Accidental Deaths

Six months after a flash fire fatally injured a staff research assistant, UCLA has progressed in its efforts to protect those working in 2,000 campus laboratories, but "many challenges remain," according to a safety study released Friday. Prompted by the Jan. 16 death of Sheri Sangji, the study calls for developing a "top-down culture of safety," as well as improvements in training, accountability and oversight, laboratory design and record-keeping.

The National Transportation Safety Board is helping to investigate the cause of a U.S. Forest Service firefighter's fatal 200-foot fall from a helicopter near Willow Creek, Calif. Authorities said Thomas Marovich, 20, of Hayward, Calif., fell Tuesday morning while training in Humboldt County to rappel from the helicopter. The Forest Service says Marovich was a second-year apprentice in a helicopter crew fighting a 6,300-acre wildfire in the Trinity Alps.

The 57 Freeway in Fullerton was closed in both directions Thursday night after a fatal accident involving a semi-truck and a passenger vehicle, the California Highway Patrol said. The accident occurred about 7 p.m. at the Chapman Avenue exit near Cal State Fullerton. One person, believed to have been the driver of the truck, was killed, according to the CHP. Four people were injured and taken to nearby hospitals, according to Fullerton Fire Chief Gary Dominguez.

Juan Antonio and Belinda Sandoval loved taking trips with their young daughters. With both off work for the day, the pair, their two girls and a niece packed into a sport utility vehicle Tuesday and headed from their home in San Pedro to Legoland in Carlsbad. About halfway to their destination, as they headed south on Interstate 5 in Mission Viejo, the vehicle veered across the freeway, rolled down an embankment and caught fire.

The captain of the Tongan ferry that sank and left 93 people missing and presumed dead said Monday that he was pressured into sailing the vessel even though authorities knew it had problems. Capt. Maka Tuputupu blamed the sinking on rusted loading ramps that allowed water into the ship, and he said the Tongan government should take responsibility because it knew there were problems with the vessel. Tongan Prime Minister Feleti Sevele and Transportation Minister Paul Karalus have said the Princess Ashika was fully seaworthy, was fully certificated for the service and met all international maritime standards.

Six companies are recalling millions of window coverings after the strangulation deaths of three children on product cords, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday. Two deaths were attributed to products from Lewis Hyman Inc. of Carson. The company recalled 4.2 million roll-up blinds with plastic slats, sold nationwide from 1999 through 2003 for $6 to $20, and 600,000 Woolrich Roman shades, which sold at Target from 2006 through 2008 for $25 to $43. One death was attributed to a product by Vertical Land Inc. of Panama City Beach, Fla., which recalled thousands of blinds and shades that sold at its Florida stores from 1992 to 2006 for $60 to $200.

Reporting from Los Angeles and The Angeles National Forest -- Everything that has made the Angeles National Forest wildfire so fierce and intractable -- extreme heat, treacherous terrain, bone-dry conditions left by years of drought -- seems to have converged on the lonely hilltop where Ted Hall and Arnie Quinones died. Hidden in the forest, high above the Antelope Valley to the north and Los Angeles to the south, the hilltop is a hostile place now. By Monday, the flames had reduced the bluffs in every direction to a blackened moonscape, interrupted only by boulders, plumes of smoke and downed power lines draped like bunting from the gnarled limbs of charred trees.

Hundreds of children who were jammed into a narrow school staircase panicked and set off a stampede that left five girls dead and 31 students injured in India's capital. Five of the injured were in critical condition, said O.P. Kalra, medical superintendent of Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital in East Delhi, where the children were taken. The stampede occurred early Thursday as students arrived for an exam, Kalra told reporters. Amod Kanth, a well-known child rights activist, said the students were told to move to a higher floor because heavy rain was causing flooding on the ground floor.

The 2009 Lexus ES 350 shot through suburban San Diego like a runaway missile, weaving at 120 miles an hour through rush hour freeway traffic as flames flashed from under the car. At the wheel, veteran California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor desperately tried to control the 272-horsepower engine that was roaring at full throttle as his wife, teenage daughter and brother-in-law were gripped by fear. "We're in trouble. . . . There's no brakes," Saylor's brother-in-law Chris Lastrella told a police dispatcher over a cellphone.

Dr. Dre's 20-year-old son, who was found dead in August at the family's Woodland Hills home, died of an accidental drug overdose, coroner's officials said Friday. A toxicology test on the rap impresario's son revealed that Andre R. Young Jr. died of "morphine and heroin intoxication," said Ed Winter, assistant chief of the Los Angeles County coroner's office. It was ruled an accidental death, he said. Young's mother found him dead at the family's home at 10:24 a.m. Aug. 23. An autopsy was completed a few days later, but the determination of the cause of death was delayed pending the outcome of a "gamut of tests, including toxicology," Winter said.