Schoolgirl loses eight fingers after plunging hands into burning plaster during art lesson
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 9:12 AM on 13th October 2009
Boston Magistrates' Court ordered the school to pay £19,000 after the pupil lost eight fingers
A teenage girl lost all but two of her fingers after her hands became trapped in a bucket of plaster of Paris during a school art lesson.
The 16-year-old had wanted to make a cast of her hands, but when the plaster set neither staff nor paramedics could get it off.
When large quantities of plaster set they can reach temperatures of up to 60c (140f) and the girl suffered terrible burns.
Plastic surgeons did what they could but after 12 operations she was left with just a forefinger and middle finger on one hand.
Yesterday her school, Giles School in Boston, Lincolnshire, was ordered to pay £19,000 after it was found guilty of breaching health and safety law and of failing to report the incident to the Health and Safety Executive.
The HSE only heard about the incident six weeks later from the girl's plastic surgeon.
Jo Anderson, prosecuting for the HSE, said the girl - unidentified for legal reasons - had been told by her teacher to put her hands into clay to make a mould, into which she should pour the plaster.
Instead she put her hands into the bucket of plaster up to her wrists.
A school girl lost most of her fingers when she put her hands in a bucket of plaster during a school art lesson
Miss Anderson said guidelines for the use of plaster of Paris clearly state it should be handled using goggles and gloves.
But she added: 'There was no way the student could or should have known of the catastrophic consequences.'
The court heard that the girl was doing a BTEC course in art and design and was supposed to be making the cast as part of the sculpture unit.
Patrick Cordingley, defending, urged the bench to bear in mind the school budget when deciding the fines.
Outside court, the girl's solicitor, Stephen Hill, said she was now 18 and beginning a gap year volunteering at a local school.
He said: 'She is doing remarkably well considering the devastating injuries she did suffer.'
The effect of the plaster had been that the girl's hands began to cook from the inside, he said.
He added that a civil case is in progress against the school, and its insurers have already admitted responsibility.
Giles School said it was proud the girl had returned to school and gained three A-Levels. It said casting plaster was no longer used.
The school issued a statement , saying: 'We wish her a long, happy and successful career.
'We would liked to reassure all pupils and parents that our health and safety procedures have been rigorously revised.
'We are confident that such an accident cannot occur again at our school.
Fla. Man Charged After Leaving Mother, 78, Naked and Covered in Feces
Monday, October 12, 2009
WILTON MANORS, Fla. — A Broward County, Fla., man is being held on elderly neglect and other charges after police found his 78-year-old mother naked and covered in feces.
Paris Martz was charged Sunday with elderly neglect, battery on a law enforcement
officer and resisting arrest without violence. The 40-year-old was taken to the Broward County Jail where he is being held Monday on a $2,100 bond. Jail records did not list an attorney for Martz.
A police report says Wilton Manors officers went to a home to investigate reports of smoke. There was no fire when they arrived, but Martz ran away from police and was chased down. The mother came out naked and covered in feces. She was taken to a hospital for an evaluation.
Inside officers found newspapers and trash stacked throughout.
Mother and newborn baby both die of the same cancer as scientists prove tumours can be caught in the womb
By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 8:51 AM on 13th October 2009
Normally an embryo's immune system would recognise and attack cancer cells
Pregnant women can transmit cancer to their unborn babies, British scientists have proved for the first time.
In an 'extremely rare' case that challenges conventional wisdom about human biology, a mother with leukaemia passed the blood disease to her daughter.
Normally a child's immune system would recognise and destroy any invasive cancer cells.
Although doctors know of 30 past cases of mothers and babies sharing the same cancer - usually leukaemia or the skin cancer melanoma - they have never before shown that the child's disease definitely originated in the mother.
Professor Mel Greaves, who led the study at the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey, said the risks to unborn babies were extemely low.
'It appears that in this and, we presume, other cases of mother to offspring cancer, the maternal cancer cells did cross the placenta into the developing foetus and succeeded in implanting because they were invisible to the immune system,' he said.
'We are pleased to have resolved this longstanding puzzle.
'But we stress that such mother to offspring transfer of cancer is exceedingly rare and the chances of any pregnant woman with cancer passing it on to her child are remote.'
