LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A Lincoln man has died three days after crashing his sport utility vehicle in southeastern Nebraska.
The Lancaster County Sheriff’s Office says in a news release that 65-year-old Steven Hyatt died Wednesday at a Lincoln hospital from his injuries.
Investigators say Hyatt was driving the SUV west on a county road Sunday afternoon when his vehicle left the road, hit a tree and rolled. Hyatt, who was not believed to be wearing his seat belt, was thrown from the SUV.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former Lincoln firefighter has lost his emergency medical technician license after he was found guilty of possessing child pornography.
The Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services revoked the license of 53-year-old Daniel R. King in May, citing his felony conviction.
King, who also was a former substitute school bus driver for Lincoln Public Schools, was sentenced in November to 90 days in jail and five years of probation. He was required to register as a sex offender for 25 years.
King was charged in January 2013 after police searched his home and found child pornography on a desktop computer and an external hard drive. Before his arrest, King had worked as a firefighter in Lincoln for 22 years and a substitute bus driver since 2009.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Lincoln district officials are hoping to acquire more buses and vans so the district no longer has to use taxis to take homeless children to and from school.
Federal law requires that public schools pay transportation costs to get students to and from their home school when they become homeless.
The vans and buses would cost $244,000 to $304,000, which would be offset by savings on transportation costs. Officials would use savings from this year and next year’s budgets to buy the vehicles.
Associate superintendent Liz Standish estimates that the vehicles would pay for themselves over the next seven years.
The purchase proposal is under consideration by the school board.
YORK, Neb. (AP) — No charges will be filed against a former staffer who shot herself in the chin while in the lobby at the state prison in York.
Authorities say 49-year-old Robin Staehr, of York, walked into the prison lobby on May 24, demanding to be let inside. Then she shot herself with a .22-caliber rifle. She was soon captured and taken to a Lincoln hospital.
Staehr had resigned from her job at the women’s prison in 2005.
York County Attorney Candace Dick said that state statutes aren’t applicable in the case and that every effort was being made to ensure that Staehr didn’t pose a threat to anyone else.
Authorities said shortly after the incident that it was believed Staehr was intoxicated that day.
NORFOLK, Neb. (AP) — The Madison County coroner’s office says a man whose body was found in the North Fork of the Elkhorn River drowned.
The coroner’s office said in a news release issued Thursday that 52-year-old Jeffrey Planer, of Norfolk, died of asphyxia by drowning.
The circumstances surrounding Planer’s death are still being investigated. The coroner’s office says toxicology test results won’t be available for a few weeks.
The body was found and recovered on June 20.
MARYSVILLE, Calif. (AP) — A 911 dispatcher in California was startled when a caller turned out to be her fiancee reporting their infant son was choking.
Dispatcher Britney Melchor said she was training another dispatcher who took the call and wrote down the home address.
Melchor realized it was her own son who needed medical attention.
Melchor says she initially panicked. But then her training took hold, and she dispatched paramedics to her home.
Her 14-month-old son, Maverick, had swallowed a metal washer, starting the May 27 ordeal. The boy’s father, Robert Kimball, was able to dislodge the washer just as help arrived.
Melchor is a dispatcher in Marysville, a small city about 40 miles north of Sacramento.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A 40-year-old Lincoln man has been given nine years in federal prison for receiving child pornography.
Prosecutors say David Romanski was sentenced on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Lincoln. He must also serve five years of supervised release after he leaves custody, and he must register as a sex offender.
Prosecutors say he’d received pornography from about October 2008 until sometime in May last year.
Investigators say they found on Romanski’s computer and other devices more than 1,300 videos depicting sexually explicit conduct of children under the age of 18, including a number of videos that were shared on a peer-to-peer network.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The June tornadoes and thunderstorms that pummeled Nebraska caused an estimated $13.2 million in damage to roads, bridges, utilities and other public property.
A spokeswoman for the Nebraska Emergency Management Agency said Thursday that the state will apply for federal assistance to cover the damage in 12 counties. The town of Pilger, devastated by a tornado, accounted for $2.6 million of the public property damage.
The state’s public damage estimate doesn’t count private property, so the total cost is likely far greater. NEMA spokeswoman Jodie Fawl says officials are still tallying that number.
The counties with damage were Cedar, Cuming, Dakota, Dixon, Franklin, Furnas, Harlan, Kearney, Phelps, Stanton, Thurston and Wayne.
IDYLLWILD, Calif. (AP) — A woman whose 2-year-old granddaughter drank methamphetamine-laced tea has pleaded guilty to child endangerment and possession of a controlled substance.
Cynthia Ann Watson entered the pleas Tuesday in a Riverside County court. She was sentenced to 60 days in custody, including 43 days in a work-release program.
She’s also ordered to stay away from her grandchildren.
Authorities say the 51-year-old resident of Aloha, Oregon, was visiting her family in Garner Valley — a community near Idyllwild — last month when she prepared the meth-laced tea to get high but left it unattended.
Her granddaughter drank some. The toddler tested positive for methamphetamine at a hospital but is expected to make a full recovery.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A former Grand Island firefighter has been given seven years in federal prison for receiving and distributing child pornography.
Prosecutors say 51-year-old Mark Fhuere was sentenced on Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Lincoln. He had pleaded guilty. Fhuere must register as a sex offender and serve five years of supervised release after he leaves custody.
The crime was committed between May 2, 2011 and May 29, 2013.
Fhuere resigned his position as a firefighter-paramedic with the Grand Island Fire Department on May 31 last year. He’d worked for the department since 1996.
