Odd: Helicopter Ambulance Rescues Woman After Fall From Statue In London

Stunned onlookers watched in awe as a helicopter swooped into Trafalgar Square in London, England, last night to help a young woman who had fallen from a lion sculpture at the foot of Nelson’s Column, states the UK Daily Mail.

It is understood that the woman, believed to be in her 20s, suffered serious head injuries after falling 11ft from one of the landmark’s iconic bronze sculptures.

The unusual sight of a helicopter landing at one of London’s most famous tourist spots led to witnesses texting and taking to social media to post photos and videos.

London Ambulance Service spokesman confirmed medics were called at 7:24pm to respond to the person who fell at Trafalgar Square.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3045977/Helicopter-swoops-Trafalgar-Square-save-woman-fell-bronze-lion-foot-Nelson-s-Column.html#ixzz3XmuIdluR

Schizophrenic Woman Tased To Death In Virgina Prison

A mentally ill woman died after a stun gun was used on her at the Fairfax County jail in Virginia last February.  Fairfax County sits next to Washington, D.C.

Natasha McKenna was restrained with handcuffs behind her back, leg shackles and a mask when a sheriff’s deputy shocked her four times, according to incident reports, states The Washington Post.

McKenna initially cooperated with deputies, placed her hands through her cell door food slot and agreed to be handcuffed, the reports show.

But McKenna, whose deteriorating mental state had caused Fairfax to seek help for her, then began trying to fight her way out of the cuffs, repeatedly screaming, “You promised you wouldn’t hurt me!” the reports show, states The Washington Post.

Six members of the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team – including two supervisors – were dressed in white full-body biohazard suits and gas masks, and placed a struggling 130-pound McKenna into full restraints, states Patch.com.

“But when McKenna wouldn’t bend her knees so she could be placed into a wheeled restraint chair, a lieutenant delivered four 50,000-volt shocks from the Taser, enabling the other deputies to strap her into the chair, the reports show,” stated the Washington Post.

Attorney Harvey J. Volzer said doctors have told the family that the 37-year-old woman was stunned as many as five times during an encounter with sheriff’s deputies as they prepared to transfer her to Alexandria to face a charge stemming from a fight with police there, states The Washington Post.

According to Patch.com, the Fairfax County Police Department, in conjunction with the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, released the following details Thursday regarding the current in-custody death investigation of Alexandria resident Natasha McKenna:

“On Tuesday, Jan. 20, the Alexandria City Police Department obtained a felony warrant against Natasha McKenna for assaulting a law enforcement officer(Code of Virginia §18.2-57). The assault occurred during an encounter they had with her on Thursday, Jan. 15.

On Sunday, Jan. 25, McKenna called the Fairfax County Department of Public Safety Communications Center reporting that she had been assaulted. The arriving Fairfax County police officer then assisted her with making the report and she agreed to be examined at a local hospital for her alleged injuries. Detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department’s Major Crimes Division and Crime Scene Section also responded to conduct a follow-up investigation.

While at the hospital with McKenna, detectives and a victim services specialist assisted with the investigative efforts. During the course of the investigative efforts, McKenna elected to no longer pursue the investigation and declined further police services. During the course of the investigation, a record check revealed McKenna had the outstanding arrest warrant for assaulting a law enforcement officer in Alexandria City.

On Monday, Jan. 26, shortly after 1 a.m., McKenna was transported from the hospital to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center (ADC), where the warrant was served and she was remanded to the custody of the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, as directed by a Fairfax County magistrate. The Sheriff’s Office made contact with Alexandria at approximately 7:40 a.m. to inform them that they were holding an inmate with an Alexandria City charge.

On Saturday, Jan. 31, McKenna physically assaulted a Fairfax County deputy sheriff while incarcerated at the ADC.

On Tuesday, Feb. 3, the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office, pursuant to its protocols for managing combative inmates, made a decision to have the Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team (SERT) remove McKenna from her cell for transport to the detention center in the City of Alexandria as related to her charge that originated in the City of Alexandria. As the SERT attempted to secure McKenna in her cell and restrain her for transport, she physically resisted the deputies and refused their commands. The SERT consisted of six deputy sheriffs, which included two supervisors.

During the struggle to restrain McKenna, a member of the SERT deployed a conducted energy weapon (Taser) on McKenna. While being restrained, deputies placed a spit net (which is designed to restrict and prevent spitting) on McKenna. A nurse from the ADC medical staff was present at that time to check on her prior to transport and cleared her for transport. Deputies attempted to put her in a medical transport chair, but McKenna continued to be combative and was moved to a restraint chair for transport to a vehicle transfer area, commonly known as a sally port.

A Fairfax County deputy sheriff was assigned to record the deployment of the SERT and the video is currently retained as evidence by detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department and will not be released at this time.