The study investigated a case in Japan in which a 28-year-old was diagnosed with leukaemia shortly after she gave birth.
Eleven months later, her daughter-was also diagnosed with the disease.
Genetic tests on the child's blood cells showed that she had the cancer cells at birth and that they came from her mother, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.
Closer investigation revealed that the daughter's leukaemia cells were missing a vital piece of DNA that would have flagged them up as 'intruders' to her immune system.
Without this, her system was unable to target and destroy th cancer cells and she went on to develop the disease.
A spokesman for the researchers said that the mother and daughter have both since died.
The researchers say the same mutation could allow melanoma cancer cells to pass from mother to baby.
However, they believe it is unlikely that other cancers could be passed on this way.
Professor Peter Johnson, of Cancer Research UK, said: 'This is an extremely unusual case, but this study is particularly revealing because it suggests that the cancer cells could only cause a problem in the baby by evading their immune system.
'This is really important research as it adds to the evidence that cancers need to evade the immune system before they can grow, giving hope that by alerting a patient's immune system to a cancer we can develop new types of treatment.
'Women needing cancer treatment-around the time of having a baby who are worried about this research should speak to the specialists looking after them for advice.'
Dr David Grant, scientific director at charity Leukaemia Research, added: 'The important message from this fascinating piece of research is that leukaemia cells can be destroyed by the immune system.
He added: 'Harnessing the power of the immune system to first cure and then protect patients from leukaemia is one of our priority areas of research.'
Cancer in pregnancy is rare, with only one in 1,000 pregnant women thought to be affected by the disease.
The outcome for mother and child depends on the type of cancer and the stage at which it is discovered.
Scientists Discover First Ever Vegetarian Spider
Monday, October 12, 2009
In a possible affront to its fierce meat-eating relatives, one jumping spider prefers to dine vegetarian, munching on specialized leaf-tips of acacia shrubs, finds a new study.
The eight-legged vegetarian, called Bagheera kiplingi, lives in Central America, and is now considered a rarity among the world's 40,000 or so spider species, most of which are strictly predators, feeding on insects and other animals. B. kiplingi is about the size of a person's pinky nail.
"This is really the first spider known to specifically 'hunt' plants; it is also the first known to go after plants as a primary food source," said study researcher Christopher Meehan of Villanova University in Pennsylvania. (Co-author Eric Olson of Brandeis University independently observed the same behaviors in another population of this spider in Costa Rica.)
Essentially, the spider employs hunting strategies to get past guard ants that keep the acacias safe from other herbivores. In return, the ants get a comfy place to live — the plant's hollow spines — and food in the form of acacia nectar and the shrub's leaf-tips.
B. kiplingi spends its entire life on the acacia shrubs, and so must avoid the ants at all times. When hunting, they actively avoid the ants by changing targets when approached by a guard, and using silk droplines as retreat ladders. The spiders also nest primarily on the ends of older acacia leaves, spots the researchers found were least patrolled by ants.
"Most of the big spider textbooks almost outright claimed there are no herbivorous spiders," Meehan told LiveScience. "It's on par with the flying pig in terms of novelty."
The strategy seems to be successful. Direct observation, video recordings and chemical analyses of such spiders in Mexico and Costa Rica suggest the animals get most of their food from such plants. In the Mexican population, about 90 percent of the spiders' diet came from plant tissue, with the rest made up of ant larvae, nectar and other items. In Costa Rica, the spiders got about 60 percent of their diet from acacia plant tissues.
When the spiders do hunt ant larvae, they mimic the ants' behaviors, for instance by making jerky movements.
The research will be published in the Oct. 13 issue of the journal Current Biology.
The devastating moment parents said goodbye to their son left severely brain-damaged by hospital blunders
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 12:59 PM on 13th October 2009
This is the heartbreaking moment parents Johanne Rees and Krishna Govekar clutched their newborn baby boy for the last time, just minutes before being forced to switch off his life-support machine.
The parents said goodbye to son Arun, who had been kept alive for 10 days after his birth, after a catalogue of medical blunders left him severely brain-damaged.
The NHS was today ordered to pay the couple £160,000 compensation after midwives at the University Hospital of Wales (UHW), Cardiff, failed to spot the unborn child was in distress.
