Suit: Caregivers killed woman with morphine
TACOMA – A new lawsuit accuses a Pierce County nursing home of killing a 79-year-old resident with excessive doses of morphine, while a lawyer for the home says the woman had inoperable lung cancer and had requested end-of-life “comfort care.”
Florence Pierpoint died in November 2004, shortly after she returned to the Nisqually Valley Care Center from a hospital where she had been treated for pneumonia.
Her caregivers received instructions to administer 10 mg of morphine every hour to manage her pain if necessary, according to a complaint filed Tuesday in Pierce County Superior Court.
The staff at the McKenna nursing home gave her six doses of 10 mg, every other hour, on Oct. 29, 2004, and gave her at least two doses on Nov. 2, even though she had clear signs of morphine poisoning, the complaint said. She died less than an hour after the final dose, and the county medical examiner ruled the death a homicide caused by morphine overdose.
Associated Press
Man held after 2 bodies found near Tacoma
Two women were found dead in a suburban home, and a man who crashed his car in southern Oregon was charged with two counts of second-degree murder, Pierce County sheriff’s deputies said.
Authorities said the case unfolded after a 2002 Toyota Camry driven by Chang H. Yi, 47, of Frederickson, hit a deer and slammed into a guardrail while heading south on I-5 about 2:20 a.m. Monday.
Yi, a diabetic, was not injured but was taken to Three Rivers Community Hospital in Grants Pass, Ore., for treatment for high blood sugar after he was combative with Josephine County sheriff’s deputies and had to be restrained, authorities said.
Hours later, hospital personnel contacted local police, who said Yi told officers under questioning that he had fatally stabbed his wife and mother-in-law and was heading for San Francisco.
Associated Press
Discovery Bay: Diesel spilled along U.S. 101
About 25 gallons of diesel fuel spilled Monday from a damaged semi-truck’s fuel tank near U.S. 101, requiring an emergency cleanup response to prevent it from reaching nearby Salmon Creek. The unidentified driver of the truck, which was carrying flattened junk automobiles, had pulled over in the parking lot of Frank’s Surplus near the junction of U.S. 101 and Highway 20 on Monday morning. When he tried to re-enter U.S. 101, the truck bottomed out and the fuel tank scraped the ground, puncturing the tank.
Peninsula Daily News
Prosser: Yakima man’s body found in canal
The body of a fleeing felon who apparently tried to elude police by crossing an irrigation canal was found Monday stuck in a debris catcher on the canal.
Dino D. Guerrero, 30, of Yakima, apparently drowned after running from a Benton County sheriff’s deputy Sunday morning and jumping into the Chandler Canal just outside of Prosser.
Guerrero was a passenger in a car stopped by a sheriff’s deputy at 9:45 a.m. Sunday for an equipment violation. He fled when the car stopped.
Guerrero was wanted on two felony warrants. One was for escape from community custody from the state Department of Corrections. The other was from Yakima County for allegedly possessing stolen property.
Tri-City Herald
Alaska: Bear killed moose in a driveway
Odd sounds outside their home in Homer woke Gary and Terri Lyon early Sunday morning, so Gary got up to check it out. He thought there might be a bear scavenging their garbage.
He looked outside and saw the bear, but it sure wasn’t digging in the trash.
Instead, they watched as a nearly 500-pound grizzly killed an adult moose in their driveway.
The couple put their dog inside, grabbed their cameras and started filming the attack as the grizzly battled the moose down the driveway, finally killing it. They posted the video on YouTube.
Associated Press
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