Deputies escorted McKenna from the cell area to the sally port where the transport vehicle was waiting. Once at the sally port, medical personnel from the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office checked McKenna and determined she was experiencing a medical emergency. The spit net and restraints were removed and medical staff and deputies from the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office administered CPR and an automated external defibrillator (AED) while awaiting rescue personnel from the Fairfax City Fire Department. McKenna was then transported to the hospital by ambulance and after life support was removed, died on Sunday, Feb. 8.

There were reports from outside sources that alluded to McKenna suffering an amputated finger. However, the investigation by detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department affirmed that McKenna had a pre-existing injury (missing the tip of her ring finger on her left hand), which was noted during the arrest booking on Monday, Jan. 26.

To date, detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department have conducted an extensive number of comprehensive interviews, and the in-custody death investigation is active and on-going. When complete, detectives from the Fairfax County Police Department’s Major Crimes Division will present their entire investigation, which will include any video and data from the conducted energy weapon, along with the findings of the Office of the Medical Examiner (still awaiting report), to the Commonwealth’s Attorney’s Office for an independent review to determine if there is any criminal liability under the Code of Virginia.

All information provided in this release is based on the ongoing investigation and may be subject to revision as the investigation continues. The Fairfax County Police Department and the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office continue to work together to release information and complete a swift, thorough investigation. The Fairfax County Police Department will provide further updates within the next 30 days or as soon as additional information becomes available.”

More here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/woman-died-violently-at-hands-of-fairfax-county-sheriffs-lawyer-says/2015/02/14/09f4c84a-b3be-11e4-886b-c22184f27c35_story.html

(Updated post)

Indiana Woman Charged With Felony And Arrested After Pulling Into Nearby Parking Lot

A resident of the town of Portage, Indiana, said she did not immediately pull over for the flashing lights behind her because, as a 52-year-old woman traveling alone at 11:21 p.m. on a dark county road, she was concerned for her safety.  This happened at the end of March.

She assumed the car behind her was a police officer, and DelRea Good said she slowed her vehicle, put on her emergency flashers, and waved her arm out the window to acknowledge the pursing car.

Ms. Good continued for less than a mile where she pulled over into the lighted parking lot at a Kohl’s department store.

The decision not to immediately stop resulted in her being handcuffed and taken to jail by Porter County Sheriff’s Department Patrolman William Marshall on a felony charge of resisting arrest, states nwitimes.com.

It may also cost her her job, because a nurse cannot work after being convicted of a felony, she said.

“I felt I didn’t do anything wrong,” Good said. “I got to a safe place and I told him that.”

According to nwitimes.com, Porter County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Larry LaFlower said, “The sheriff’s office supports our officer’s decision in this matter.”

He cited state law requiring motorists to yield to emergency vehicles and said Marshall was driving a fully marked squad car and used the lights and siren.

MSNBC: FDNY Swears In Their First Lesbian Chaplain

MSNBC

The Fire Department of the city of New York made history last week when it swore in its first female and first openly lesbian chaplain, the Reverend Ann Kansfield.

Reverend Kansfield joins Thomas Roberts to discuss it.

Mother Found Guilty Of Murder Of Son

Lacey Spears, a Kentucky woman whom authorities say force-fed her 5-year-old son salt through a stomach tube for the attention that a sickly child brought her, has been found guilty of murder in the child’s 2014 death at a hospital in New York state.

A White Plains jury handed down the second-degree murder verdict in 5-year-old Garnett-Paul Spears’ death Monday after three days of deliberations.

Spears will be sentenced in early April, and she can reportedly expect no sympathy from the district attorney.

Spears, 27, had blogged for years about her son’s constant health woes, and prosecutors said she killed the boy because she feared he would start telling people she was the one making him sick.

Video showed Spears twice taking the boy into a hospital bathroom with a connector tube and the boy suffering afterward.

“The motive is bizarre, the notion is scary, but it exists … She apparently craved the attention of her family, her friends, her co-workers and most particularly the medical profession,” Assistant District Attorney Patricia Murphy said in closing arguments Thursday.

Murphy called Spears’ actions “nothing short of torture.”

Updated post

Crash On Ohio Turnpike Kills Pregnant Woman, Unborn Baby

A heavy snowstorm on Saturday is to blame for an Ohio Turnpike crash that killed a Michigan woman and her unborn child.

The Ohio Highway Patrol said Beverly Smith, 32, of Middleville, Mich., and the baby she was carrying died as a result of their injuries. Her husband, Eric Smith, 33, suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries, the patrol said.

Eight vehicles were involved in the crash, which blocked all of the westbound lanes of the turnpike. The crash involved five semi-trailers.

The woman was a passenger in a Ford F-150 that her husband was driving when the crash occurred, the patrol said. They were trapped for a long time in the vehicle, which ended up underneath a trailer. Once they were removed, the Smiths were taken to Firelands Regional Medical Center in Sandusky, Ohio.

Six other people were injured, but they refused to be treated or taken to the hospital, police said.

Sandusky Register

Is No Regulation Always A Good Thing?

