MIAMI
Family sues over bad burns
A Florida family sued a hospital for malpractice on Wednesday, saying their baby suffered severe burns because it took too long to remove a coin-sized battery that she swallowed. Parents Cole Parsons and Courtney Thorne said in a lawsuit that Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville should have taken out the lithium battery within two hours, which is recommended by poison control centers. They also sued Dr. David Smith, who they say downplayed the dangers. The battery was removed from Ava-Kate Parsons about five hours after the parents arrived at the hospital, the complaint said.
BOSTON
Fish oil may prevent asthma
Children whose moms took high doses of fish oil during their last three months of pregnancy were less likely to develop chronic wheezing problems or asthma by age 5, according to researchers at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. The results of the study of 700 women in their third trimester of pregnancy “are highly promising” but merit caution, Dr. Christopher Ramsden of the U.S. National Institutes of Health writes in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study was published Wednesday.
HARRISBURG, Pa.
Colonel sentenced for porn
A colonel who once headed the U.S. Army’s strategic war gaming division sobbed and apologized Wednesday before being sentenced to 12 years for receipt and distribution of child pornography. Col. Robert Rice, 59, told a federal judge in Harrisburg that he was deeply ashamed and acknowledged that the victims of child pornography may never heal.
LA PORTE, Texas
Search for military helicopter
Coast Guard divers are searching the waters just off the shoreline of northern Galveston Bay in Texas after witnesses say a military helicopter broke up and crashed. Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Andrew Kendrick says the Apache helicopter based at nearby Ellington Field was carrying two people. Witnesses told Houston television stations the aircraft was flying unusually low Wednesday afternoon and broke apart in the air. Debris was reported scattered over a section of the bay along with an oil slick. Divers were in the water where the wheels of the chopper poked above the surface about 25 yards from shore in La Porte. The scene is about 25 miles southeast of downtown Houston.
Compiled from wire reports