Gov. Jon S. Corzine was apparently not wearing his seat belt as required by law when his official SUV crashed into a guard rail, leaving the governor hospitalized in critical condition, a spokesman said Friday. A state trooper was driving Corzine to a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team Thursday night when another vehicle, swerving to avoid a pickup truck, hit the governor's SUV and sent it into the guard rail on the Garden State Parkway. The crash broke the governor's leg, six ribs, his sternum and a vertebra.
Authorities on Friday were still searching for the red pickup truck, which had been "driving erratically," state Police Capt. Al Della Fave said.
Corzine, 60, did not suffer any brain damage in the crash. But he won't be able to resume his duties as governor for several days, if not weeks, and he won't walk normally for months, Dr. Robert Ostrum said performing surgery on the governor Thursday night at Cooper University Hospital. Friday morning, the hospital's trauma chief, Dr. Steven E. Ross, said Corzine was stable and improving, and that he could be removed from a ventilator within the next few days. Corzine remained heavily sedated because the pain from chest injuries made it difficult to breathe, Ross said.
When Corzine arrived at the hospital, doctors said he was conscious but had several injuries: a femur bone broken in two places that had lacerated his skin, a broken sternum, six broken ribs on each side, a head laceration and a minor fracture on a lower vertebra. Ostrum said a rod was inserted in Corzine's left leg, and additional operations were scheduled for Saturday and Monday. The injuries were not considered life-threatening, but it would be at least three to six months before Corzine could walk normally, he said. "He's got a pretty significant rehab in front of him," Ostrum said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2007 00:00 ||
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#1
As the Suburban was northbound in the left lane of the parkway as it passes through Galloway Township, the red pickup, which had been on the right shoulder, moved erratically into the flow of traffic, jerking into the right northbound lane. That forced the driver of a white 2003 Dodge Ram pickup truck to swerve to the left to avoid it.
In doing so, the Dodge smacked the right front corner of the governors vehicle, which then spun out in a clockwise direction before the drivers side slammed into the end of a guardrail in the median at milepost 43.4, according to an accident report by the state police.
The guardrail penetrated the vehicle and struck both Rasinski and Governor Corzine, the one-page document said. Aides and the police explained that Mr. Corzine, who was sitting in the front passenger seat and apparently was not wearing a safety belt, hit his head on the windshield and was then thrown into the back of the vehicle.
The police said they were still investigating whether the air bag on the governors side of the car deployed as it should. Photos of the vehicle do not appear to show a deployed bag.
Ugly. The end of the guard rail penetrated the passenger compartment. Corzine impacted the dash and windshield since the airbag apparently failed, and then was thown into the back seat and ended up with his leg sticking out the window. Sounds like a Princess Di moment without French doctors.
#5
Excellent graphic here. When the end of a guardrail punches through the side of the car you're sitting on and then towards you, a seat belt & air bag won't help much. Corzine is lucky he wasn't torn into pieces.
#6
Had a similar thing happen to a young fellow and his girl friend back in the 60's. They were in a Corvette, lost control on a curve, excessive speed. Both survived. Everyone referred to it as a "miracle." I suspect it was.
#8
I certainly hope he recovers, but given that the people of New Jersey will have to pay for his medical care, I hope he will then go on a tour of high school assemblies telling teens about the importance of wearing a seat belt and the consequences that can follow failure to do so. Irresponsible behaviour from someone in a position of such responsibility.
#9
triple-beam guardrail has breakaway/collapsible ends (circular)- had to be a freak angle/impact to spear the vehicle like that. I really don't like Corzine, but wish him a full recovery. Also note that seatbelts are for "the little people"
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/14/2007 9:10 Comments ||
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#12
Fox just ran a blurb that the red pickup driver has been located and questioned by police. No charges are pending.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/14/2007 13:20 Comments ||
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#13
Without wishing to kick someone while they're down, permit me to cite another news article about this accident:
Gov. Jon S. Corzine was apparently riding without a seat belt, in violation of state law, when he was critically injured in the crash of his official vehicle, a spokesman said Friday.
