

Servheen said “it would be impossible to enter this area” without noticing warning signs

Close friends

Neal said Evert and his wife spent summers each year for the last three decades at their Kitty Creek cabin, and that they were close family friends.

“We walked many miles and spent many days together,” he said.

Evert was a research field botanist working for the Morton Arboretum in Chicago, and he also worked as a research associate at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium at the University of Wyoming, Neal said.

Evert had just published “Vascular Plants of the Greater Yellowstone Area,” a book offering an exhaustive catalog of native plants, including a series of annotated maps, Neal said.

“It’s a magnificent book. It weighs about 5 pounds,” he said.

“It really was his life’s work, so it’s good, and I’m grateful that he got to see that published,” Neal said.

“He just turned 70 this spring, but he was still very active and very fit,” Neal said.

Neal described Evert as “a committed man who could focus like a laser beam on his goal.”

Persistent windy conditions around Cody over the last week made it a particularly dangerous time for hiking in grizzly country, Neal said.

Bears are unable to easily hear or smell people approaching under such blustery conditions, and are more likely to be surprised, eliciting a defensive response.

Although bear encounters around Yellowstone are not uncommon, including ones that result in serious injuries to people, fatal bear attacks are relatively rare.

Neal said the incident was the result of “incredible bad luck, and also bad judgment.”

“I’m thinking it had to be a close-range, surprise encounter,” he said.

via Grizzly kills botanist in attack near Yellowstone park.

Neal said bear spray or a gun “may not have done any good” in such an attack.

CODY — A lab analysis has confirmed that a bear shot dead early Saturday morning near the east entrance to Yellowstone National Park is the one that fatally mauled a man Thursday afternoon in the same area.

The adult male grizzly bear had been snared and tranquilized by federal researchers Thursday morning and fitted with a radio collar before being released.

Erwin Frank Evert, 70, of Park Ridge, Ill., was found dead at the capture site Thursday after the bear was released. Evert ignored warning signs posted advising hikers to avoid the area because of the likelihood of a dangerous bear encounter.

Wildlife officials used a helicopter and radio tracking gear to locate and shoot the bear Saturday morning, after making unsuccessful attempts Friday to catch it.

Rapid DNA testing of genetic material from the bear that was left on the victim matched blood drawn from the bear when it was tranquilized Thursday, said Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Servheen said he decided late Friday to authorize killing the bear if it could not be captured, because experts could not definitively determine whether the animal’s actions were natural and defensive or aberrant and unusually aggressive.

“We regret the whole idea of having to remove a bear, but we just wanted to be sure. I stand by that decision to remove him,” Servheen said.

Servheen said the bear was initially near a road where it might have been captured, but it later began moving deeper into the wilderness, where it could later shed its radio collar and become exceptionally difficult to locate.

Servheen said he and other agency officials agreed that “the best thing to do for the safety of the public is to remove the bear.”

The U.S. Forest Service is now expected to reopen the Kitty Creek area, about seven miles east of Yellowstone, where the attack occurred. The area had been closed as a public safety precaution until it could be determined that the bear involved in the mauling was either not a threat or dead.

Friends and wildlife officials have said that Evert, a botanist who owned a cabin at Kitty Creek, was well aware of the risks of entering the capture area, but that he was curious about work being done there, and ignored verbal and posted warnings.

The incident is the first fatal mauling by a grizzly bear in the area in 25 years, and the first such fatal attack to take place at a site where researchers had recently trapped and released a bear.

Servheen said the U.S. Geological Survey crew from Bozeman that had been trapping bears in the area has left. The bear that killed Evert was the last one they had sought to capture.

Authorities will later complete a comprehensive incident report, but an initial review indicates that there were no obvious signs that researchers failed to follow standard trapping protocols, Servheen said.

“We try to do everything we can to minimize the risks. But we can’t protect ourselves against people that ignore every warning we give, and we can’t protect people against themselves,” he said.

“The whole thing is regrettable; just one tragedy followed by another,” Servheen said.

Evert was a research field botanist working for the Morton Arboretum in Chicago. He also worked as a research associate at the Rocky Mountain Herbarium at the University of Wyoming.

He had just published “Vascular Plants of the Greater Yellowstone Area,” a book offering an exhaustive catalog of native plants, including a series of annotated maps.

Evert and his wife, Yolanda, had spent summers at their Kitty Creek cabin for the past 30 years, according to family friend and professional colleague Chuck Neal, a retired ecologist and author of “Grizzlies in the Mist.”

“It really was his life’s work, so it’s good, and I’m grateful that he got to see that published,” Neal said of the book.

Neal described Evert as “a committed man who could focus like a laser beam on his goal.”

Neal, a survivor of several close encounters with grizzlies, said Evert had called him last week asking about a sign posted near Kitty Creek warning about bear-trapping activities, and that Evert was “absolutely aware” of the risks of hiking in the area.

Evert called his daughter early Thursday and described to her the route he planned to take from his cabin to the capture site, and it “was kind of his favorite route for light hiking,” but it did not follow the main trail, Neal said.

Persistent windy conditions around Cody over the past week made it a particularly dangerous time for hiking in grizzly country, he said.

Bears are unable to easily hear or smell people approaching under such blustery conditions, and are more likely to be surprised, eliciting a defensive response.

Evert was not armed and was not carrying bear spray when he was attacked, according to information released by the Park County Sheriff’s Office.

“I’m thinking it had to be a close-range, surprise encounter,” Neal said.

He said bear spray or a gun “may not have done any good” in such an attack.

Neal said the incident was the result of “incredible bad luck, and also bad judgment.”

“He was an extraordinary man who made a very ordinary mistake,” Neal said.

via DNA tests match dead bear to mauling.

The fatal grizzly bear attack on 70 year-old Erwin Evert near Yellowstone Park by a bear that may have been trapped, tranquilized, and radio-collared just hours before Evert's death raises perplexing questions. Why did Evert's wife notify Chad Dickinson of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team that her husband was missing? Normally, people would call the Wyoming Game and Fish Department or Shoshone National Forest officials.

Was the area where the bear was captured posted with warnings, or was it closed? U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Grizzly Bear Recovery Coordinator Chris Servheen told the Billings Gazette “it would have been impossible to enter this area” without noticing signs. What, exactly, did the signs say? If agency officials failed to close the area, could they be held liable for Mr. Evert's death?

In 1983, a grizzly bear that had been captured 20 times and drugged 12 times dragged Roger May out of his tent at a U.S. Forest Service campground near West Yellowstone, killed him,and partially consumed him. Even before the incident, there was speculation that after being trapped, drugged, and handled, bears became more aggressive and dangerous.

In the 1980s, bears were drugged with Sernylan, known on the streets as “Angel Dust.” New drugs are reputedly safer, but old concerns about the effects of drugging bears have never gone away.

If trapping and drugging bears isn't dangerous, why post warnings? If trapping and drugging bears is dangerous, why not close the area?

What was the purpose of the bear research that may have cost Evert his life?

State and federal agencies tell hunters and hikers in grizzly country to carry bear spray. The agencies claim bear spray provides better protection than a firearm. Why did Wyoming Game and Fish Department wardens provide “armed security” for the Park County Sheriff's Department search and rescue team that retrieved Evert's body? Why didn't the wardens use bear spray?

via More questions than answers in fatal bear attack near Yellowstone.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — A grizzly bear killed a Wyoming man outside Yellowstone National Park, apparently just hours after researchers trapped and tranquilized the animal.

The attack happened Thursday in the same place where two researchers with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team had examined a large adult male grizzly earlier that day, Park County Sheriff Scott Steward said Friday.

The suspect bear was wearing a radio collar. Authorities didn't intend to venture into the woods to chase the animal, however.

They hoped to trap it — again — and do DNA testing to see if it was indeed responsible.

“Certainly there is a good chance it was the bear they were working on,” Steward said. “There's certainly the exception, where it's just another bear.”

Shoshone National Forest officials closed off the Kitty Creek area, about six miles outside the Yellowstone East Entrance, until further notice.

“There have been Forest Service people in the area talking to people who live in those cabins, and at the lodges around there, letting them know what's going on,” forest spokeswoman Susan Douglas said Friday.

