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Tag: california

  • Flesh-eating bacteria linked to black tar heroin use kills 7 in San Diego: officials

    Flesh-eating bacteria linked to black tar heroin use kills 7 in San Diego: officials

    In a Wednesday statement, officials with the San Diego County Health and Human Services Agency said the seven people, who were not identified, died of a bacterial infection called myonecrosis. The severe “flesh-eating” soft tissue infection destroys muscle, according to the statement. Symptoms often include fever, increased heart rate, blisters with a foul-smelling discharge and pale skin that quickly turns gray, dark red, purple or black, among other signs.

    MAINE SEES FIRST FLU DEATH OF SEASON, STATE HEALTH OFFICIALS SAY 

    Between Oct. 2 and Nov. 24, nine people — all of whom injected black tar heroin — were admitted to various hospitals in the county with severe myonecrosis. Four of the patients were female, while five were male. Their ages ranged from 19 to 57, said officials.

    In the statement, officials warned that illicit drug users — especially those who use black tar heroin — are at heightened risk of developing wound botulism, “a rare, but serious illness that attacks the body’s nerves.”

    Signs of wound botulism, which can mimic those of a drug overdose, often include weak or drooping eyelids, blurred vision, dry mouth, slurred speech, trouble swallowing, difficulty breathing and “progressive symmetric paralysis that begins at the face and head and travels down the body,” according to the statement.

    Between Oct. 2 and Nov. 24, nine people — all of whom injected black tar heroin — were admitted to various hospitals in the county with severe myonecrosis. Four of the patients were female, while five were male. Their ages ranged from 19 to 57, said officials.

    Between Oct. 2 and Nov. 24, nine people — all of whom injected black tar heroin — were admitted to various hospitals in the county with severe myonecrosis. Four of the patients were female, while five were male. Their ages ranged from 19 to 57, said officials.
    (iStock)

    MAN OVERCOMES DECADE-LONG HEROIN ADDICTION, REACHES MILLIONS WITH VIRAL BLOG POSTS 

    At least one case of wound botulism associated with black tar heroin use was confirmed in San Diego County in October, while a total of 13 confirmed and probable cases have been reported in Southern California since the beginning of September.

    Black tar heroin, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, is a “sticky like roofing tar or hard like coal and is predominantly produced in Mexico and sold in U.S. areas west of the Mississippi River.”

    The dark color of the illicit drug results from “crude processing methods that leave behind impurities,” it adds. Black tar heroin is typically dissolved or diluted and then injected under the skin, into muscles or veins.

    The source of the black tar heroin used by some people in San Diego is currently unknown, officials said, noting an investigation into the matter is ongoing.

    San Diego residents experiencing drug addiction or a substance use disorder can call the county’s Access and Crisis Line at (888) 724-7240.

    Madeline Farber is a Reporter for Fox News. You can follow her on Twitter @MaddieFarberUDK.

  • California court docket guidelines meth-using mother can face homicide cost in child’s stillborn dying

    California court docket guidelines meth-using mother can face homicide cost in child’s stillborn dying

    The ruling Wednesday was additionally a setback for state Lawyer Normal Xavier Becerra, who not too long ago was named President-elect Joe Biden’s alternative to guide the U.S. Division of Well being and Human Providers.

    Becerra, a supporter of girls’s reproductive rights, had written to the court docket’s justices, arguing in opposition to a homicide cost for the mom. He mentioned worry of prosecution might stop many pregnant girls from searching for habit companies.

    He added that the case might immediate regulation enforcement authorities to carry a larger diploma of scrutiny to cases of miscarriage or stillbirth.

    Becerra’s workplace sometimes represents county prosecutors when their instances are appealed, The Related Press reported.

    CALIFORNIA AG SEEKS TO DROP MURDER CHARGES AGAINST WOMAN WHO GAVE BIRTH TO STILLBORN WITH ‘TOXIC LEVELS’ OF METH

    Authorities say the mom within the case, Chelsea Becker, 26, of Hanford, south of Fresno, was a methamphetamine consumer who was greater than eight months pregnant when she misplaced the child in late 2019, based on the AP.

    Chelsea Becker, 26, faces murder charges in connection with the stillborn death of her baby, authorities say. (Kings County Sheriff's Office)

    Chelsea Becker, 26, faces homicide fees in reference to the stillborn dying of her child, authorities say. (Kings County Sheriff’s Workplace)

    Authorities in Kings County determined to pursue a homicide cost, arguing the child’s dying resulted from “the reckless or detached illegal conduct of a mom.”

    BIDEN HHS PICK BECERRA ‘LOOKS FORWARD’ TO WORKING ‘IN GOOD FAITH’ WITH REPUBLICANS, DEMOCRATS IF CONFIRMED

    Philip Esbenshade, government assistant to Kings County District Lawyer Keith Fagundes, mentioned the case was not about Becker’s reproductive rights.