One doctor even rejected Ms Rees' pleas that she had gone into labour, saying she simply needed the toilet.
Devastated: Johanne Rees and Krishna Govekar say goodbye to their baby son Arun
The harrowing pictures, which were taken by another family member, were released through the couple's solicitor today to highlight their plight.
Ms Rees, 48, had been classed as having a 'high risk' pregnancy because she was aged 44 when she was due to give birth and had previously suffered a miscarriage.
She told today of her relief at winning a four-year battle for answers and an 'unreserved apology' from the NHS.
Ms Rees said: 'Arun was a precious, much wanted baby.
'Losing Arun has completely devastated us both and it's difficult to come to terms with his loss even now.
'We desperately wanted to be parents together.'
Krishna Govekar holds Arun for the last time before the life support machine is turned off
Ms Rees and her partner Krishna Govekar switched off the life support machine for their son after 10 days.
She was admitted at 32 weeks in November 2005 with abdominal pains and was already being checked because her waters had broken at 18 weeks.
But she told how her labour was not properly monitored for more than two hours at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff. She said heart readings 'clearly showed' her unborn baby was in distress.
She said: 'I just couldn't understand why they weren't doing anything to help me and my baby.
'At my last antenatal visit I was told my baby was breech and I would need a caesarean section.
'It was a no-brainer - I knew my baby needed to be delivered urgently.
'I was screaming in agony and begging the midwives to get my baby out but they just left me.
'I couldn't believe it when a doctor arrived and said I wasn't ready to deliver but had probably eaten something that had disagreed with me and to try going to the toilet instead.'
An emergency caesarean was performed an hour-and-a-half later on a second doctor's recommendation.
Baby Arun was taken to the special baby care unit but suffered irreversible brain damage.
Baby Arun suffered irreversible brain damage after being delivered through an emergency caesarean
The couple, who own a restaurant in Penarth, South Wales, said their lives had been completely 'devastated' by the death of their son.
She said: 'After the upset of an earlier miscarriage, we were both so thrilled when I became pregnant again.
'It was all we wanted and it was taken away from us.'
Property developer Krishna, 48, said: 'The last four years have been a relentless battle to gain answers.
'Arun's death has taken its toll on us both. It has affected our health, our ability to work and at times it threatened to break up our relationship completely.
'We can only hope that we can now move forward with our lives.'
Their solicitor Guy Forster, of Cardiff legal firm Irwin Mitchell Solicitors, said: 'Although baby Arun was premature he was well developed and experts have confirmed that in all likelihood he would have survived had the staff taken appropriate action.
'For Johanne and Krishna, this case has never been about the money but about ensuring that lessons have been learned, as they do not want any other couple to go through the tragedy they have experienced.'
Katie Norton, director of primary services for the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, offered its 'sincere condolences' to the couple.
She said: 'This was an exceptional and difficult case and we have worked with the staff to learn lessons.
'Whenever there is a poor outcome for patients, we conduct an internal investigation with the staff involved and this then informs the response to a complaint.
'We responded immediately to the complaint from Ms Rees and apologised at the time for the loss of Arun and for the distress caused as she and Mr Govekar had to revisit the events of his birth.
'Patient safety is a high priority and we are continually
Montana Man Found Dead In Garbage Truck
Monday, October 12, 2009
BILLINGS, Mont. — Montana police say a man who may have been using a large garbage bin as shelter from the cold was apparently crushed when the bin was emptied.
The man's body was found in a city waste truck at 6:30 a.m. Saturday.
Billings police Sgt. Jay Berry says the victim was found "partially in a sleeping bag" and may have been using the garbage bin as shelter.
Yellowstone County Deputy Coroner Chad Fehr says the man died of blunt force injuries to the chest and that his death has been ruled accidental.
Berry says the man's injuries are consistent with the operation of a garbage truck
My husband had beaten cancer, then doctors WRONGLY told him it had returned and sent him to a hospice who let him die
By James Tozer
Last updated at 11:52 AM on 13th October 2009
A grandfather who beat cancer was wrongly told the disease had returned and left to die at a hospice which pioneered a controversial 'death pathway'.
Doctors said there was nothing more they could do for 76-year- old Jack Jones, and his family claim he was denied food, water and medication except painkillers.
