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Coroner: Texas Roller Coaster Victim Fell 75 Feet

The Texas Giant
The Texas Giant

(AP) — A coroner says the passenger killed while riding a Texas roller coaster was ejected from her seat and plummeted about 75 feet before striking a metal beam.

The Tarrant County Medical Examiner’s Office released additional details Tuesday on the death of 52-year-old Rosa Irene Ayala-Gaona. She was found dead Friday night at the Six Flags Over Texas amusement park in suburban Dallas.

The official cause of death remains pending, but the office says the Dallas woman’s body was found atop a ride tunnel for the 14-story Texas Giant roller coaster.

The coroner says Ayala-Gaona was ejected from her third-row seat as the ride began a steep descent along the track’s first large hill.

An autopsy showed she suffered multiple traumatic injuries and extensive trauma to her torso.

Study: Air Force Recruit Organ Donor Had Rabies

Rabies Virus
Rabies Virus

(AP) — A new report shows that an Air Force recruit whose organs were donated to four patients, including a kidney recipient who died of rabies, had at least two untreated raccoon bites several months before he became sick.

The report also notes that tests confirmed his rabies-infected kidney caused the recipient’s disease.

It was compiled by researchers from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others, and published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Doctors initially attributed the donor’s death to other causes. But during an investigation prompted by the kidney recipient’s death in February, lab testing found evidence of rabies in the donor’s brain tissue and also detected encephalitis, a brain inflammation that can be caused by rabies.

Man Found Unconscious on Nebraska Roof Dies

omaha-police(AP) — Omaha police say an unconscious man pulled from the roof where he was working has died at an area hospital.

Police say officers responded to a radio call about the incident around 11:15 a.m. Tuesday. Omaha Fire Department medics arrived, found 52-year-old Walter Bequette on the roof and took him to a west Omaha hospital.

Investigators say Bequette was working on the roof with another person, each on opposite sides of the roof. The other worker said he walked over the peak of the roof when the sound of Bequette’s hammering stopped.

The worker says he found Bequette in a fetal position, not moving, and called 911.

Fire department officials had to lower Bequette from the roof to get him to the hospital.

Police Arrest Three Suspects in Lincoln Bank Robbery

lincoln-police(AP) — Police have arrested three suspects in Beatrice just a few hours after a Lincoln credit union was robbed.

Lincoln police say the Members Only Credit Union branch in Lincoln was robbed by a gunman Tuesday morning around 10.

By lunchtime, police were making arrests. Beatrice Police Chief Bruce Lang says two people were arrested at Walmart in Beatrice, and a third was apprehended at a nearby motel.

The suspects did not have any weapons when they were arrested. Their names were not immediately released.

Omaha Man Gets Prison for Aiming Laser Pointer at Airliner

laser-pointer(AP) — An Omaha man who aimed a laser point at a jetliner and police helicopter has been given two years in federal prison.

30-year-old Michael Smith was sentenced on Monday.

Prosecutors say a Southwest Airlines pilot reported that a laser pointer was aimed into his cockpit as the airliner was landing at Omaha’s Eppley Airfield on the morning of July 11, 2012. A police helicopter responded, and it, too, was targeted several times by a laser pointer. The pilot of the helicopter reported that he was temporarily blinded by the laser beam.

A Douglas County sheriff’s deputy testified that he found Smith in his backyard, pointing the laser at aircraft.

Lincoln Woman Gets 18 Months for Federal Wire Fraud

dept.-of-justice(AP) — A former medical office administrator in Lincoln has been given 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay restitution of nearly $542,000.

Federal prosecutors say 54-year-old Royann Schmidgall was sentenced on Monday in U.S. District Court in Lincoln. Schmidgall must serve three years of supervised release after she leaves prison.

Schmidgall had faced 15 counts, but prosecutors agreed to drop all but one in exchange for her guilty plea.

Prosecutors say Schmidgall handled payroll and other administrative duties at Nebraska Pulmonary Specialties for 15 years. She was fired in December 2011.

Nebraska Co-Op Faces Federal Fine in Worker’s Death

OSHA(AP) — Federal authorities have proposed to fine a southeast Nebraska co-op that operates a grain elevator where a worker was killed.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration says in a news release that the penalties proposed against Farmers Cooperative Co. total $22,800.

On Jan. 29 a 69-year-old co-op worker died after a semitrailer truck backed into him at the elevator in Talmage. Authorities say he was standing in a street to direct a truck into the elevator when a second truck backed into him.

The worker, Roger Teten, of Talmage, died later at a hospital.

OSHA says more safety violations were found at the elevator after an inspection.

The co-op’s attorney, Jim Luers, said Tuesday the co-op will contest the penalties and the citations.

79 YO Nebraska Man Killed in ATV Accident

fatal-accident(AP) — Authorities say a 79-year-old driver has died in a collision of two all-terrain vehicles on a rural road in south-central Nebraska.

Hamilton County Attorney Mike Powell says the accident occurred a little after 11 a.m. Saturday about six miles southeast of Giltner.

Powell says Ivan Stiegemeier’s ATV crossed the center line on a blind curve and rammed into an oncoming ATV driven by 58-year-old Gordon Klein, of Giltner.

Powell says Stiegemeier, of Harvard, died at the scene. Klein was taken to a hospital.

Just Says No Bond for Doctor Accused in Omaha Murders

Dr. Anthony Garcia
Dr. Anthony Garcia

(AP) — A Nebraska judge says an Indiana doctor accused of killing four people with ties to an Omaha medical school must remain in jail to await trial.

Judge Lawrence Barrett ruled Tuesday morning that no bond would be set for Dr. Anthony Garcia.

Garcia, of Terre Haute, Ind., was arrested in Illinois last week and extradited Thursday to a jail in Omaha.

He is accused of shooting to death Creighton University pathologist Roger Brumback and fatally stabbing Brumback’s wife, Mary, in May at the Brumbacks’ Omaha home. Garcia is also accused in the fatal stabbings of 11-year-old Thomas Hunter and his family’s housekeeper, Shirlee Sherman, in March 2008, also in Omaha.

Brumback and Thomas Hunter’s father fired Garcia from a Creighton residency program in 2001.

Ohio Woman’s Sentence Includes Christmases in Jail

jail(AP) — A central Ohio judge has ordered a woman to spend the next five Christmases in jail as part of her sentence for issuing state ID cards and driver’s licenses to immigrants who entered the country illegally.

Prosecutors say 44-year-old Betina Young — a former license agency employee — accepted payments from applicants to falsify records showing they had verified their immigration status. She has pleaded guilty.

Judge Michael Holbrook put Young on probation Monday for five years — ordering that she spend a minimum of three days in jail each Christmas while on probation.

If she violates probation, she could go to prison for 15 years.

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