The victim was Erwin Frank Evert, 70, who went hiking around 12:45 p.m. from his cabin in the Kitty Creek drainage.

When Evert didn't return, his wife went looking for him and met one of the bear researchers. The researchers had been getting ready to leave the area but one of them returned to the place where they had found the bear in a previously set trap, then tranquilized the animal for study.

The researcher found Evert's body where they had left the bear to wake up, about two miles from Evert's cabin.

“My heart goes out for the victim and the family involved in this. Nobody would want anything like this to happen,” Chuck Schwartz, head of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team based in Bozeman, Mont., said Friday.

The team is made up of federal and state biologists who monitor and study grizzlies in the Yellowstone ecosystem.

The researchers also had trapped and tranquilized another grizzly in the area Thursday.

Schwartz said there would be an investigation, including into whether required procedures were followed, such as posting warning signs about the grizzly research.

Schwartz said it wasn't certain whether the trapped grizzly had mauled Evert. But Chris Servheen, grizzly bear recovery coordinator with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said it's unlikely that another grizzly would have been in the same area as the large adult male.

“There's a very, very high probability that it was this bear,” Servheen said.

The Wyoming Game and Fish Department was working Friday to try to recapture the bear, agency spokesman Eric Keszler said.

Grizzly bears have been back on the federal list of threatened species since last year.

via The Associated Press: Grizzly kills man near Wyoming’s Yellowstone park.

Seeing the funnel cloud barreling toward the small town of Mentor in northwestern Minnesota on Thursday, Wes Michaels yelled to his daughter working in the family-owned gas station.

“It's coming straight for us,” he shouted. “Get in the cooler.”

“In seconds, everything was on top of us,” said Michaels' daughter Heidi. She survived the storm, her father's body shielding her from the debris that killed him.

The tornadoes that ripped through northwestern and southern Minnesota on Thursday killed at least one other person, leveled a broad swath of Wadena and damaged numerous houses and farm buildings across the state.

An elderly woman from the small community of Almora in Otter Tail County died during the storm and her husband was taken to the hospital, said David Hauser, Otter Tail County attorney and spokesman. Brittney Schulke of Almora told the Daily Journal that her grandmother, Margie Schulke, was killed and that her grandfather, Norman Schulke, suffered two broken shoulders.

“We know that there are several other people who were injured,” Hauser said.

Heidi Michaels said her father had owned the Cenex gas and convenience store in Mentor for four years and wasn't supposed to have been working Thursday, his 58th birthday. He had come in only to check on her after hearing the storm warnings. When he saw the twister headed for the station, he ordered her and several customers into the cooler just before the store and four vehicles were destroyed.

“He saved me,” Heidi Michaels said.

The tornadoes that struck Mentor and Almora were the state's first fatal twisters in two years.

The storm that crashed into Almora also spawned a tornado that tore up about a 10-block residential area in nearby Wadena, ripping up old oak and elm trees, tearing off roofs and damaging buildings.

“It's a whole different horizon now,” said Randy Mohs, who drove through town after the storm.

The hours-long march of ferocious weather across the state also knocked out power in many locations, keeping utility and emergency crews busy as night fell.

The metro area was largely spared, with scattered reports of tornadoes and funnel clouds in the western suburbs, but no reports of serious damage. About 6,000 homes, mostly in the west metro area, lost power for a portion of the evening.

In Wright County, a tornado was on the ground north of Buffalo in a fairly rural area, but no injuries were reported, said Sgt. Peter Walker of the Sheriff’s Office. Damage was limited to downed trees and power lines, along with minor property damage, he said. A tornado was confirmed in McLeod County about 5:25 p.m., emergency management director Kevin Mathews said. “It was on the ground for a quarter to a half-mile, but it touched down in a field,” he said, adding that damage was limited to downed trees and grain wagons.

Multiple tornadoes and funnel clouds also raked Freeborn and Faribault counties in southern Minnesota. Buildings and other property near Kiester and Walters in Faribault County, along the Iowa border, were badly damaged. County Commissioner Tom Warmka said Kiester had been closed to traffic because live power lines were down in the streets. An 8-mile stretch of Hwy. 22 was also closed and many farms in the area were damaged, he said.

In Freeborn County, in the southern part of the state, multiple tornadoes hit, including one a half-mile wide, emergency management director Mark Roche said. Roche, who was out assessing the damage Thursday night, knew of multiple people taken to hospitals, but he didn’t have accounts of the seriousness of the injuries.

A shelter was opened at the National Guard Armory in Albert Lea for those in Freeborn County who lost housing in the storm, Roche said.

Travis Henderson, mayor of Conger, about 10 miles west of Albert Lea, said everyone had been accounted for “one way or another.” “Several farms are lost and houses are gone,” he said.

Fire departments from around the county were in Conger helping to round up pigs and cattle set loose in the storm, Henderson said, including one farm that had up to 3,000 pigs.

Wadena reeling

Wadena Mayor Wayne Wolden said the storm wiped out about a quarter of his town and left about 20 people injured. “Dozens and dozens of homes are flattened,” he said. “Part of the roof on the high school was ripped off and thrown across the street. The high school is damaged. The community center is gone.”

Luckily, the sirens in town alerted residents before the storm hit; otherwise there might have been more injuries. He and his daughter stayed in the basement as the sirens blared and the storm passed overhead. It took just three minutes, he said. “I heard a train just like they say,” Wolden said.

When the storm passed, he noticed his home lost only a few shingles. “But my neighbors lost their homes.”

The building that housed Leaf River Ag Service was leveled and an old two-story house that boarded students who attend the nearby vocational community college was destroyed, Mohs said.

“It’s cork-screwed across the street. It’s twisted like a candy wrapper,” Mohs said. “There are a lot of sirens, ambulances, police. There are helicopters flying. … It’s a mess.”

Joanne Ostlund, who works in the Wadena city offices, waited out the storm with co-workers. “There was a lot of damage,” she said. “My garage and shed are gone and one of our neighbors lost an entire farm site.”

Gov. Tim Pawlenty plans to inspect the damaged sections of the Wadena and other areas Friday.

In the nearby Deer Creek area, several farms were heavily damaged, said Deer Creek resident Kathy Hill.

“My brother’s farm is pretty much gone,” she said. “The barns are gone. The house is damaged.”

Hill and her husband tried to reach her brother’s farm, but roads were blocked. Then she tried to check on her sister in Wadena, but entrances to the town were blocked.

“The roads are filled with debris — 2-by-4s, metal from buildings, power lines,” she said. “We have no electricity. No telephone service. It was bad. It will be awhile before recovery happens.”

Hail up to 4 inches in diameter was reported elsewhere in Douglas County. Hail also dominated reports across southern Minnesota, with a report of 2 1/2-inch stones near Fairfax, about 100 miles southwest of the Twin Cities.

via 2 dead as tornadoes sweep across Minnesota.

With the storms over, benign weather is forecast to return to Minnesota on Friday and Saturday, with the Twin Cities expecting sun and highs of 86 Friday and 79 Saturday.

A nine-year-old girl from Kokomo, Indiana, has died of dog bite wounds five days after her family’s pit bull attacked her in her own home. According to reports, Savannah Gragg was letting the family dog out of the front door when the animal lunged at her, brought her to the floor, grabbed her neck, and shook her violently. While the girl’s grandmother, who witnessed the attack, tried to free the girl, she was unsuccessful. The deadly dog attack too place on Saturday, May 29, 2010.

She was rushed to Indianapolis and admitted to Kokomo's Howard Regional Hospital. She was then transported by Life Line helicopter the Riley Hospital for Children, where she underwent surgery in an attempt to repair her mangled neck and trachea. Although she survived the surgery, she continued to be listed in serious condition on Sunday. The young girl died on Thursday afternoon, almost a week after the attack, according to Howard County Sheriff Marty Talbert.

The child suffered a lack of oxygen to the brain when her trachea was torn by the dog. She was declared brain dead on Thursday afternoon. The Gragg family told police that the dog had never shown aggressive behavior in the past.

The pit bull has been quarantined at a local animal control office as deemed by Indiana dog bite laws and will be put down in the near future. The fatal Indiana dog attack is still under investigation by Howard County authorities. Savannah was a third-grade student at Taylor Intermediate School in Kokomo this fall.

via Kokomo, Indiana, Girl Dies After Pit Bull Attack | Keller and Keller.

