Driver: 4 crashes in 7 minutes

An Appleton driver who was involved in four crashes in seven minutes has suffered life-threatening injuries.

The Wisconsin State Patrol says the 23-year-old was driving in Outagamie County early Sunday morning when he struck a guardrail. He then rear-ended two vehicles and continued driving.

Moments later he struck a traffic standard in the median of a county highway and ended up eastbound in the westbound lane. There he struck three vehicles head-on.

At that point the man’s vehicle came to a stop. Emergency personnel responded and took him to a hospital.

One driver had serious but non-life-threatening injuries. No one else was hurt.

The crashes took place in a four-mile span.

The State Patrol says alcohol may have been a factor.

 

Man kills with street sign

A 19-year-old man faces murder charges after police say he threw a street sign through a car windshield, striking and killing the vehicle’s driver Saturday.

Alabama State Troopers have not identified the victim. Spokesman Cpl. Steve Smith says after an argument in a home in the Sweet Gum subdivision, Hadley removed a sign and threw it at a passing car at about 2 a.m.

Police say it hit the driver in the face. He was pronounced dead at the scene. Hadley was arrested Saturday night and was being held today in the Baldwin County Corrections Center with his bail set at $100,000

Investigators do not believe that the two men knew each other.

 

Taco cart wins vendor award

A husband and wife who sell tacos and quesadillas have been named New York City’s best street vendors.

Fernando and Yolanda Martinez took first place Saturday at the fifth annual Vendy Awards, which celebrate the best of the city’s street food.

The Martinezes make Mexican specialties out of their cart in Brooklyn and sell them for about $6 a dish. They say they’re happy to know people love their food.

About 700 hundred people attended the awards ceremony at the Queens Museum of Art.

An Austrian food cart called Schnitzel and Things was named rookie of the year.

 

49-year marriage, no documents

A western Pennsylvania couple still plan to celebrate their 49th wedding anniversary next month even though they recently learned their marriage paperwork was never filed.

Frank and Betty Skrout were married Oct. 6, 1960, at a Catholic church in Wilmore, a tiny borough 55 miles east of Pittsburgh. They still live there.

They learned of the paperwork problem when she recently applied for pension benefits and was told she was still listed as single.

The priest who married them never filed a return of marriage document proving he performed the ceremony.

The Skrouts are working with the church to fix the problem but for now are joking about it and say they have no plans to live apart.

 

92-year-old sky dives

A 92-year-old New Hampshire woman has celebrated her birthday by sky-diving from a plane at 13,000 feet.

Swanzey resident Jane Bockstruck tells The Keene Sentinel newspaper she doesn’t know what overcame her when she decided to take the parachute jump.

With a group of friends and relatives watching, Bockstruck leaped Sept. 19 at the Jumptown sky-diving club in Orange, Mass., west of Boston. She says she doesn’t remember jumping from the plane.

But tandem partner and jump instructor Paul Peckham Jr. says she had perfect form and landed without a hitch.

He says she’s the oldest person he’s taken on a jump. The second-oldest was 78.

Bockstruck says she’s been married seven times, has traveled the world and has had jobs ranging from hotel desk clerk to seamstress for the John Wayne movie “True Grit.”

 

SC candidate raffles AK-47

A candidate to be South Carolina’s next National Guard leader skipped the fiery speeches for firepower, launching his campaign with what he called a “machine-gun social.”

The Greenville News reports some 500 people came out to a shooting range Saturday for Republican Dean Allen’s political rally. He wants to be the next adjutant general, the person who leads the state’s National Guard.

Attendees paid $25 for barbecue, a clip of bullets for target practice and the chance to win a semiautomatic AK-47. Whoever wins the rifle will have to undergo a background check.

Allen says he is an Army veteran who wanted to celebrate Second Amendment rights. South Carolina is the only state that elects its adjutant general.

 

Zoo now offers doo-doo, too

Some visitors to a Battle Creek zoo are going to be leaving with more than tired legs and souvenir T-shirts.

The Binder Park Zoo is selling composted manure collected from its inhabitants. Officials are calling it Zoo Doo Days.

WWMT-TV in Kalamazoo says pickup starts Saturday morning and continues until the manure is gone.

It’s a natural fertilizer that can be used on farms or in gardens.

People with zoo memberships can fill the beds of their pickup trucks with the stuff for $25. The cost is $30 for nonmembers.

 

People doctors help ailing gorilla

An all-volunteer medical team took a break from treating humans to perform lifesaving surgery on a 450-pound gorilla at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs.

Rafiki, a 25-year-old silverback lowland gorilla, is recovering from an operation to remove an infection from a bone behind his right ear.

Zoo spokesman Sean Anglum says the infection could have killed Rafiki if it spread to his brain.

Colorado Springs ear surgeon Dr. Joseph Hegarty performed the operation at the zoo on Sept. 5, assisted by three nurses and using a microscope loaned by Memorial Hospital.

The zoo sought help when Rafiki stopped eating and began holding his head.

Denver-based Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers loaned a mobile CT unit to scan Rafiki’s brain. A veterinarian and two doctors volunteered to read the scans.

Rafiki’s appetite is returning and his prognosis looks good, although he’s still on antibiotics, Anglum said.