State briefs

By Compiled from Times wires

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 3, 2000

Woman says she was trapped in elevator

WINTER HAVEN -- A woman says she was pushed into an elevator by an unknown assailant and trapped there for almost two days.

Betty Andrews said someone came up behind her late Friday as she walked through a second-floor hallway in a three-story building she owns. The assailant covered her mouth, hit her on the back, then pushed her into the building's elevator, she said.

Andrews felt the elevator drop: "But I did not push a button to make it go down."

During the ordeal, Andrews, 68, kept the elevator's light off to keep the air cooler and eventually shed most of her clothing.

In an effort to get fresh air, Andrews said, she broke off pieces of the elevator's wooden molding to pry open the door. She was able to get the door open a few inches.

Andrews finally was rescued early Sunday afternoon, when two men in a magic shop in the back of the building heard her cries for help. They called emergency workers, who got her out of the elevator by opening the hatch in the roof and lowering a ladder to her.

Agency to investigate parasitic disease

BELLE GLADE -- A 17-year-old girl who immigrated from Haiti has contracted a parasitic disease uncommon in the United States, and U.S. scientists want to know whether others in the area are infected.

The teenager has lymphatic filariasis, a disease in which thin, long worms reproduce in a person's lymph nodes and send their offspring into the blood.

Scientists from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta are due to arrive Monday in Belle Glade, in west Palm Beach County.

Lymphatic filariasis often leads to elephantiasis, the enlargement of the arms, legs and genital organs. It is not considered life-threatening.

The disease is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes. About 120-million people are affected by the disease worldwide.

The girl, whose name was not released, was diagnosed with the disease after a visit to the Belle Glade clinic in May.

She is receiving drugs to kill the worms, said Dr. Robert Trenschel.

Woman, 85, killed when ambulance strikes her

LAKELAND -- An 85-year-old woman was killed when she stepped into the path of an ambulance that was responding to an emergency with its lights and siren on.

Santina Geertson, who walked the streets of east Lakeland collecting aluminum cans, was struck about 6:30 a.m. Tuesday by a Polk County Emergency Medical Services ambulance.

Emergency workers began treating Geertson, but she was pronounced dead at the scene, said Sterling Ivey, spokesman for the Polk County Sheriff's Office. Detectives are investigating.

Leader of Christian group to retire after 50 years

ORLANDO -- The founder and leader of Campus Crusade for Christ said he plans to retire next year after presiding over the organization for half a century.

Bill Bright, 78, will retire Aug. 1, 2001, Crusade officials announced Tuesday.

Bright will be succeeded by Steve Douglass, a 30-year veteran of the organization. "I have thought and prayed about this decision for many years and count it as a privilege to see such a strong, devoted man respond to the challenge of leading Campus Crusade for Christ into the next millennium," Bright said in a statement.

The Orlando-based Campus Crusade for Christ was founded in 1951 by Bright and his wife, Vonette. It has more than 22,000 full-time staff members, including 60 ministries in 186 countries.

Boy's target practice spooks canker workers

MIAMI -- Shots whizzing through the branches of a grapefruit tree in North Miami on Wednesday sent canker workers running for cover.

After at least five incidents of canker rage in recent months, who could blame them? Just the day before, a Plantation man fired his shotgun after two state inspectors knocked on his door.

But on Wednesday, the bullets were BBs, fired by an 11-year-old Boy Scout practicing for a riflery Merit badge. No charges were filed.

The boy was shooting at a paper target propped in a tree in his back yard, on the 1000 block of Northeast 140th Street. The shots passed through thick brush into a neighboring yard on 141st Street, where the state contractors were working.

Jerry Swinford, 59, from Boca Raton, was hit once in the chest. The BB left a red welt.

For a moment, Swinford, 59, thought a bee had stung him. But he and his fellow workers, who had finished chopping down a Key lime tree and moved on to the condemned grapefruit, ran for cover when they heard the other shots whistling through the leaves.

North Miami Police raced to the boy's home. When they learned the shooting was accidental, they confiscated his gun -- bought the night before with money earned mowing lawns.

The state has reported at least five incidents of "canker rage" in recent months, including the shooting in Plantation on Tuesday.

Teen's death after swim prompts health warnings

HASTINGS -- Health warnings have gone up in this St. Johns County community after a boy died from an infection he contracted while swimming in a backyard pond.

John Beal, 14, from Montgomery, Ala., was spending summer vacation at his mother's home when he contracted primary amebic meningoencephalitis, a brain infection that is not contagious.

He is the first known person to contract and die of the disease in St. Johns, health officials said. There have been fewer than 20 deaths recorded since the first cases in Florida were diagnosed in Orange County in 1962.

Symptoms include headaches and slight upper respiratory inflammation, then progress to fever, vomiting and stiff neck. Within a few days the patient often falls into a coma and dies.

More than 46 percent of all lakes surveyed in Florida contain the Naegleria amoeba, which causes the disease, according to the Epidemiologic Research Center in Tampa.

To protect themselves, people should avoid swimming in smaller bodies of water between July and October when it is very warm, health officials said.

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