A lot of lightning related fatalities lately.

William John Carr, the motorcyclist struck by lightning on U.S. 285 in Chaffee County Saturday during a heavy thunderstorm, died of his injuries Tuesday evening at St. Anthony Central Hospital in Denver.

Channel 9 News of Denver reported earlier he was on life-support after the accident and was an organ donor.

Carr, a firefighter from Pompano Beach, Fla., was riding with three friends about 4 p.m. Saturday when he received the direct lightning strike, knocking him and his motorcycle off the west side of the road into the ditch.

He received fractures to his face and head and numerous electrical burns.

Witness Dirk Peratt of the Rock Doc at Centerville saw the incident and was first on the scene.

He said Wednesday that despite extensive injuries, Carr had a “peaceful look on his face.” Carr's friends later thanked Peratt for caring for the victim until emergency personnel arrived.

via Lightning-struck motorcyclist dies in Denver hospital.

GRAHAM (AP) – A man has died after he was struck by lightning at an Alamance County home.

Horacio Ascencio, 19, died Wednesday in the burn unit at UNC-Chapel Hill Hospital. Police say Ascencio was standing under a tree in the front yard of a home in Graham around 7:45 p.m. Tuesday when he was hit by lightning.

His mother says Ascencio's shoe came off, his sock was ripped open and smoke was coming from his body.Ascencio's heart stopped, but he was revived and taken to a hospital.

Alamance County was under a severe thunderstorm warning issued by the National Weather Service when Ascencio was struck.

Witnesses told authorities that the sky was clear, and there was a light drizzle of rain.

via 19-year-old struck by lightning, killed | ascencio, struck, lightning – Local News – Gaston Gazette.

In a stroke of bad luck and extreme irony, a Broward County firefighter was killed when he was struck by lightning as he visited a sacred firefighter memorial in Colorado.

William Carr worked for the Broward Sheriff's Fire Rescue in Pompano Beach and was an executive of the firefighter's union, which released the information Wednesday.

“He was truly one of the good guys who will be truly missed,” wrote union president Walter Dix.

Carr, 53, was riding his motorcycle with several other firefighters near Denver when he took a direct hit from a lightning bolt this weekend. None of the other riders were injured, but Carr was taken to a Denver hospital where he later died.

The motorcycle group was on their way to visit the International Association of Fire Fighters Fallen Firefighter memorial, which was set up to honor men who gave their lives in the line of duty.

via Firefighter Killed By Lightning at Firefighter’s Memorial | NBC Miami.

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (NEWSCHANNEL 3) – The death of a letter carrier has prompted a safety warning from the U.S. Postal Service.

The postal worker was struck by lightning Tuesday afternoon in St. Louis.

A postal service spokesperson says the 34-year-old woman had just dropped off mail to one of her customers when she was struck.

She was taken to an area hospital where she was pronounced dead.

“One of our customers, who she just delivered mail to, saw this. The lightning struck her, and she was the one who contacted emergency rescue to pick her up and transport her to the hospital,” said Valerie Hughes of the U.S. Postal Service.

The post office says as soon as it got word of the accident it sent out alerts to all employees to review safety procedures during severe weather.

via Safety warning after postal worker killed by lightning | postal, service, lightning – Top Stories – WWMT NEWSCHANNEL 3.

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) – Bahamas police say an American tourist who died while swimming in the ocean may have been struck by lightning.

Assistant commissioner Glenn Miller says authorities are still waiting for autopsy results to confirm what killed Larry Jackson of Hernando, Miss.

The 44-year-old tourist went swimming with his brother and wife Tammy shortly after checking into a Wyndham Hotel in Nassau's Cable Beach. Heavy rain and thunder hit the island around the same time.

Hotel spokesman Robert Sands said Thursday that Jackson was pulled from the water and his brother and hotel staff administered CPR until an ambulance arrived. He was pronounced dead on arrival to a Nassau hospital on Wednesday.

via Victoria Advocate | Bahamas: American tourist dies amid lightning.

He never got to pop the question.

Richard Butler was hiking up a North Carolina mountain with girlfriend Bethany Lott – and an engagement ring in his pocket – when lightning struck.

“God, baby, look how beautiful it is,” Lott said of the mountain vista just before the bolt hit her.

Those turned out to be her last words.

Butler, who was also hit, said “everything went black” and when he opened his eyes again “she was laying a few feet away.”

“I crawled to her,” he told the Asheville Citizen Times newspaper. “I did CPR for probably 15 minutes, and the whole time was trying her cell phone, but I couldn't get anything out.”

Later, when the paramedics arrived, a badly burned Butler used what remained of his strength to perform one last act of love.

“I put the ring on her finger while the EMTs were working on her,” he told the newspaper. “They are listing me as her fiancé in the obituaries.”

Butler, 30, and Lott, 25, both of Knoxville, Tenn., had set off for the summit of Max Patch Bald on Friday when it started to rain.

“I picked that spot because she actually said she would like to get married there,” Butler told a local TV station. “She absolutely loved the outdoors.”

And Lott was not deterred by the stormy weather.

“She hiked thousands of miles and spent a couple of years in Utah just hiking,” Butler's mother, Janet Delaney, said.

Then lightning bolts creased the sky, and one of them hit the lovebirds.

“I was spun 180 degrees and thrown several feet back,” Butler said. “My legs turned to Jell-o, my shoes were smoking, and the bottom of my feet felt like they were on fire.”

Another Knoxville couple raced over and also tried to revive the doomed hiker.

“They stood on the top of the hill doing what they could for probably 20 minutes until the rescuers got there,” said Butler, who suffered third-degree burns.

But there was no saving Lott, who was to be buried at a Tennessee cemetery on Tuesday with a view of the mountains she loved in the distance.

On his blog, Butler called himself “the luckiest man alive.”

“I was given a life with the most amazing woman in the world,” he wrote Tuesday. “I was loved more completely than I ever dreamed possible.”

Lott may be gone, the grieving would-be groom wrote, but “I have gained a constant companion in the wind.”

via Bethany Lott struck by lightning, moments before boyfriend Richard Butler was to propose.

A 17-year-old mother and a 37-year-old grandmother have been arrested and will be charged with criminal negligence causing death, after a three-week-old baby girl was mauled to death by a husky dog.

Quebec provincial police were called to a home in Saint-Barnabe-Sud, about 65 kilometres northeast of Montreal, Monday afternoon.

They found the lifeless child, the two women, and the two husky dogs at the scene.

According to Surete du Quebec Sgt. Ronald McInnis, the baby was left in a car seat on the floor while the mother and grandmother went outside.

While they stepped out of the house, one of the dogs attacked and killed the infant.

The mother and grandmother were taken to hospital to be treated for shock, and both were arrested after they were released.

The 37-year-old woman is scheduled to be arraigned at the St. Hyacinthe courthouse Tuesday afternoon, and her daughter will make an appearance in youth court.

via CTV Montreal – Mother, grandmother arrested after fatal dog attack on infant – CTV News.

This is a story from 2005.

DESTIN, FL – A 14-year-old Louisiana girl was killed Saturday in a shark attack in Destin near a Walton County campground on the Gulf of Mexico. The girl's identity was not released. But Walton County Sheriff's spokeswoman Donna Shank says the girl was from Gonzales, Louisiana.

Shank says two 14-year-old girls were swimming about 100 yards offshore when they noticed a dark shadow in the water. Shank says, “One of the swimmers was bitten. It was lower portions of her body.” Both girls swam to the shore where the girl that was attacked was treated. Shank says the girl was transported to the Sacred Heart Hospital in South Walton where she was pronounced dead.

About 21 miles of area beaches were closed to swimmers immediately afterward. They will be closed for the rest of the day.The attack happened near Camping on the Gulf Holiday Travel Park in Walton County. Patrick O'Neill, the campground's general manager, refused to comment. Mike McKee, front desk supervisor at the Hilton Sandestin Beach Resort and Spa, said this is the time of year when area hotels are booked to capacity.

Florida had the largest number of documented shark attacks worldwide in 2003 with 31.

via Destin Shark Attack Kills 14-Year-Old Girl.