... Corzine chief of staff Tom Shea said he did not believe the governor had been wearing his seat belt.
"If he was not, he certainly should have been," Shea said, "and we would encourage the state police to issue a citation."
Shea saidCorzine usually wears his seat belt. When asked why the trooper who was driving would not have asked Corzine to put on his seat belt, Shea said the governor was "not always amenable to suggestion."
Which infers that Corzine habitually did not wear his seatbelt.
A law enforcement official close to the investigation told The Associated Press on Thursday that the governor typically does not wear his seat belt, and that his state trooper detail had not been successful in persuading him. The source spoke on condition of anonymity, citing a lack of authorization to speak on the matter.
Another version of this same article also contained this lead-in paragraph:
Gov. Jon Corzine has thought plenty about highway safety. As a U.S. senator he proposed barring drivers from using hand-held cell phones and requiring children to be buckled up on the road.
Does anyone else get the impression of a politician who felt that his own laws didn't apply to himself? While I hope that Corzine recovers from his injuries, I can only view them as largely self-inflicted.
A last question: Does anyone think that Corzine would have been charged with voluntary manslaughter if his unrestrained body had impacted and killed his vehicle's driver?
I think we can all safely hope that this incident will oblige Corzine to get over his apparent "Do as I say, not as I do" eliteist claptrap.
#14
The Lt. Gov says he hopes Corzine will be well enough to return to work, at least to some extent, by next week. He's dreaming.
This is the same guy who served as governor after the last guy (forget his name, too lazy to google) resigned after gay shenanigans. I also read that this was the third straight NJ gov to have broken his leg while in office. Boyfriend wanted to know if that included mob hits.
Surgeons in southern Taiwan have reattached the left forearm of a vet after it was bitten off by a sick crocodile he was tending in a zoo, they said on Thursday. Chang Po-yu (38) was in a stable condition in hospital after six hours of surgery, said Fu Ying-chih, the surgeon in charge of the operation. "The surgery was successful and we are hopeful he could keep the forearm, but it is still early to say to what extent functions of the limb can be restored," he said. "The following seven to 14 days will be a critical period," Fu added from Chungho Memorial Hospital at Kaohsiung Medical University.
Chang was injecting the male Nile crocodile with anaesthetic in the zoo in the southern city of Kaohsiung on Wednesday when it turned on him, tearing off the forearm and holding it in its mouth. Nile crocodiles are one of three species found in Africa and are known as man-eaters with the ability and power to snatch and devour a human. The animal only let go when a police officer fired two bullets into it, zoo officials said, in dramatic scenes caught on television.
Chang was rushed to hospital where the limb, recovered from the crocodile, was delivered about 80 minutes after the accident to the operating theatre. After the surgery he was seen on television smiling and waving to reporters with his healthy arm from his hospital bed, where he also reportedly tried to comfort his panic-stricken mother. His girlfriend wept through the operation, television reported, which said friends were worried how soon Chang would be able resume his hobby of playing the piano.
Must resist old doctor joke here.
The 300kg crocodile survived the shooting and is now attracting lots of visitors to its enclosure, officials said, some even reportedly crossing a police line to catch a closer glimpse.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2007 00:00 ||
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FOX NEWS > "And now you know, America, why its important to make sure the big bad Crocodile is actually unconscious before getting close to him".
"Beware of Israeli melons infected with AIDS arriving in Saudi Arabia!" is the latest rumor being spread throughout Saudi Arabia like a wildfire.
An SMS message being sent around the country this week said, "The Saudi Interior Ministry warns its citizens of a truck loaded with AIDS infected melons that Israel brought into the country via a 'ground corridor.'"
The Interior Minister's spokesman General Mansour al Turki responded to news of the message and made it clear to a-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper that the Ministry "did not issue any such announcement. This is just a rumor." . . . Al Turki urged the public to ignore such passing rumors, and said that the authorities were doing everything in their power to ensure the citizens' wellbeing. . . .