    “This can be a case about an individual who did particular acts that resulted within the dying of a viable fetus,” Esbenshade instructed the AP.

    In August, Becerra argued that authorities had been making use of the regulation improperly in Becker’s case.

    California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, right, is Joe Biden's choice to lead the Health and Human Services Department.

    California Lawyer Normal Xavier Becerra, proper, is Joe Biden’s alternative to guide the Well being and Human Providers Division.

    “Our legal guidelines in California don’t convict girls who are suffering the lack of their being pregnant, and in our [amicus brief] submitting in the present day [Aug. 7] we’re making clear that this regulation has been misused to the detriment of girls, kids, and households. We are going to work to finish the prosecution and imprisonment of Ms. Becker so we are able to deal with making use of this regulation to those that put the lives of pregnant girls in peril.”

    Becker has been held on $2 million bail for the reason that stillbirth, the AP reported. Methamphetamine was discovered within the child’s system and Becker has acknowledged utilizing the drug, the report mentioned, however she has pleaded not responsible to homicide.

    Fox Information’ Danielle Wallace and The Related Press contributed to this story.

    Dom Calicchio is a Senior Editor at FoxNews.com. Attain him at dom.calicchio@foxnews.com. Observe him on Twitter @DomCalicchioFOX

  • What number of People die by leaping on practice tracks every year?

    What number of People die by leaping on practice tracks every year?

    It’s an all too horrific prevalence on practice tracks throughout the nation: a person takes their very own life or fatally falls in entrance of an oncoming locomotive.

    The U.S. authorities considers trespasser casualties, together with acts of suicide, to be “the main reason for rail-related loss of life in the USA.”

    In response to a Freedom of Info Act request, the united statesDepartment of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) revealed that some 3,687 lives have been misplaced because of “trespasser strikes” nationwide between 2012 and 2017. The info consists of intentional deaths, in addition to unintended or inconclusive.

    VETERAN SUICIDE RATES REMAIN ALARMINGLY HIGH DESPITE YEARS OF REFORM

    Of those strikes, 1,332 have been formally deemed to be suicides, whereas 2,355 have been non-suicides.

    In accordance with the FRA’s findings, California, New York, Florida and Texas “persistently had the very best variety of deadly trespasser strikes.”

    California clocked in essentially the most deadly hits — 250 suicides and 451 non-suicides. Illinois had the second highest variety of suicides however ranked solely seventh on non-suicide deaths.

    “Tragically, roughly 220 individuals use the tracks to commit suicide yearly, making it a central security issue for the DOT,” stated Karen Philbrick, government director of the California-based Mineta Transportation Institute, which was established by Congress in 1991 and works to supply policy-orientated analysis to assist the event of transportation programs. “The variety of trespassers killed by trains is at an all-time excessive since 2000.”

    Warning, graphic content: Officer hit by train, lives Video

    Suicide strikes have been discovered to happen most frequently throughout the spring, whereas non-suicide strikes have been commonest throughout summer season. Suicides additionally are likely to occur throughout the later night hours – sometimes between 8 p.m and 12 a.m. – on each weekdays and weekends, whereas non-suicides have been recorded most ceaselessly throughout weekday night commute hours (4 p.m. and eight p.m.) and within the early morning earlier than 4 a.m.

    The ramifications are wide-reaching.

    “The influence of those incidents reaches past the lack of life: practice crews expertise trauma, railroads and their surrounding communities expertise disrupted service and street closures with an estimated total financial influence of 4.6 million per incident,” the FRA acknowledged. “Many trespasser fatalities are preventable. With a greater understanding of how these incidents happen, together with the intent of the trespassers concerned, railroads can extra effectively and successfully design and implement countermeasures.”

    (U.S. Division of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration.)

    For New Yorkers, barely every week goes by with out a suicide or try on the maze of underground tunnels that span the 5 boroughs. In a minimum of two New York incidents in current months, a father or mother leaped onto the tracks with a child of their arms — in each circumstances the kid miraculously surviving.

    In 2017 in New York Metropolis alone, there have been some 900 incidents. The explanations are diverse: intoxication, urinating, slipping or making an attempt to retrieve one thing they’ve dropped. After which there’s the nightmare state of affairs of individuals being pushed.

    FIGHTING CORONAVIRUS: NEW YORK CITY MTA TO SANITIZE BUSES, TRAINS, STATIONS EVERY 72 HOURS

    In 2012, 58-year-old New Yorker Ki Suk Han was pushed by a 30-year-old emotionally disturbed panhandler onto the subway tracks and killed by an oncoming practice. Witnesses recall screaming as the person desperately tried to scramble again to the platform.