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A Columbus boy died Wednesday after being struck by lightning over the Memorial Day weekend.

Evan Elwood, 8, was with his parents at a weekend family gathering in Baton Rouge, La., when a storm forced everyone to go inside, said Beth Lucas, the public relations spokeswoman at Heritage Academy Elementary School, where he was a second-grade student. When the weather appeared to have calmed, the family went back outside, and Elwood was hit.

He was in critical condition at the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Lady of the Lake Hospital in Baton Rouge until he died of his injuries Wednesday afternoon.

Friends and members of Elwood’s school community met Wednesday at the Heritage Academy gym planning to pray for his healing, but the gathering turned into a memorial service after his death. Grievers shared tissues and long hugs as they remembered the second-grader. They sang “I’ve Got Peace Like A River.”

Shawn Parker, senior pastor at Columbus First Baptist Church, spoke about Evan’s life and offered consolation about his death.

“As he drew his last breath, on the other side angels were waiting for him to take him into heaven,” Parker said. “Death is simply falling asleep and moving into God’s presence.”

Chad Kingsbury, the youth minister at Columbus First Methodist Church, counseled community members to work together to cope with the tragedy.

“I would advise us to cling to God and cling to each other,” he said.

Funeral arrangements have not yet been made.

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RELATED CONTENT

• SPECIAL REPORT: Surviving rip currents
  
  CHARLESTON, S.C. – The National Weather Service Forecast Office in Charleston reported Tuesday that a 9-year-old boy died after being pulled out to sea by a rip current.

The Lady’s Island fire chief reported the death was caused by a rip current near a groin on the beach of Hunting Island State Park, which is located in Beaufort County.

The weather service had issued a low risk rip current forecast for Monday.

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More common than you’d think.

• Sept. 16, 2009: Rory Chapple, of Fort St. John, British Columbia, saved his life by plunging an arrow into the neck of a grizzly bear after he tripped and the bear fell on top of him. The grizzly has not been found.

• Sept. 8, 2008: Reg MacDonald, a former MLA who sat for 16 years in the New Brunswick legislature, was riding his motorbike when a bear jumped on his bike and sent him flying through the air into a deep ditch. The 74-year-old was in a coma for 3 weeks after he was rescued.

• Sept. 10, 2008: A black bear swam across a river, climbed on a dock and then jumped on a boat to attack a man on Vancouver Island who was fishing at a marina. Friends and passersby came to the man’s aid and used gaffs (fishing spears), knives and a hammer to pull the bear away. The bear was finally killed with a gaff. The victim was airlifted to a Victoria hospital with cuts to his arm and upper body.

• Aug. 6, 2008: Neighbours pelted rocks at a black bear outside Coquitlam, B.C., as it attacked a screaming woman in her suburban driveway. After a three-minute struggle, the 115-kg bear went behind the house where it was later shot and killed by police officers. The woman was in stable condition with serious injuries on her arms and head and with bite marks all over her body, according to police.

• July 17, 2008: A Belgian tourist to Lake Louise was jogging alone on an abandoned railway northwest of the resort town when she surprised a black bear. Thirty minutes of terror ensued and she even “played dead” while a bear sank its teeth into her. She escaped the attack with only minor injuries.

• May 26, 2007: A 15-year-old was chasing her cat through a wooded area in the town of Georgina, Ontario when she ran into a black bear. She received only superficial scratches to her left forearm when she startled the bear. The two then ran in opposite directions.

• Sept. 2005 – A black bear killed Dr. Jacqueline Perry and wounded her husband Marc Jordan. The 30-year-old couple was attacked at Missinaibi Provincial Park, north of Chapleau, Ont. Jordan wounded the bear with a Swiss army knife while trying to free his wife. The bear was later shot and killed in a remote area of the park near where the attack occurred. This is just the fourth time since 1978 that a black bear has stalked and killed anyone in Ontario. The most recent attack took place in 1992.

• Sept. 2005 – A Manitoba man fends off a black bear in early September, just one week after a black bear killed another man in the province.

• August 26, 2005 – A 69-year-old man is fatally mauled by a black bear while out picking plums north of Winnipeg. It’s just the third time a black bear has killed a person in Manitoba’s history.

• June 2005 – There have also been four grizzly attacks in Alberta since June, including a fatal one on a female jogger near Canmore. Jogger Isabelle Dube, 35, a competitive mountain biker originally from Quebec, was married and had a young daughter. She was the first person killed by a bear in Alberta since 1998. Since 1992, there have been two deaths and 23 maulings by bears in Alberta.

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BERLIN — Four attack dogs killed a 3-year-old toddler in eastern Germany and badly injured the girl’s great-grandmother, who had tried to rescue the girl, police said on Saturday.

Prosecutors opened an investigation for negligent homicide against the dogs’ owner, the girl’s aunt, police spokeswoman Jeanette Schwahn-Witzenhausen said.

The girl and her 70-year-old great-grandmother had been visiting the girl’s aunt Friday evening in Oldisleben-Sachsenburg in Thuringia state when the Staffordshire bull terriers attacked the girl while she was in the house, police said.

The great-grandmother tried to stop the dogs, each weighing between 65 and 90 pounds (30 to 40 kilograms), but only the aunt rushing in from the garden was able to pull them away, police said.

The girl died on the scene, about a week before her fourth birthday. She lived in the same village and had visited her aunt previously, prosecutor Sandra Bock said, adding that authorities had yet to question the 44-year-old woman.

Veterinarian Gunter Wolf said the dogs had bitten the girl’s head “very aggressively” until moments before her death, German news agency DAPD reported from nearby Nordhausen. Wolf said that while the animals’ behavior was abnormal, but they did not have rabies.

The dogs were killed by authorities with the aunt’s consent, police said.

They were not registered with authorities, as is required in Germany for dogs deemed potentially dangerous, DAPD quoted police officer Michael Becker as saying.

In a similar tragedy less than a month ago in Germany, a Husky killed an 8-week-old baby in Cottbus, in the eastern state of Brandenburg.

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SAINT-JUDE, Quebec – All four members of a family missing in a farmhouse swallowed up by a landslide northeast of Montreal were found dead, CBC reported Tuesday.

“They were found very close to one another, some of the lying on the couch in the family room in the basement, where we were told that they’d be,” said Michel C. Doré, Quebec’s associate deputy public security minister, who was on the scene.

The Saint-Jude home was swept away after the land beneath their home gave way on Monday night. Saint-Jude is a town of 1,000 residents north of St-Hyacinthe near the Yamaska River.

“It’s a pretty gigantic crater,” said Francois Gregoire, a Quebec fire department spokesman. “It’s hard imagining something like this. It’s pretty impressive.”

Gregoire said the house was quite far from the river before the land gave way but that part of it ended up in the water.

He said three cars in front of the house were swept away, as was part of a nearby road.

Sinkholes can occur when water undermines an area of land or when rock below the land surface shift.

Earlier, rescuers were able to get to the collapsed house, but could not locate the missing man and a woman in their 40s and their children, aged about 9 and 11.

Quebec provincial police spokesman Ronald McInnis said firefighters got into the house but had to retreat when it started moving again.

“Then other firefighters from St. Hyacinthe came, got into the house and the same thing happened, so they also got out,” he said.

Soil scientists later arrived on the scene to determine if the ground was stable enough for rescuers to re-enter the home, he said.

Mayor Yves Bellefeuille said the community is in shock, especially since the home is not in an area considered to be at risk.

Police said at least five other houses have been evacuated in the area, affecting about 20 people. Police have closed a stretch of a secondary road where the houses are located.

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ENIGMA, Ga. (AP) – Police say an 82-year-old Berrien County man is dead after a rattlesnake bit him several times while he was fixing his lawnmower Wednesday.

Investigators believe Eddie Lee Dorminey was changing the lawnmower belt and didn’t notice the snake was there.

Berrien County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Larry Tabor says authorities first thought the man had died of a heart attack. But Tabor says when he looked under the lawnmower, he noticed a rattlesnake wrapped around a pulley.

He says authorities checked the body again, and saw puncture wounds on Dorminey’s wrist.

The venomous snake has been killed.