Head of the center for chemicals and toxins in Mecca, Dr Ahmad Elias also stressed that there was no truth to these rumors. . . . "The HIV virus cannot survive in any temperature other than that of the human body, which cannot be reached in fruits," he explained.
"Fruits" can't reach the temperature of the human body, eh? That'll be news in San Francisco.
Presumeably a melon gets AIDS the same way everyone else does. Brings to mind that old Middle Eastern proverb: For love, a woman; for pleasure, a boy; but for sheer ecstacy a melon.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/14/2007 11:51 ||
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For residents of the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans, the summer carnival, concert trips or fishing jaunts on Lake Michigan are highlights of the year. They are now victims of the state's budget crisis, prompting complaints from residents and veterans' advocates. "If they cut these activities out, why am I here? It's what makes me feel like I am part of the real world," said John Palmer, a 63-year-old Air Force veteran who depends on a wheelchair because of multiple sclerosis.
Palmer said residents learned last week everything from doughnuts on Saturday to a trip to Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park for its butterfly exhibit have been axed. Resident Randy Fortune, 58, said the announcement cast a sense of gloom among the home's 720 residents. "We have no light at the end of the tunnel. We have nothing to look forward to. Everybody is upset."
According to Frank Snarski, the home's commandant, the cuts stem from an executive order by Gov. Jennifer Granholm that restricted funds at the home only be used for "essential" items. They come from a $1 million fund used for items not covered by the home's overall budget. They include eyeglasses, dentures, medical supplies, trips the doctor, as well as entertainment of residents. Although the fund comes from private donations, including those made on state income tax forms, the state historically has had broad oversight over how the money is used.
Continued on Page 49
We were both pumping gas at the Cumberland Farms in South Hadley, Mass., when the woman next to me smiled and cheerfully asked, "So, how are things in Michigan?"
"Worst economy in the nation," I replied, watching her smile evaporate into a look that said I was telling her something she didn't know. "We lead the nation in foreclosures. No one can sell their homes. And in just the last year or so, the auto companies have cut something like 100,000 hourly jobs."
She paused, concerned. Then she confessed that I'd "made her day." Why? Because she'd been brooding about how hard it is to get ahead, and I'd reminded her how much worse things could be. I also reminded myself how disconnected the rest of America is from the angst consuming Michigan.
#5
"Massachusetts said goodbye to its last auto plant years ago. Its economy is growing. Its population is generally better educated with a substantially higher percentage of adults holding college degrees."
Talk to someone from MA. The economy is NOT growing - lack of tax revenues due to decreased earnings, both private and corporate, have lead to a billion dollar shortfall in the state government's coffers.
People are leaving the state in record numbers, and the bulk of these are the "educated"; the income tax was supposed to be reduced to 5% by popular vote several years ago and has not yet due to a greedy and irresponsible legislature (both houses of which are over 80% Democrat); the state has the highest capital gains ("unearned") income tax in the U.S., forcing many elderly to leave the state in order to retire; the infrastructure of roads and bridges is falling apart; the government is the most anti-gun of any state in the country; the illegal immigrant problem is out of control there, and the state government has a long record of encouraging illegals to move there.
In 1980, there were 50 Fortune 500 companies headquartered in MA. There are now less than a third of that number.
MI may have its problems. Emulating MA won't help them.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
04/14/2007 7:03 Comments ||
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Oh, come on, give Governor Granholm a break! She has to finance abortion clinics, pay off the public school unions, and redecorate the governor's mansion somehow.
[/sarcasam]
Posted by: Mike ||
04/14/2007 7:28 Comments ||
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NH has been turned from a red to a blue state by the hoards of people escaping Mass. The problem is that when they get here, they want the same tax and spend, granny state policies that they just left!
Posted by: Jim ||
04/14/2007 7:59 Comments ||
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I'm going to guess that letters would be more effective than e-mails; I'll bet she doesn't accept them from those who are not her constituents, ala Pelosi and Murtha.
