Digest

Dateline Florida

By Times Staff
Published August 21, 2007

SURE, IT'S A SHARK BITE, BUT MAN STILL DROVE

A shark in the Florida Keys on Sunday bit a 53-year-old man, who then drove himself to a sheriff's substation where an ambulance took him to a hospital for extensive wounds to his side, the Miami Herald reports. Chris Olstad, 52, was swimming from Founder's Park in Islamaroda when the shark struck. Olstad made it back to shore and was taken to a hospital. Authorities say a large chunk of flesh is missing from his side. Olstad remained hospitalized at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

How'd that woman get in my car and why is she hollering?

A Boynton Beach woman screamed in pain from inside a Toyota that had just hit a police car. She seemed ready to sue over a back injury from the wreck until another woman in the car told police she wasn't even in the car at the time of the crash. Shava Shirlee-Sophia Powell hopped into the car in a scheme to defraud the Boca Raton Police Department, police said. She was in another car at the time of the collision around 4 a.m. on Sunday, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports.

Safety of 11,000 bridges can now be checked online

Worried about a bridge on your commute and want to know what shape it's in? You can now go online to www.dot.state.fl.us, where the state has just posted a list of more than 11,000 Florida bridges. You can search by county and find a bridge's name, age, daily traffic, last inspection date, sufficiency rating from 1 to 100, and whether it's one of 273 bridges the state has deemed "structurally deficient." Those bridges must be fixed or replaced within six years.

Any college can give a B.A., but UF can give a par-tay

The University of Florida has made one more top 10 ranking. This time, on the "party school" list compiled by the Princeton Review's 2008 edition of "The Best 366 Colleges." The lists were compiled through a survey of 120,000 students at the colleges included in the book. Here's the ranking:

1. West Virginia University

2. University of Mississippi

3. University of Texas, Austin

4. University of Florida

5. University of Georgia

6. Penn State University

7. University of New Hampshire

8. Indiana University, Bloomington

9. Ohio University, Athens

10. University of California, Santa Barbara

Top "Stone-Cold Sober" school? Brigham Young University

Correction

Bob White is the Pasco County sheriff. A story published Monday used an incorrect name.

[Last modified August 21, 2007, 00:00:06]