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CLINTON, Ark. – Tornadoes ripping through central Arkansas killed at least one person and injured about two dozen others Friday, and more bad weather was possible Saturday, authorities said.

The death was reported in Van Buren County — about 75 miles north of Little Rock — where at least three mobile homes were destroyed, state Department of Emergency Management spokeswoman Renee Preslar said.

About two dozen people were hurt during the storms, but local officials who reported the deaths and injuries to the state agency did not immediately release the severity of the injuries or details about how the individuals were hurt, Preslar said.

Another round of storms, including tornadoes, could come Saturday, said John Robinson, warning coordinator meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Little Rock.

“Certainly, there will be the threat of severe weather (Saturday) and the threat of at least isolated tornadoes,” he said. “I do think we will have more severe weather.”

Search teams located a person believed missing in the wreckage of a home in Center Ridge, while extensive property damage was reported across several counties in central Arkansas, Preslar said.

Tornado sightings were reported just a few miles north in Culpepper, according to Arkansas State Police. A sheriff’s dispatcher said a sighting also was reported in the Oakland area, near the Missouri border.

Trees and power lines were blocking major roadways in both areas.

Robinson said a slow-moving cold front that moved into Arkansas from the west touched off the severe weather Friday.

“We had spotty thunderstorms here and there, and those are the ones — the ones that sit out there by themselves — that end up being tornado producers,” he said, noting tornado season generally peaks in April in Arkansas.

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Her 32-year-old uncle was arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after the incident at around midday on Saturday.

Sussex Police’s major crime branch was investigating the girl’s death. Detective Chief Inspector Trevor Bowles, who is leading the inquiry, said: “It is very early in the investigation but we are working extensively to try and establish how this tragedy occurred.”

The dog suspected of killing the girl was being held by police. The animal is believed to be a mastiff-type breed.

A police spokesman said: “A man has been arrested on suspicion of manslaughter after a one year old female was attacked and killed by a dog at an address in Crawley.”

The arrested man was not at the address when the attack happened, but is understood to have been arrested when he arrived at the property shortly afterwards.

A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said that he believed the man involved owned two dogs and was often seen walking them in the area. “The bloke himself is absolutely spot on, the dogs are well looked after, I don’t know what type they are, all I know is that they are big. I am surprised this is what has happened, my little one strokes his dogs,” he added.

The death is the latest in a series of incidents in which dogs have attacked and killed, or seriously injured, young children.

Last month, a two year old girl, Taylor Leadbeater, suffered severe injuries to her jaw, nose and mouth, and required reconstructive surgery, after being attacked by her family’s dog, in Eltham, south east London.

The animal was stabbed to death by the girl’s father, Gareth Sim, who had been playing with the family pet when it turned on his daughter.

In another incident last month, a gang member who used a dangerous bull terrier to attack a rival before stabbing him to death, became the first person to be convicted using DNA evidence taken from the crime scene and matched to his dog.

Chrisdian Johnson, 22, killed Oluwaseyi “Seyi” Ogunyemi, 16, by setting his dog Tyson on him before stabbing him six times as he wrestled with the animal on the floor.

Last year 5,221 people, a quarter of them children, were admitted to hospital in England after being attacked by dogs, compared with a total of just over 3,000 a decade ago. Thousands more were treated as outpatients.

In London alone, the number of dangerous dog cases going to court increased from 35 in 2002-3 to 719 in 2008-9. Adults attacked include railway engineer James Rehill, 78, who was “dragged like a doll” through the street in a fatal attack by his own dog in January last year.

Other cases include that of John-Paul Massey, a four-year-old who died at his grandmother’s house in Liverpool last year after suffering “massive injuries” inflicted by a dog later found in tests to be a type of pit bull, a breed banned under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

In February last year, Jaden Mack, three-and-a-half-month-old was killed by a Staffordshire bull terrier and a Jack Russell at his grandmother’s home in Ystrad Mynach, South Wales.

The Dangerous Dogs Act was introduced in 1991 – and amended in 1997 – in response to various incidents of serious injury or death resulting from attacks by aggressive and uncontrolled dogs, particularly on children.

It is now illegal to own any “Specially Controlled Dogs” without specific exemption from a court. Four dogs – including the pit bull terrier – were identified as being banned under the Act, which also bans the breeding, sale and exchange of such dogs.

The Government is currently considering further amendments to the Act. It has been reported that an increasing number of people are keeping dangerous dogs as “status symbols” to intimidate others.

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Just an awful story.

NEW PORT RICHEY – Just seven days old, the tiny baby’s bloody body was covered with more than 50 puncture wounds as Jackie Welch tried in vain to help.

“It scared … me,” Welch said. “I kept my mind together because I knew I had to do CPR to help revive him.”

Her efforts were not enough, however, and 1-week-old Thomas Carter Jr. died Wednesday afternoon after being mauled by a family pit bull mix described by one person as “lovable.”

The attack came in the same bed where the baby slept with his 16-year-old mother, Nicole Koezeno.

The boy’s mother apparently slept through the attack and wasn’t aware her baby was hurt until someone knocked on her bedroom door about 11:45 a.m. Wednesday.

“She started screaming, ‘My baby! My baby!,’ said Welch, a neighbor who had spent the night there and was in the mobile home’s hallway. “Then she said, ‘My dog bit my baby; he’s bleeding.’ ”

Welch went into the bedroom to try to help. The baby wasn’t breathing, so she administered CPR as someone else called 911.

The baby was pronounced dead a short time later at Morton Plant North Bay Hospital. It was the second fatal mauling of a child in the Moon Lake Estates neighborhood in the last four months.

“It’s very painful and shocking,” Welch said. “I feel guilty because I wasn’t able to save him.”

Welch, 32, lives next door, but spent the night there with her 2-year-old son. She does that from time to time because her brother, Jonathon Gibson, and his girlfriend live with Koezeno and the baby’s father, Thomas Carter Sr.

She said the pit bull mix, Sidon, routinely slept in the bedroom with the baby and his parents. There is tension between Sidon and her brother’s pit bull, Buddy, who spent the night in her brother’s bedroom, she said.

Welch said she woke up at 7 a.m. and never heard a sound from the dog.

“The dog didn’t make a noise or nothing – no growling, no barking, no nothing,” Welch said.

She heard the baby cry at about 9:30 a.m., but shortly afterward the baby became calm.

“It cried for two minutes and that was it,” Welch said. “After that I didn’t hear nothing.”

Welch has known the dog since it was a puppy and said there has never been a problem, even with her child. She guessed the dog was about 3 years old.

She described Koezeno and Carter, 20, as loving parents who cared for and doted on the baby. They came back from the hospital excited with their new bundle of joy.

“They took very good care of him,” Welch said. “They didn’t leave him out of their sight.”

Welch warned that people with pit bulls should keep them away from children.

“If people have pit bulls, they either need to get rid of them or put them in a fenced-in area in the back away from children,” she said. “You never know when they’re going to turn.”

Neighbors said Thomas Carter Sr. once lived at a nearby mobile home with several pit bulls. He brought Sidon with him when he moved into the mobile home at 10548 Olsen Str. in Moon Lake Estates.

Deputies got the call just after noon.

David Lance, Carter’s boss, was with him mowing lawns when he got the call from Koezeno.

“She called, frantic,” Lance said. “He couldn’t even understand her.”

Carter rushed to meet the family at the hospital.

“That was his pride and joy,” said Lance, who has worked with Carter for three years. “They were both proud parents.”

He said he was stunned to hear of the attack. He’s known Sidon for years and said the dog often would be outside when they mowed Carter’s lawn.

“That dog was lovable,” he said.

Pasco Animal Services officers took the dog to their facilities in Land O’ Lakes, said Denise Hilton, manager of the agency.

The dog will be euthanized, but it wasn’t clear when, Hilton said.

She couldn’t confirm if the second dog at the mobile home during the attack also was taken.

“It’s heartbreaking all around,” Hilton said. “It’s something that’s horrific and you never want to happen.”

This is the second child in Pasco — and in Moon Lake — to be killed by a family dog since December.

On Dec. 12, 22-month-old Dallas Lee Walters was mauled to death by a relative’s Rottweiler-Labrador mix during a birthday party at his great-aunt’s house at 9615 Jerome Drive. The 100-pound dog was euthanized a short time later.