I believe I'll drop her a note.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2007 10:36 Comments ||
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Dear Governor Granholm:
I see in the Grand Rapids Press from April 13, 2007 that your executive orders are reducing private funds to disabled Veterans.
For residents of the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans, the summer carnival, concert trips or fishing jaunts on Lake Michigan are highlights of the year. They are now victims of the state's budget crisis, prompting complaints from residents and veterans' advocates.
Although the fund comes from private donations, including those made on state income tax forms, the state historically has had broad oversight over how the money is used.
Widows and orphans, too Governor? Perhaps you can tax the homeless.
What will you do with those private funds, Governor? Redecorate the Governors Mansion? Fund you re-election campaign?
Words cannot convey my contempt of your apparent contempt of those who sacrificed their tomorrows for our todays.
My Father and Father-in-Law are both veterans; fortunately they live in Illinois. My son is also a veteran, but he lives in Texas.
Please reconsider your executive order, Governor. This is not 1975; American does not have contempt for veterans anymore.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2007 10:51 Comments ||
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#11
Well said, Bobby. Suggest you cc: the letters-to-the-editor pages of the Detroit, Lansing, and Grand Rapids newspapers.
Posted by: Mike ||
04/14/2007 11:10 Comments ||
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#12
Spell-check it first, there are errors.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/14/2007 13:11 Comments ||
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I caught one that spell-check missed - you when I meant your.
WORD didn't find any others, except todays, which is more than one today. I heard that slogan on the radio from a outfit trying to get car donations for veterans - They gav their tomorrows for your todays. I like it.
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/14/2007 15:51 Comments ||
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Ghakar police on Friday arrested Syed Sibtul Hasan Shah, known as Pir Double Shah, from his Nazimabad house in a Rs 30,000 robbery case registered against him.
Shah was famous for doubling the money deposited with him in 70 days. People in northern Punjab believe that he has doubled billions of rupees of his clients. Majority of his clients were residents of Gujranwala, Gujrat, Wazirabad, Sialkot and Hafizabad.
Ghakar police SHO Amir Shaheen Gondal told Daily Times that Muhammad Ishtiaq, a resident of Ghakar Mandi, had lodged an FIR, alleging that Shah and his three accomplices had robbed Rs 30,000 from his house last month.
Gondal said police and other law-enforcement agencies conducted a raid on the house of Shah in plainclothes. He did not offer any resistance, the SHO said, adding that his accomplices were still at large. Qaiser, one of Shahs accomplices, was a Punjab Police driver at Wazirabad Sadar police station. He later left the job and joined Shah, the SHO said.
Shah, who was a schoolteacher in Wazirabad, started the business of doubling money a couple of years ago. It is learnt that he had so far made transactions of around Rs 40 billion.
As his business expanded, dozens of people started working with him as his agents. He had also opened sub offices in various cities of the Punjab. The news of Shah being arrested spread like a fire. Those who have deposited their money with Shah gathered outside his and his agents houses. Around 1,000 people were seen outside his house in Nazimabad.
I cannot understand that a person, who has returned around Rs 40 billion to his clients, has been arrested for a mere Rs 30,000 robbery, said Asghar Ali, who runs a small shop in Wazirabad, He too had received Rs 100,000 from Shah last month against an investment of Rs 50,000.
A police official, seeking anonymity, said he had deposited Rs 50,000 with Pir Double Shah on April 11. I am in a fix how to reclaim my money, he said.
Shugran Bibi, a resident of Hafizabad, was sitting outside Shahs house. She said she had given Rs 100,000 to Shah last week after selling jewellery.
Muhammad Shabir, 75, said he had deposited Rs 250,000. I do not know how to get my money back, he said. A large number of people also gathered outside a sub office of Pir Double Shah in Sambrial. The office, which is run by Shahs brother-in-law Tasawar Shah, was locked by Tasawars guards. They told people that the office would be opened next morning. Tasawar has gone to Islamabad to resolve the issue with Federal Law Minister Wasi Zafar, they said.