He died within two weeks. But tests after his death found that his cancer had not come back and he was in fact suffering from pneumonia brought on by a chest infection.
To his family's horror, they were told he could have recovered if he'd been given the correct treatment.
Death pathway: Jack and Pat Jones pictured about ten years ago. Jack was left to die after doctors decided his 'cancer' was terminal and stopped feeding him
Yesterday, after being given an £18,000 pay-out over her ordeal, his widow Pat branded his treatment 'barbaric' and accused the doctors of manslaughter.
Mr Jones was being cared for at a hospice which was central to the contentious Liverpool Care Pathway under which dying patients have their life support taken away, although the hospice claims it wasn't officially applied in his case.
The scheme is used by hundreds of hospitals and care homes, and is followed in as many as 20,000 deaths a year.
Supporters say it brings dignity to a patient's final hours, but critics fear that some are placed into it incorrectly.
Mr Jones, a retired bricklayer with two daughters, was diagnosed with stomach cancer in May 2005. After undergoing chemotherapy, he had his stomach removed by surgeons at Royal Liverpool Hospital that September.
He was told he was in remission from cancer, but the grandfather of two continued to suffer pain following the operation as well as difficulties in eating, and on January 3, 2006, he went to the city's Marie Curie hospice for respite care.
While there, however, his family were told the cancer had returned by Dr Alison Coackley, a palliative medicine consultant who played a key role in drawing up the Liverpool Care Pathway.
Despite the fact that no tests were carried out to confirm the diagnosis, his family say doctors instructed nurses to stop giving him food and fluids.
Misdiagnosed: Jack's widow Pat has been paid an £18,000 settlement although health bosses refused to admit liability
The only medication he was permitted were painkillers, and he slipped into semi- consciousness without the chest infection being diagnosed and died on January 14.
But a post-mortem examination found he was free of cancer and had in fact died of pneumonia.
Reports commissioned by Mrs Jones's solicitor concluded that with antibiotics and a rehydrating drip he could have made a full recovery and survived for at least another two years.
The hospice and the doctors who treated Mr Jones continue to deny liability, but his widow has now accepted an £18,000 out-of-court settlement after being told she would otherwise lose her legal aid.
Yesterday she said: 'If they'd only treated his chest infection, my husband could well still be alive today.
'We fought in the hospice to get Jack the right treatment and they blocked us, making us feel we were a nuisance.
'I was worried it was pneumonia, I wanted them to check his chest, but they wouldn't.'
Mrs Jones and the family want to know whether her husband was treated under the Liverpool Care Pathway.
She added: 'Jack was the life and soul of the party. He was a true gentleman. As far as I'm concerned, his death was manslaughter. It's barbaric and I don't want any other family to go through what we've had to.'
The 75-year-old, of Childwall, Liverpool, plans to report Dr Coackley and another doctor to the General Medical Council. Dr Coackley, 45, worked with Professor John Ellershaw at the hospice in Liverpool at a time when he was heading the writing of the LCP policy.
One article they published together last year said: 'Futile treatments should . . . be discontinued at this time and consideration should be given to the discontinuation of antibiotics and blood tests.'
Mrs Jones's solicitor, Michael Danby, said: 'This is a particularly sad case as it was entirely preventable. If they had examinedhis chest, they would have diagnosed the infection, and he could have been treated.'
The hospice's lawyer, Dorothy Flower, said it had settled the case to enable Mrs Jones to grieve for her husband, but did not accept liability. 'Some things are done for economic reasons, and a case like this costs a huge amount of money, which would do nobody any good,' she said.
Marie Curie Cancer Care said it could not comment on Mr Jones's case due to patient confidentiality. However, it insists that the Liverpool Care Pathway requires doctors to monitor patients regularly.
John Brumby says midget racing hurtful to small people
By Adrian Dunn and Adam Hamilton
Herald Sun
October 13, 2009 01:15pm
JOHN Brumby has weighed into the 'Midgets' Cup' controversy, saying the Cranbourne event was hurtful to small people.
Mr Brumby said today he realised people had different views about the race but he thinks it should not have happened, the Herald Sun reports.
"What occurred may well be humorous to many people but I think the test is whether it's hurtful to people and what occurred is quite hurtful to a number of people,'' he said.