TYT Network

Libertarians and right-wingers are convinced that de-regulation is always a good thing.  But what about for surgery?

According to the BBC, when British woman Joy Williams went into the SP Clinic in Bangkok last October, she must have believed she was about to undergo a straightforward cosmetic operation, at a very reasonable price.  She must have believed it would be at a modern facility which has been widely used – and praised – by other patients from overseas.

But her wounds became infected and she died under anaesthetic as the clinic tried to correct what had gone wrong.

Her doctor, Sompob Sansiri, has been charged with recklessly causing her death, and the SP Clinic closed down. It turned out he was not licensed to carry out surgery.

Ms Williams was one of thousands of foreigners who come to Thailand every year for cosmetic surgery.

The prices are typically a third of what they cost in Europe or the US, the medical facilities are often first-class, and some Thai doctors have developed specialist expertise in some cosmetic procedures. However, this is not always the case.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/british-womans-cosmetic-surgery-death-in-thailand-sparks-warning-over-surgical-tourism-9815529.html

The Mercury 13

Fifty-five years ago this month, the first of a group of female aviators was invited to undergo rigorous challenges to become astronauts – and on some tests, they outperformed the men. These elite women became the Mercury 13.

“I was one of the very active women pilots at the time,” explains Sarah Ratley, one of the women chosen. “Many of us had dreams of being in the space program.”

Aviation was very much a man’s world at that time, and the female pilots had already needed to push past considerable barriers in their pursuit of flight. “I started flying while in high school. I paid for part of college [by] flight instructing and commercial flying. I continued working in aviation after college while being employed full-time in engineering,” says Ratley, who also held a degree in mathematics with minors in physics and chemistry.

Some scientists believed that because the average woman was smaller and lighter than a man, their build could make them better potential candidates to travel into space and cope in the cramped conditions.

NASA had not publicly expressed interest in sending women into space, so testing on the female astronauts began under private funding, spearheaded by Dr William Lovelace, who had been involved in evaluating male astronauts.

The 13 would-be astronauts also included Jerrie Cobb, Bernice Steadman, Janey Hart, Jerri Truhill, Rhea Woltman, Jan and Marion Dietrich, Myrtle Cagle, Gene Nora Jessen, Jean Hixson, Wally Funk, and Irene Leverton. Some of the group had come from the humblest beginnings to claim their status as elite pilots.

Testing was eventually canceled, and despite protests from some of the women and a public hearing in 1962, the answer was still no. At the time NASA required all astronauts to be test pilots, which was also something no woman was allowed to do.

More:

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150205-unsung-heroines-of-the-space-race

Alex Jones “Defends” Rand Paul On Vaccines By Attacking “Whore,” “Trash, Tramp, Filth, Scum” CNBC Anchor

Alex Jones defended Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) from media attacks over his controversial vaccination remarks by lashing out against a CNBC anchor who challenged Paul, according to Media Matters.

Jones, who helped Paul get elected to the Senate in 2010, called CNBC’s Kelly Evans a “whore” and a “pimp” for “signing on to a system of murder, you little piece of trash, tramp, filth, scum woman!”

Paul has been criticized after he said recently that vaccines should be voluntary because there are purportedly “many tragic cases of walking, talking, normal children who wound up with profound mental disorders after vaccines.”

Jones later added that the government is trying to “bully us into medical tyranny. That’s what Obamacare is.”

“They don’t have the moral authority to tell us anything with their history of secret testing and the rest of it! It’s sick! It’s a sick joke! Man — these people make me want to throw up.”

Jones proceeded to attack the CNBC journalist with misogynistic language for challenging Paul about vaccines during her interview on February 2nd.  Jones called her “a media whore. She’s there to whore out the American people and sell us lies. She’s not a whore, she’s a pimp.”

Jones concluded that people like Evans – a “dumb lady” – are “signing on to a system of murder, you little piece of trash, tramp, filth, scum woman! You arrogant piece of garbage!

“I’m sick of all you people up there lecturing us. She’s the type of woman that wants Super Bowl ads to say, ‘Sorry you had a boy.’ All a bunch of pinhead cult members.”

Handcuffed Suspect Reportedly Hijacks Police Car In Pennsylvania

A Pennsylvania woman has been ordered to stand trial in the US on charges she stole a police car and led officers on a chase at speeds of up to 80 miles per hour (129 kilometres per hour) while still handcuffed.

ABC News stated that Cops chased 27-year-old Roxanne Rimer, who drove down Route 51 as fast as 100 mph with her hands cuffed behind her back, according to Center Township Police Chief Barry Kramer in Pennsylvania.

“She probably was able to reach her cuffed hands to the side of her hip and drive,” Kramer said. “I’m not completely sure though because there was no camera that captured the inside of the car. [Rimer] was very thin, long-armed and lanky, so it’s possible she was flexible enough to reach over the side of her hip and grab the wheel.”

euronews