It was Pasco’s first reported fatal animal attack in at least 35 years.

Near the site of Wednesday’s mauling, Winona Walker has a 19-month-old daughter and a pit bull, but she said she keeps the dog and child separated. She said she doesn’t like to walk on that street because so many dogs roam loose.

Hilton said pet owners must keep in mind that no matter how tame and loving a pet might seem, it’s an animal with animal instincts that can be unpredictable.

“Just in general, people should not trust animals around children,” she said. “We, as adults, have to protect our children … . Keep them (animals) away. It’s the safest thing to ado.”

Hilton said she has no recorded animal complaints at the couple’s current address but didn’t immediately know if they had other complaints elsewhere.

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A New Jersey family still recovering from the accidental death of a daughter four years ago is now grieving for a second daughter who was killed in a crocodile attack last week.

Lauren Failla, 25, was attacked by a crocodile on April 29 while on vacation with her boyfriend off India’s Andaman Islands, authorities said.

A graduate of Vanderbilt University who was studying at Sotheby’s Art Institute in London, Failla was snorkeling in the water off Radhanagar Beach when the crocodile attacked. Her boyfriend, who was videotaping the scene, caught the gruesome attack on camera. Failla’s body, which was quickly taken away by the waves, was found on a neighboring beach the next day.

The incident has prompted demands for the Andaman administration to have trained lifeguards on duty in tourist destinations like Radhanagar Beach, which is considered one of the top 10 beaches in the world.

Michael Tran, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said roughly 24 crocodile attacks — four of them fatal — have been reported in the area over the last 25 years. Experts have arrived on the island to help catch the killer crocodile.

“Such an unnecessary death: if there had been proper warnings and statements that there are in fact man-eating crocodiles nearby, I am sure Lauren would not have risked swimming,” Failla’s cousin, Gloria McLean Hiratsuka, wrote to the Daily Record of New Jersey. “She thought she was safe. Her father made a point of saying she was not a big risk-taker, always a little reserved, all the more since her sister’s untimely death four years ago.”

Failla’s older sister, Emily, a 24-year-old teacher, fell to her death while rock-climbing in Washington state in July of 2006. A Family member said the young women’s parents were still mourning their first daughter when Lauren died.

A memorial service was to be held for Lauren on Saturday, with a funeral to be held on May 15.

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A FEMALE special education teacher was mauled to death by a wolf while jogging in Alaska, authorities told local media.

The body of 32-year-old Candice Berner, originally from Pennsylvania, was found Monday night off a road leading to the Chignik Lake airstrip, The News Tribune reported.

Police investigating the case believe she was killed in an “animal attack, possibly a wolf attack” after locals reported wolf sightings.

The people who found the woman’s body while returning from clam digging say that a wolf stalked one of them earlier in the day, the Alaska Dispatch reported.

The woman’s death is still under investigation and her body is being taken to Anchorage for an autopsy, police said.

Candice’s father, Bob Berner, told The News Tribune his daughter was a “small and mighty” woman who liked to box, lift weights and run. She was running in training for a race, he said.

Berner was a traveling special education teacher based in Perryville who had just arrived in Chignik to work at the school in the area, said local school officials.

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LEE COUNTY, South Carolina – Authorities said Ethel Mae Horton, 65, was killed in a dog attack on Thursday morning in the town of Lucknow in Lee County.

The coroner confirmed that the victim died Thursday from injuries she sustained in the attack.

According to Maj. Daniel Simon with the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, the attack took place at around 11:45 a.m. in the backyard of the victim’s home located on West Stokes Bridge Road.

Simon said that the woman’s husband named Jerry, was also injured and brought to a hospital in Hartsville. He would have to undergo surgery to treat his injuries.

The coroner said that Brutus, a 10-year-old dog was tied up, and that the couple may have been trying to feed the dog when the attack occurred.

According to investigators, the victims kept several dogs in a backyard pen of their residence. Apparently, the dog in question belonged to the couple’s nephew and it is uncertain if he would face any charges. Authorities said Brutus has been quarantined and will be euthanized prior to a rabies test.

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SVENSEN, Ore. – The 4-year-old granddaughter of Jay Browning and step-daughter of Jesse Browning from The History Channel’s series “Ax Men” has died after family said she was attacked by their pet Rottweiler.

Around 1 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 28, deputies responded with fire and medical personnel to the home of Jesse and D’ette Browning at 42921 Hillcrest Loop Road, Svensen, Ore., just east of Astoria.

Jesse Browning called 9-1-1 with the frantic news that his 4-year-old daughter, Ashlynn Anderson, had been attacked by one of the two family Rottweilers. Paramedics tried to save the girl’s life and a LifeFlight helicopter landed in a nearby field to transport Ashlynn to Oregon Health and Science University hospital in Portland. The girl was pronounced dead on arrival.

Though Clatsop County Sheriff Tom Bergin said only one of the two family dogs mauled the girl, both were taken from the home at the request of the family. The couple also has another child living in the home, a 1 year old.

Deputies transported the dogs to the Clatsop County animal shelter where they are quarantined.

KATU has uncovered reports that the family contacted the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office about four months ago to report a third dog “showing aggressive signs” who, according to the Associated Press, bit an adult family member. That dog was reportedly destroyed.

Clatsop County Medical Examiner Dr. Joanne Stefanelli will be involved with the autopsy to determine the exact cause of death.

Clatsop county detectives will conduct a follow-up investigation “after the family has time to grieve,” said Tom Bergin, Clatsop County Sheriff, in a prepared statement Monday. At this time, no criminal charges are being issued.

“This was a sad set of circumstances,” Bergin said, “and a very unfortunate death.”

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Who in the world keeps a 1 ton bull as a pet?

[+] Enlarge. Reading Eagle: Tim Leedy The 1-ton bull that officials believe killed his owner at the South Heidelberg Township farm Sunday where the attack occurred.

A Reinholds man found dead Sunday at a South Heidelberg Township farm was killed by a 1-ton bull he kept as a pet, officials in the Berks County coroner’s office said.

Ricky D. Weinhold, 52, died of multiple injuries Saturday – a day before his 53rd birthday – at the farm at 370 Mill Road near the Lancaster County line, officials said.

The coroner’s office ruled the death an accident.

All of Weinhold’s injuries apparently were inflicted by the hooves and head of a bull, Chief Deputy Coroner Charles E. Sweitzer Jr. said.

Sweitzer said it was the first bull-related death he could recall in his 28 years working in the coroner’s office.

Dale A. Zimmerman, whose father, David, owns the property, said he discovered Weinhold’s body in an outdoor pen late Sunday morning after he returned from a trip.

Sweitzer said tests indicated Weinhold died late Saturday afternoon.

Weinhold kept about 10 head of cattle at the 55-acre farm under a lease with David Zimmerman.

The Zimmermans and coroner’s officials believe the biggest of the animals killed Weinhold. The same bull cracked Weinhold’s ribs last year, prompting friends to urge Weinhold to get rid of the animal, Deputy Coroner Terri L. Straka said.

“He loved his pet,” she said.

Straka pronounced Weinhold dead Sunday at 2:04 p.m. No autopsy is planned.

Officials believe the attack began inside the barn’s stables, where a newborn calf was kept. They don’t know what Weinhold was doing when he was attacked.

The cattle were moved out of the stables and corralled behind the barn Sunday while officials investigated.

Dale Zimmerman said he and his father were waiting to hear what Weinhold’s family wanted them to do with the animals. Weinhold’s family could not be reached.

Township police continued to investigate.

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OCALA, Fla. – A 3-year-old girl who was attacked by a bulldog outside her Ocala-area home has died.

According to a Marion County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman, the girl was playing outside while her mother cleaned a dog pen Saturday. She got tangled in a dog chain when her mother went inside the home.

That’s when a male dog attacked the girl, whose name wasn’t immediately released.

The Ocala Star-Banner reports that four dogs were outside the home at the time of the attack, but investigators believe just one of the animals was involved. All the dogs were taken by county animal services officials.

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In what is believed to be the first fatal dog attack in Philadelphia in more than a quarter-century, a pit bull sank her teeth into the neck of a 38-year-old Fishtown woman and killed her yesterday.