“So I think it's tacky.''
But one of the dwarf "jockeys" involved in a race at a country cup that has triggered a furore, angering racegoers and the Racing Minister says it was “all in good fun”.
Professional entertainer Jeremy Hallam said this morning he thought if anyone should be going into bat for dwarves, it should be dwarves themselves.
The 50 "Midgets' Cup" held at the Cranbourne Cup has angered racegoers and Racing Minister Rob Hulls, who has described the event as "an embarrassment.
Three punters piggy-backed the dwarfs, wearing racing colours, in the race which saw one dwarf fall and crash headlong into the turf, but was unhurt.
Champion jockey Damien Oliver and racing officials also say people should "lighten up".
Thousands of racegoers watched the race at Sunday's Cranbourne meeting.
Mr Hallam said he was surprised at the uproar.
“I think there was nothing wrong with it. It was all in good fun. The people were involved for a bit of a laugh and a bit of entertainment, which is what we were there for,” he told Neil Mitchell's program on Radio 3AW this morning.
“It wasn’t too over the top. I didn’t see it as degrading, because it was taken professionally, so I don’t see any problem with it.”
“We were all told about the gig … and we could have put our objections up, but we were all fine with it because we are entertainers and we’ve done a lot of work like this before.”
He said the entire performance was “handled professionally”.
But he was open-minded about whether people were now too politically correct to see the funny side of the performance.
“Everyone has their own sense of humour … each to their own I guess,” Mr Hallam said.
But Mr Hallam was adamant about his own limits, when asked if there was anything he wouldn’t do for entertainment.
“Definitely wouldn’t be tossed. Definitely not. But apart from that, as long it’s professional and I can see the funny side in things and not just taking the piss, then definitely.”
In fact, Mr Hallam took his performing so seriously, he had established a company hiring out dwarves for entertainment.
While he was taken aback at the reaction, "then again I’ve been in my fair share (of controversy) … when I was the dwarf in the Jagermeister shot pouring thing last year.”
During that controversy, Mr Hallam, found himself at the centre of a storm over promoting binge drinking after he strode topless along a St Kilda bar handing out free shots of Jagermeister.
Photos of that incident sparked equal measures of anger and applause.
The stunt was sanctioned by the Racing Victoria Limited marketing department.
But Mr Hulls said the race was an embarrassment and would do nothing to promote the racing industry.
He said he was puzzled by what it hoped to achieve.
"At a time when racing should be fighting hard for that discretionary dollar and fighting hard to get young people back to the track, this type of event does nothing to promote the industry as vital, modern or innovative," Mr Hulls said.
Meredith Tripp, former president of Short Statured People of Australia, said events that made fun of short people made it harder for them to get through life without being subject to ridicule.
"For a big corporate group, seeing some sort of comical side to such an event is unfortunate," Ms Tripp said.
"We hope to it make easier for short-statured people to participate in society without being bullied or laughed at or stared at. But things like this set us back a little bit."
Dozens of racing fans who contacted the Herald Sun yesterday were outraged by the midgets' race.
But RVL boss Rob Hines said it was just a "bit of fun".
Mr Hines said he was not at Cranbourne, but saw the stunt on YouTube.
He said RVL had canvassed the support of the Victorian Jockeys Association, including Oliver.
"The little guys were dressed up in jockey silks and that was the purpose of it. They were basically jockeys on punters," Mr Hines said.
"We would be very surprised if any of the jockeys on the day had any issue with it.
"From what I gather they all thought it was a bit of fun.
"It was done as a bit of fun, that's all it was. If we have offended anyone then we apologise to those people."
Oliver said he thought the race was "hilarious" and added "people should lighten up".
Victorian Jockeys Association chief Des O'Keeffe said he had concerns when the race was first mooted.
"It had potential for a shemozzle," he said.
Mr O'Keeffe said he wondered if there would be any upside to the stunt.
"I had an awful feeling about it, but the feedback from my members was that they were not offended," he said. "But I can understand if some people were - it was very odd."
Cranbourne Racing Club chief Neil Bainbridge said the club received no complaints on the day.
"I'm surprised to hear of any negative feedback. It was never put on to be distasteful to anyone," he said.
Mr Bainbridge said the event was an RVL initiative staged in conjunction with his club