The minister, however, denied having information of such meeting. Hundreds of residents of Wazirabad gathered at Wazirabad bypass and protested in favour of Pir Double Shah. They demanded that the authorities concerned release him. The law-enforcement agencies and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) have got registered several cases against Shah with Wazirabad police. They have also recovered Rs 17 million from his residence.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/14/2007 00:00 ||
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A member of one of Texas' oldest ranching families has locked horns with an oil company in a bizarre dispute involving pet rhinos, steel pipe and allegations of radiation poisoning and a corporate vendetta.
Rancher Jimmy McAllen, the 10th generation of his family to work the 70,000-acre ranch in South Texas, says that the old pipe he used to build a corral for two African black rhinoceroses in the mid-1990s proved to be loaded with radioactive material.
He blames the radiation for the mysterious 1995 death of one of his rhinos. And he says he suspects it caused the rare form of cancer that cost him his lower right leg in 2005.
Moreover, he says the Forest Oil Co. which holds a lease to drill for gas on his property and gave him the old pipe for the corral and other projects around the ranch deliberately poisoned his land in retaliation for a dispute the two sides had over gas payments.
"It's like giving someone a poison apple on Halloween," the 69-year-old said.
McAllen is suing Forest Oil, accusing it of aggravated assault and trickery, among other things. He is seeking a cleanup, as well as an unspecified amount in damages.
Geoffrey Harrison, an attorney for Denver-based Forest Oil, vehemently disputed the allegations.
"None of that pipe that was donated by Forest Oil to McAllen is now or has ever been even remotely dangerous in any way," he said.
While radioactive material naturally occurs underground and adheres to pipes when oil and gas are pumped from the earth, Harrison said there was no evidence anyone on the ranch had inhaled radioactive material.
He called McAllen "delusional" and "hyperbolic" and said the man who first suggested to McAllen that the pipes were loaded with radioactive material is a "disgruntled former employee" with little knowledge of the facts.
The McAllen name is legend in South Texas. McAllen's grandfather donated the land for what is now McAllen, a city of 106,000 people near the Mexican border.
His ranch dates back to an 18th-century Spanish land grant. The stone-and-mortar ranch office has a case full of artifacts from Civil War soldiers on both sides. The ranch house still has bullet holes from a 1915 attack by Mexican bandits. Bing Crosby used to hunt there.
In the 1950s, prospectors found a vast store of natural gas under the land, creating a huge source of revenue.
A few years ago, McAllen sued Denver-based Forest Oil in an accounting dispute. The lawsuit was eventually settled.
According to court papers, McAllen had experts test the pipes on his ranch and found that the highest level of radiation was 150 microrems. That is about three times what state oil and gas regulators say is safe. But the state health department says the material is harmless unless swallowed or inhaled.
"Where it does create a health issue I'm told is when it gets in the air. You don't want to get the material airborne," said Joseph Dancy, who teaches oil and gas law at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. "You don't want to be grinding it off when you shovel it out and bury it. Obviously, you'll get dust. And then you get that Texas wind."
The McAllens say that is what happened: They cut, blew air through and welded the pipe for projects all over the ranch, releasing the material into the air.
A barn full of the allegedly "hot" pipe and the vineyard where McAllen's son, James Jr., made trellises and fences from the scrap metal are now off-limits.
"We're ranchers. We really don't know if this is correct. What do we know?" said the younger McAllen. He pulled a hand-held radiation meter from the back seat of his truck: "Like my lasso, I've got my Geiger counter."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Gov. Jon S. Corzine was apparently not wearing his seat belt as required by law when his official SUV crashed into a guard rail, leaving the governor hospitalized in critical condition, a spokesman said Friday. A state trooper was driving Corzine to a meeting between Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team Thursday night when another vehicle, swerving to avoid a pickup truck, hit the governor's SUV and sent it into the guard rail on the Garden State Parkway. The crash broke the governor's leg, six ribs, his sternum and a vertebra. 
