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Baby hurt in two-car accident on I-275

By Times Staff
Published June 27, 2005

A baby was airlifted to Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg early Sunday afternoon after a two-car accident on Interstate 275 in St. Petersburg just north of Gandy Boulevard.

A gold Hyundai and a black car that appeared to be a Pontiac collided around noon. Emergency dispatchers at first thought seven to eight cars were involved. All four lanes of the northbound interstate were shut down, and police allowed cars to pass by single file in the median.

The baby was not in a child seat, said Florida Highway Patrol troopers and Pinellas County sheriff's deputies. Witnesses said the baby was lodged between two car seats. The Sheriff Office extrication crew was called to the scene.

DUNNELLON - A University of South Florida student drowned in the Rainbow River on Saturday, and Marion County Sheriff's Office investigators are trying to determine why.

Billy J. Elias-Carrero, 22, was pronounced dead at a Marion County hospital at 2:47 p.m. Saturday after being pulled from the Rainbow River a short while earlier.

Elias-Carrero was a computer science major at USF in Tampa, attending the summer session. He lives in Puerto Rico, Marion County Sheriff's Capt. Dennis Stow said.

He said Elias-Carrero was one of several people together on a swimming trip at the Rainbow River on Saturday. He said Elias-Carrero went underwater and did not come up. His companions pulled him from the river and called for help. The drowning took place near the KP Hole, a swimming area maintained by the Marion County Parks Department.

Stow said Elias-Carrero's body had no obvious trauma. He said investigators were trying to determine if he could swim. An autopsy was scheduled.

FORT LAUDERDALE - A woman convicted of intentionally making her daughter so sick she was hospitalized about 200 times and underwent numerous unnecessary operations was released from prison Sunday.

Kathy Bush, 47, was released from a Pinellas County work release program for women, said Robby Cunningham, a spokesman for the Florida Department of Corrections. Bush served three years of her five-year sentence.

Prosecutors said Bush had Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a psychological disorder in which parents cause illnesses in a child to draw attention to themselves.

Jennifer Bush, underwent about 40 operations before the state began investigating in 1996. Her mother, Kathleen Bush, has denied doing anything to hurt her.

Before the criminal investigation began, Jennifer's illnesses and mounting medical bills garnered national attention when she and her mother went to the White House in 1994 to help lobby for health insurance improvements.

The last time the mother and daughter, now 18, saw each other was in 1999 under strict supervision. They have been exchanging letters, reviewed by a psychologist, since last June when Jennifer asked a judge to let them correspond.

"My mother will be getting released from jail pretty soon, and it is my desire to re-establish a relationship with her," said a letter Jennifer wrote prosecutors in May. It was published in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel .

--Compiled from Times staff and wire reports

[Last modified June 27, 2005, 08:16:33]