Accidents

A NASA satellite designed to measure greenhouse gas emissions and pinpoint global warming dangers crashed Tuesday after a protective covering failed to separate from the craft shortly after launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. The loss of the $278-million satellite came as a severe blow to NASA's climate monitoring efforts, as well as the builder of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory, Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va.

It started as a generational collision, when a 7-year-old boy skied into a 60-year-old Pennsylvania man on a slope near Vail, Colo. The elder skier sued the boy's family for more than $75,000 to cover his medical bills, saying he had dislocated his shoulder and suffered a massive rotator cuff tear in the accident. To many, last winter's snowy run-in has become a symbol of excessive litigation. The plaintiff, David J. Pfahler, and his wife left their home in Allentown, Pa.

Two months into the winter sports season, avalanches have claimed 26 lives nationwide, including three near Mountain High Resort this weekend, in what officials warn may be a record year for mountain fatalities. Avalanche experts say average annual death tolls have edged up from 20 to 25 over the last decade and are likely to increase as more people with better technology and a new "extreme sports" mentality venture into remote areas in search of untrammeled powder.

A Los Angeles County Superior Court jury has ruled against a federal judge who was seeking $21 million after alleging that he was severely injured when he fell from a malfunctioning escalator at an Encino shopping center. U.S. District Judge George P. Schiavelli, 59, said he was riding the escalator at Encino Place shopping center in August 2005 when it stopped "suddenly and without warning," knocking him down the stairs and causing permanent injuries, according to court records.

Former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden was hospitalized Friday after breaking his wrist and collarbone in a fall at his Encino home Thursday night. The 97-year-old Hall of Fame coach suffered a hairline fracture of his left wrist and a fractured left collarbone in the fall, according to a statement released by Wooden's daughter, Nan Muehlhausen. Wooden also hit his head in the fall but a CT scan of his neck and head were negative, according to Muehlhausen.

A vacationer from Michigan out for a family boat ride in the Florida Keys died Thursday when a 75-pound spotted eagle ray flew out of the water and struck her in the head. Judy Kay Zagorski, 55, is believed to have been killed by blunt force trauma, according to Jorge Pino, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "Out of nowhere, a spotted eagle ray pops up in front of the boat and collides with the victim," who was standing at the bow, said Pino.

A blast that killed one firefighter and injured another this week in Westchester was a freak occurrence and indirectly the result of the decaying underground infrastructure, officials said Friday. Firefighter Brent A. Lovrien, 35, was fatally injured Wednesday when a spark ignited combustible smoke behind an electrical panel door that he was trying to open with a circular saw. Smoke had migrated into the electrical room from the underground burning of a conduit 200 feet away.

It happened more than 38 years ago, yet Manny Mota still can't bring himself to talk about it. "It's very difficult," the Dodgers coach and former All-Star outfielder said. "It brings up bad memories." "It" was a foul ball Mota lined into the seats down the first base line at Dodger Stadium during the third inning of an otherwise uneventful mid-May game against the San Francisco Giants in 1970.

After downplaying the incident, Beijing's Olympic organizers acknowledged Thursday that a dancer was paralyzed after a platform collapsed during rehearsals for the opening ceremony. Liu Yan, 26, fell July 27 while rehearsing a sequence called "Silk Road," in which she was to dance on a painting with scarves swirling around her. The sequence was supposed to last two minutes. Liu is now expected to be paralyzed from the waist down for life.

Army Pfc. Jennifer L. Cole was hesitant when she got her orders to go to Iraq last spring. But once she got there, she was happy. "All she could do was tell me how she loved it over there," said her mother, Candace Gholson of Napa, Calif. "She knew she was making a difference." Cole, 34, died Aug. 2 of noncombat-related injuries in Baiji, north of Baghdad, according to the Defense Department. Gholson said her daughter was accidentally shot by another soldier while the two were cleaning weapons.