Bear Valley Community Hospital

After a tense seven-hour standoff near the body of a slain Big Bear Lake man, San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies arrested David Lee Nance, 49, for investigation of murder and attempted murder in the wounding of two others. Sheriff's Sgt. Jerry Tesselaar said deputies were unable to approach the dead victim, Harold James Newstrom Sr., 46, whose body lay in the road, until Nance agreed to throw down a gun and surrender.

His first run of the day on the half-pipe "didn't work out," says Phil Whitman, stating the obvious with a painful smile, a tattered gauze sling supporting his arm. Still wearing his snow boots and bib overalls, the 14-year-old is walking away from the emergency room at Bear Valley Community Hospital--an early end to the snowboarding weekend he had planned with his San Clemente church group.

His first run of the day on the half-pipe "didn't work out," says Phil Whitman, stating the obvious with a painful smile, a tattered gauze sling supporting his arm. Still wearing his snow boots and bib overalls, the 14-year-old is walking away from the emergency room at Bear Valley Community Hospital--an early end to the snowboarding weekend he had planned with his San Clemente church group.

After a tense seven-hour standoff near the body of a slain Big Bear Lake man, San Bernardino County sheriff's deputies arrested David Lee Nance, 49, for investigation of murder and attempted murder in the wounding of two others. Sheriff's Sgt. Jerry Tesselaar said deputies were unable to approach the dead victim, Harold James Newstrom Sr., 46, whose body lay in the road, until Nance agreed to throw down a gun and surrender.

A Laguna Niguel ski racer was fatally injured when he lost control during a competition and slammed into a snow-making machine at 84 m.p.h., authorities said. David J. Erickson Jr., 24, died Thursday from head and upper body injuries suffered at the Snow Valley contest, San Bernardino County Deputy Coroner Linda Osborne said Friday. Erickson, who was wearing a helmet during the contest, was taken to Bear Valley Community Hospital and pronounced dead about 9:55 p.m.

An Ojai boy who was mauled by a bear on his last day of camp in the San Bernardino National Forest returned to the scene of the attack Thursday to thank counselors for saving him and to say goodby to his friends before heading home. Joshua Isaacs, 13, gobbled a vanilla ice cream cone at Camp Wasewagan and told his friends about the fear he felt when a black bear ripped off part of his scalp with its teeth this week.

The cause of death of a Hart High girls' cross-country runner who died suddenly on a ski vacation last weekend will not be determined for at least six weeks, according to the San Bernardino County coroner's office. Shanon Ruge, 17, of Newhall died last Saturday at Big Bear Valley Community Hospital in Big Bear Lake after she sustained an accidental blow to the head about 10 p.m. while with friends at a cabin.

Jittery Big Bear residents, unnerved anew after a series of earthquake aftershocks in recent days, were assessing the latest damage Thursday and voicing hopes that the jolts would subside. "People are pretty much on edge," said John Smiley, chief executive officer of Bear Valley Community Hospital, where 15 people, including two suffering from chest pains, were treated after Wednesday's magnitude 5.4 aftershock.

Half a dozen racers were waiting at the top of a steep hill called Big Bowl in Running Springs while veteran speed skier David James Erikson tore through the course. "We heard the time. The speed came over the radio at 84 m.p.h. And after that I heard a real loud noise," said Brad Daniels, 29, a racer from Laguna Niguel who shuddered at the memory. "I thought in my own head, maybe he hit a lift tower or something, I hope he didn't," Daniels recalled Saturday.

A man illegally chopping down a 100-foot tree for firewood watched in horror as it fell on his fiancee and their infant son, crushing them both to death, authorities said Saturday. Cari Anne Clark, 30, was removing 5-month-old Aaron Allan Clark from a safety seat in the couple's car when a gust of wind tipped over the tree, said the baby's grandfather, Keith Rademaker Sr. They were pronounced dead at Bear Valley Community Hospital shortly after the 10:30 a.m.

Eight U.S. Forest Service firefighters escaped from a harrowing accident in the San Bernardino Mountains with minor injuries Monday morning after their truck hit a guardrail and rolled 230 feet down a steep mountainside, coming to rest against a pine tree. The eight-man crew was headed east from the Big Bear area to do mop-up and monitor hot spots on the Butler 2 fire, a blaze that charred about 14,000 acres and forced evacuations in Fawnskin before it was contained Sept. 20.

A magnitude 5.4 aftershock of the June 28 earthquake hit Big Bear City on Wednesday, causing three house fires, a major water main break and 15 to 20 injuries in the mountain resort community, authorities said. Caltech and the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., put the epicenter of the latest jolt six miles east of Big Bear Lake. That is within a mile of the epicenter of the 6.5 Big Bear quake that followed the magnitude 7.