    “As soon as the emergency brakes are engaged, it may take over a mile to cease and there’s no such factor as swerving,” Philbrick defined. “By comparability, it takes a mean passenger car 200 ft to cease in an emergency. Current reviews point out that just about half of railroad working staff shall be concerned in a essential incident over the course of their profession. Powerless to quickly cease, the practice operator watches in horror because the unavoidable performs out.”

    A practice driver, who requested her title not be used, informed Fox Information that one morning in late 2018 she noticed a middle-aged man on the sting making ready to leap. She slammed on the brakes, realizing the subway wouldn’t come to a cease in time. Simply earlier than the practice approached, a fellow ready passenger out of the blue pulled the possible jumper again from the sting.

    An F train pulls into the W. 8th Street subway station at Coney Island in Brooklyn on Sept. 15, 2019, in New York City. 

    An F practice pulls into the W. eighth Avenue subway station at Coney Island in Brooklyn on Sept. 15, 2019, in New York Metropolis. 
    (Gary Hershorn/Corbis by way of Getty Photographs)

    The incident, she stated, nonetheless offers her nightmares.

    The FRA emphasizes efforts to handle the issue centered on a nationwide and proactive strategy.

    Main cities together with Hong Kong and Paris have platform doorways and partitions at many stations in an effort to halt the track-falling challenge – New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) has been putting in prototype suicide-prevention fencing on the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge – however specialists insist that it’s a multifaceted and complicated drawback.

    (U.S. Division of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration.)

    The Mineta Transportation Institute recommends extra intensive suicide-awareness coaching packages for railroad staff, acknowledges that “limitations are wanted however not enough” and urges prevention efforts to be focused “in and across the quick space of the railroad stations or platforms” and in areas of financial hardship, the place research have decided suicide ranges to be larger.

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    Philbrick additionally recommends further measures similar to signage and digital shows, promoting helpline companies, and detection and monitoring.

    (U.S. Division of Transportation’s Federal Railroad Administration.)

    “We have to change the dialog about suicide in order that it’s mentioned with out worry of destructive penalties,” she stated. “The railroad business can take part in making this transformation actuality by offering public data, in a accountable means, about their efforts to forestall suicide.”

    Hollie McKay has a been a Fox Information Digital employees reporter since 2007. She has extensively reported from battle zones together with Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Burma, and Latin America investigates world conflicts, battle crimes and terrorism around the globe. Comply with her on Twitter and Instagram @holliesmckay

  • Bay Space docs seeing extra suicides throughout coronavirus stay-at-home order

    Bay Space docs seeing extra suicides throughout coronavirus stay-at-home order

    Many of the suicides have been youthful folks coping with unprecedented ranges of stress associated to job loss and loneliness within the midst of a number of months of quarantine measures, in accordance with well being employees on the John Muir Medical Heart in Walnut Creek, positioned 25 miles east of San Francisco.

    “Socialized isolation has a worth,” Kacey Hansen, a trauma nurse on the hospital, instructed KGO-TV. “They intend to die. Typically, folks will make what we name a ‘gesture.’ It is a cry for assist. We’re simply seeing one thing somewhat completely different than that proper now. It is upsetting.”

    DAKOTA JOHNSON OPENS UP ABOUT DEPRESSION IN QUARANTINE

    Top mental health tips to cope with COVID-19 Video

    Researchers have discovered the pandemic has affected the psychological well being of many, however particularly youngsters and youngsters. Younger individuals who had been identified with ADHD for the primary time rose 66 % throughout March and April, whereas 41 % of affected person visits amongst youngsters and youngsters additionally concerned dialogue of despair, in accordance with Athenahealth.

    The Walnut Creek hospital has seen a pointy uptick in suicides that coincide with a Contra Costa County shelter-in-place order to fight the coronavirus. The hospital didn’t reveal how many individuals have taken their very own lives, however one physician instructed the information outlet the determine is “unprecedented.”

    “We have by no means seen numbers like this in such a brief time period,” Dr. Mike deBoisblanc mentioned. “I imply, we have seen a yr’s price of suicide makes an attempt within the final 4 weeks.”

    The Contra Costa County Disaster Heart mentioned calls to the hotline are up, however not dramatically.

    “I believe folks discovered themselves disconnected from the traditional social supportive networks that they’ve — church buildings, colleges, e book golf equipment — you title it,” Tom Tamura, government director of the disaster middle, instructed the station. “Typically talking, the overwhelming majority of individuals say they really feel higher after they name and get the sources they want.”

    DeBoisblanc mentioned he thinks it is time for officers to reopen the county in an effort to handle the psychological well being implications of extended isolation.

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    CLICK HERE FOR THE FOX NEWS APP

    “I believe, initially, this [the shelter-in-place order] was put in place to flatten the curve and to ensure hospitals have the sources to handle COVID sufferers,” he mentioned. “We’ve got the present sources to try this and our different neighborhood well being is struggling.”