The victim, Christine Staab, had been arguing with her mother in their Oxford Street rowhouse and fell backward. At that point, the dog leaped on Staab, said her mother, Barbara Erb.

Erb, 59, said she tried frantically to pull off the dog, Jade, but could not get the pit bull to relax her grip on Staab’s throat.

The dog “was in some kind of protection mode,” Erb said.

After struggling with the dog, Erb let go and darted to confine her other dogs and call police. Arriving about 7 a.m., officers shot and killed Jade. They then shot and killed Bear, a second pit bull that lunged at them after he jumped over a barrier that had penned him and four other pit bulls in the kitchen.

The four surviving dogs were taken to the SPCA’s Animal Care and Control Team shelter on Hunting Park Avenue and quarantined.

Erb said she would like them back. “It was just a horrible, horrible incident,” she said.

Detectives in the East Division are investigating.

Erb said no one had suggested to her that she might face arrest.

A spokesman for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office said the death was being investigated as a fatal dog attack. An autopsy is to take place today.

Despite about 70 million dogs in the United States, fatal attacks are relatively rare.

According to the organization Dogsbite.org, dogs killed an average of about 30 people a year nationwide over the last three years. According to a review of Inquirer archives, the previous fatal attack in Philadelphia occurred in 1981, when Mary Logan, 81, was killed by several of the mongrel pets she kept in her house in Northern Liberties.

Dogsbite.org advocates breed-specific legislative action to control violent dogs. According to the group, pit bulls make up only 5 percent of the dog population in this country, but account for more than 40 percent of deadly attacks.

Erb spoke with an Inquirer reporter yesterday as she stood on her street moments after police gave her clearance to return to her home.

According to Erb, her daughter – the mother of a teenage son who lives with his father – had long fought a battle with drugs, shaking her addiction only to succumb again. Staab came into their house about 6:30 a.m. and appeared to be high, Erb said.

“I said to her, ‘I can’t deal with that anymore. You have to go,’ ” Erb recounted. “She was telling me where was she supposed to go?”

She said the dispute had not escalated into a physical fight and that their voices had not been raised.

As they argued, Erb said, her daughter took a step back and tripped over a mirror on the floor. She fell back, taking a lamp down with her. Erb said she was clutching at Staab’s sleeve as she fell.

This enraged Jade, who went “nuts” and attacked, Erb said. “I couldn’t get her off.”

At some point, Erb said, she rounded up the other five dogs and put them in the kitchen, blocking the doorway with a three-foot-high barrier. She called police.

Erb said she found the attack hard to explain because Jade, 6, knew her daughter well.

“I never had a problem with a dog,” she said, describing the six pit bulls as “house dogs” that were well cared for and even had microchips installed for identification.

“They were spoiled rotten,” Erb said. “They were not neglected in any way.”

A neighbor agreed, saying, “The dogs were very sweet. They never had a problem with them.”

The door of the house had one sign that read “Beware of dog,” and another saying that in the case of fire, rescuers should save the six dogs inside. It listed their names: Paige, Peaches, Maggie, Satan, Bear, and Jade.

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SAO PAULO – A 13-foot (4-meter) alligator has reportedly attacked and killed a girl who was swimming in a Brazilian jungle river.

Firefighters tell local media that 11-year-old Gigliane do Nascimento Bira was playing with friends in shallow water in the northern state of Rondonia, in the Amazon region.

The Agencia Estado news service says the reptile was found about 300 feet (100 meters) from the site of Sunday afternoon’s attack. Authorities shot it dead so her body could be recovered.

Calls to Rondonia authorities were not immediately answered Monday.

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MARTIN COUNTY — The death of 38-year-old kiteboard surfer Stephen Howard Schafer of Stuart, who was attacked by sharks Wednesday afternoon, put Martin County and the Treasure Coast in the national and international spotlight.

The attack was one of the lead items on national television morning shows on Thursday, including the “Today” show and “Good Morning America.”

A lead video on ABCnews.com featured the attack, including an interview with Daniel Wouters of Martin County Fire Rescue. Wouters said that when lifeguards reached Schafer, they found he had been “bitten several times’ and that they first moved him onto a surfboard “to somewhat protect him.’

The video also featured a witness identified as Jim Smith, who said of the lifeguards’ efforts: “I can’t emphasize enough they did their best. The guy just wasn’t moving.

“It was heartbreaking in a way.’

ABCnews.com pointed out that the attack was “at the height of Florida’s busy tourist season.’

The lead video on MSNBC.com Thursday morning was entitled, “Sharks swarm, kill kiteboarder off Fla. coast.’

Even the celebrity Web site lalate.com had “Stuart Beach Florida Shark Attack!’ as its second item under news on Thursday morning.

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STUART — The research scientist who matched tiger shark teeth to bite wounds during an autopsy of the Treasure Coast’s only other shark fatality says young great white sharks — the fish of Jaws notoriety — are among suspects in Wednesday’s fatal attack off Stuart’s coast.

A 38-year-old kiteboard surfer, Stephen Howard Schafer, 38, of Stuart was attacked by sharks Wednesday afternoon and died from his injuries, according to the Martin County Sheriff’s Office.

The scientist, Grant Gilmore, said the size and type of shark in Wednesday’s attack can be learned the same way it was in the 1998 death of 9-year-old James Willie Tellasmon north of Jaycee Park in Vero Beach: By comparing characteristic bite patterns from among many species that live or visit off the Treasure Coast to wounds.

“It can be done,” Gilmore said. “It would be nice to have closure on this, to know what it was, especially since the man, tragically, died.”

Great whites prefer colder northern Atlantic Ocean waters and aren’t usually thought of as a Florida shark. But smaller 6- to 8-foot ones migrate to Florida’s east coast during winter.

Of the many types of sharks off the Treasure Coast, three of the four species known to attack humans — great hammerheads, bulls and tigers — prefer warm water. They leave the area or go deep in winter.

“The only other species that gathers in abundance out there in the winter are the juvenile great white sharks,” Gilmore said. They eat their way through a migrating parade of 3- to 4-foot sharpnose sharks that travel south from New England waters to Florida.

Cooler ocean water usually keeps great whites north of Cape Canaveral, Gilmore said, but this winter has been unusually cold.

Gilmore said it is very unusual to have a person bitten by a shark off Florida’s east coast this time of year. With only early news accounts for information, he wouldn’t guess which species was involved in Wednesday’s attack.

Doctoral work done by Jon Dodrill documented fishermen catching great whites off Florida’s east coast between Cape Canaveral and Daytona Beach. Gilmore was Dodrill’s professor when Dodrill did the census in the mid-1970s that is still considered an authoratative source for which sharks live and travel off Florida’s east coast.

Today, Dodrill runs Florida’s artificial reefs program.

The attack on James in 1998 happened in shallow water and was attributed to a young tiger shark about six feet long.

It was Martin County’s first fatal shark attack, according to records going back to 1882.

About 4 p.m. Wednesday, a lifeguard was looking through his binoculars and saw Schafer, the kiteboard surfer, in distress about a quarter of a mile off shore from an unguarded beach just south of Stuart Beach, officials said.

When the lifeguard paddled out to Schafer, he was encircled by sharks, officials said.

The lifeguard put Schafer on his rescue board and paddled to shore where Schafer said he had been bitten by a shark, authorities said. Officials performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on the victim, who had multiple bite wounds, and he was rushed to Martin Memorial North Medical Center, where he later died.

Schafer’s friends said they are shocked by his death.

“I’ve never heard of multiple sharks in this area surrounding someone and fatally wounding him,” said the victim’s childhood friend, Teague Taylor, 36. “He was the nicest person ever.”

Normally, sharks appear in the area to feast on bait fish migrating to the area.

Taylor said he was surprised to see the sharks because they normally come around the spring. On Tuesday, the day before the fatal attack, Taylor said he was surfing near where his friend was attacked and he saw several sharks.

“You always think in the back of your mind that they (sharks) are out there,” he said.

Jordan Schwartz, who has known Schafer for five years, said he was a very experienced kiteboard surfer.

“He was a super nice guy. Always mellow. I don’t think he had any enemies,” he said.

Including Wednesday’s fatal attack, there have been about 14 deaths in Florida attributed to sharks, according to records provided by University of Florida Museum of Natural History.

REDUCING RISK OF SHARK ATTACKS

Always stay in groups; sharks are more likely to attack a lone person.

Do not wander too far from shore — this isolates an individual and additionally places one far away from assistance.

Avoid being in the water during darkness or twilight hours when sharks are most active and have a competitive sensory advantage.

Do not enter the water if bleeding or if menstruating — a shark’s olfactory ability is acute, and sharks are attracted to blood.

Do not wear shiny jewelry because the reflected light resembles the sheen of fish scales.

Use extra caution when waters are murky and avoid uneven tanning and bright-colored clothing — sharks see contrast particularly well.

Refrain from excess splashing, and do not allow pets in the water because of their erratic movements.

The International Shark Attack File Web site, University of Florida Museum of Natural History, www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Sharks/ISAF/ISAF.htm

TREASURE COAST SHARK ATTACKS

Indian River County: 17 (one fatal, 1998)

St. Lucie County: 29 (none fatal)

Martin County: 28 (one fatal, 2010)

Source: International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida Museum of Natural History and media reports

SHARK ENCOUNTER OCCURRENCES

Attacks are most common in Central Florida. Here’s a look at unprovoked attacks in the state from 1882 to 2008.

231:Volusia

96: Brevard

58: Palm Beach

28: Martin

29: St. Lucie

17: Indian River

11: Broward

10: Dade

19: Florida Keys

Source: International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida Museum of National History.

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SAN BERNARDINO, Calif., Jan. 25 (UPI) — California prosecutors say they are seeking the death penalty against a man charged with starting a deadly 2003 wildfire.

Rickie Lee Fowler, 28, imprisoned for burglary since that year, was charged in October with murder and arson in connection with a firestorm that swept through San Bernardino County. Prosecutors now say they will seek the death penalty against Fowler, the Los Angeles Times reported Monday.

“A decision to seek the death penalty in a case is never an easy one. In fact, it’s the most difficult one we make as prosecutors,” San Bernardino District Attorney Michael Ramos said.

Six men died of heart attacks during the fire, five of which were deemed directly related to the stress of the 91,000-acre wildfire, which forced the evacuations of more than 30 communities and 80,000 people in the San Bernardino area.

Officials also say damage from the fire contributed to a Christmas Day 2003 mudslide that killed 14 people in a church camp.

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Odd if true, because planes being hit by lightning are actually fairly common occurrences.

AN AIRCRAFT that crashed minutes after taking off in a thunderstorm, killing all 90 people on board, is thought to have been struck by lightning.

The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 had just left Beirut in Lebanon for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa when it burst into a “ball of fire” and plunged into the Mediterranean.

There were two Britons among the 83 passengers on board. One of them was named as haulage firm owner Afif Krisht, 56, who had dual British-Lebanese nationality, and whose former wife lives in Plymouth.

Flight ET-409 crashed into the sea two miles offshore. It disappeared from radar screens five minutes after taking off at 2:37am (12:37am British time).

The Lebanese army said it had broken up in the air. Witnesses described the impact as a “flash that lit up the whole sea”.

Lebanese authorities quickly ruled out terrorism, and weather is thought to have played a part in the crash, which happened amid thunder, lightning and heavy rain. Beirut airport officials said the aircraft had been struck by lightning and there were reports the crew requested a change of direction to avoid the thunderstorm after reaching 8,000ft.

Lebanese defence minister Elias el-Murr said there was no evidence of a terrorist attack and that the weather was “in principle” to blame for the crash.

President Michel Suleiman ruled out sabotage “as of now”, while transport minister Ghazi Aridi said: “The weather undoubtedly was very bad.”

Some relatives expressed anger the aircraft had been allowed to take off. One said: “They should have delayed the flight for an hour or two to protect the passengers. There had been strong lightning bolts and we hear that lightning strikes at planes, especially during take-offs.”

However, Ethiopian Airlines chief executive Ato Girma Wake said: “There was bad weather. How bad it is, I will not be able to say. But, from what I see, probably it was manageable weather, otherwise the crew would not have taken off.

“Let me first extend my deepest sympathy to the family members and friends of the victims.”

Last night, more than 30 bodies had been recovered, along with debris such as children’s sandals.

An RAF helicopter based in Cyprus joined the search by Lebanese army patrol boats, helicopters and divers off Na’ameh, six miles south of Beirut.

The eight-year-old plane, leased from CIT Aerospace, is believed to have been acquired from Ryanair last September. It underwent maintenance checks exactly one month ago, with no technical problems being found.

Ethiopian Airlines has two other Boeing 737-800s, one of which was bought from Scottish airline Flyglobespan a week before it collapsed last month.

Mr Krisht’s former wife Tania, 44, said: “I got a call at 5:20am to tell me he was dead. I’m still praying for a miracle – that he might be clinging to a bit of debris somewhere.

“He was here only a couple of weeks ago, visiting for Christmas. He was the most generous man and was still one of my best friends. I will miss him dearly.”

The other passengers comprised 22 Ethiopians, 54 Lebanese, one French, one Russian, one Canadian, one Syrian and one Iraqi. They included Marla Pietto, wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon, and two toddlers.

Andree Qusayfi said of his brother, Ziad, 35, who was on the plane: “We begged him to postpone his flight because of the storm. But he insisted on going because he had work appointments.”

Zeinab Seklawi said her son Yasser, 24, had called her as he was boarding. She said: “I told him, ‘God be with you’ and I went to sleep. Please find my son. I know he’s alive and wouldn’t leave me.”

Ethiopian Airlines said a British team, experts in dealing with the aftermath of aircraft accidents, was due to arrive in Beirut last night.

The eight people, from Blake Emergency Services in London, will help with the rescue mission and set up a family assistance centre for relatives.

Reports of fire could suggest a ‘cataclysmic failure of one of the engines’

THE Beirut crash involved one of the world’s safest aircraft being flown by an airline with a good safety record.

The Boeing 737-800 was only eight years old, and the crash was the first to be suffered by state-owned Ethiopian Airlines for 14 years.

Experts said the thunderstorm alone should not have brought the plane down.

Aviation safety analyst Chris Yates said it was far too early to determine what had caused the crash, but he noted that modern aircraft were built to withstand all but the foulest weather conditions.

He said: “One wouldn’t have thought that a nasty squall in and of itself would be the prime cause of an accident like this.”

He added that reports of fire could suggest “some cataclysmic failure of one of the engines” or that something had been sucked into the engine, such as a bird or debris.

Sidney Dekker, a professor of flight safety at the School of Aviation at Lund University in Sweden, said if reports of an engine fire proved to be correct, the accident could have resulted from a loss of control at a relatively low altitude, where it would have been difficult to recover.

Prof Dekker, who is also a Boeing 737 pilot, said the plane’s engines were overpowered to fulfil performance requirements in the event of the loss of an engine at take-off. He said this tended to turn the aircraft towards the dead engine.

He said poor visibility in low cloud, combined with high winds, may have contributed to the problem faced by the pilots trying to regain control.

The last Ethiopian Airlines crash was in 1996, when a Boeing 767 ran out of fuel after being hijacked, and 123 of the 175 people on board were killed when it ditched in the sea.

In a previous incident in 1988, 31 of 104 people on board a Boeing 737 were killed when it crash-landed while returning to Bahar Dar in Ethiopia after striking a flock of pigeons following take-off.

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NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. — A surfer has been killed on a day of big waves and fierce rip currents off Newport Beach.

The Orange County coroner says lifeguards pulled 38-year-old Gregory Gladstone from the water Saturday morning, and he was later declared dead at Hoag Memorial Hospital.

Supervising Deputy Coroner Larry Esslinger says the cause of death has yet to be determined, and an autopsy will be conducted Sunday.

Lifeguards and other surfers first spotted Gladstone’s upside-down surfboard, then saw him floating nearby soon after amid 6-to-10 foot waves, choppy conditions and rip currents.

Lifeguards put Gladstone on a patrol boat and took him to the pier, where Newport Beach firefighters and paramedics met them and took him to the hospital, where he was declared dead at 11 a.m.