Freak Accident

A 6-month-old Mount Airy area girl suffered serious burns to her right foot in a freak accident in her home about 11 a.m. Saturday, according to a deputy state fire marshal.Investigators said the infant was in the basement of her home in the 5700 block of Catoctin Vista Drive when her 3-year-old brother placed his coloring book too close to the fireplace and the book ignited.Hot embers from the burning book were blown across the room by a fan and landed on the infant's fire-resistant pajamas.

UPDATE (10:30 p.m.): The player was discharged from Shock Trauma and Old Mill athletic director Craig White saw him and his father as they arrived at school to get the family car. An Old Mill junior varsity football player was flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center by Maryland State Police helicopter Friday afternoon after an accident during warmups for the Patriots' first junior varsity game of the season in Millersville. Old Mill athletic director Craig White said the player sustained a neck or head injury during a “freak accident” in warmups.

Seventeen-year-old James Hill dreamed of becoming a landscape artist and building a house on a lot next to his parents' Pasadena home someday. But a freak accident Sunday night snatched his dreams away.The 1995 graduate of DeMatha High School was electrocuted while vacuuming a floor at the Circuit City store at 78 Mountain Road in Pasadena. James, of the 200 block of Brookfield Road in Pasadena, was pronounced dead at North Arundel Hospital just after 11 p.m. Sunday.Anne Arundel police said yesterday that James, a part-time employee at the electronics store, was vacuuming the floor in a back room shortly after 7:30 p.m. when sales manager Steve Monoiodis and Laurie Hendricks, another employee, heard a scream.

Old Mill's football players came into their home opener Friday night with a chip on their collective shoulder. They wanted to prove it's time to talk about current Patriots such as Marcus Hicks, Jalen Jones and Carl Chance instead of dwelling on the talent they lost from last year's Class 4A state championship team. Against Anne Arundel County foe Broadneck, the host Patriots proved they could pick up right where the state title team left off despite graduating 16 starters, including running back Rob Chesson and his state-record 49 touchdowns.

A west county woman remained in a coma yesterday after being injured last week in a freak accident near West Friendship when her car struck a deer."It's a serious condition, but it's not a life-threatening situation," Richard H. Carter said of his wife, Brenda Elizabeth Carter, who has spent the past four days in the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.Ms. Carter, 50, may be breathing on her own soon, Mr. Carter said."There has been some indication that she responds to stimulus, actually verbal stimulus," he said.

Union officers at Bethlehem Steel Corp.'s Sparrows Point plant say safety conditions have suffered from manpower reductions by the company in recent years, but may not have contributed to the accidental death of a steelworker this week.Cutbacks among the crews that clean the plant and maintain equipment are making the work environment more dangerous, they say, while high rates of overtime are contributing to worker fatigue that can lead to accidents."From 1986 on, they've just continued to take a turn for the lean and mean," said Leroy R. McClellan, grievance committee secretary for Local 2609 of the United Steelworkers of America.

The mother of a 17-year-old Westminster youth who fatally shot himself and wounded a friend Tuesday night said the shooting "had to be a freak accident."Police say Mark Anthony DiPietro Jr. shot himself in the head while playing with a 9mm semi automatic handgun in his car. The gun fell and discharged a second time, hitting 16-year-old Frank John Filemyr, a front-seat passenger, in the arm.The two were riding in the DiPietro youth's car near young Filemyr's home on Woodview Road in Finksburg about 10 p.m. Tuesday, police said, when the DiPietro youth pulled the weapon from under the front seat.

Cardinals: OF Brian Jordan, whose contract is up after this season, is advising his organization to lock him up while it still can afford it. "I'd want to make sure I'm healthy, too," Jordan said, "but [the price] will be worse after the season." Royce Clayton went 2-for-4 with an RBI after getting only seven hits in his previous 58 at-bats.Padres: Mark Sweeney, a left-handed hitter, was unavailable to play first base in place of the injured Wally Joyner after being injured Saturday night in a freak accident.

A Frederick County man died Wednesday after suffering critical head injuries during a freak accident at a New Windsor barn the day before.He was the second person to die as a result of the accident.Timothy E. Kelly, 25, of Rocky Ridge was pronounced dead at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore at 11 p.m. Wednesday, a hospital spokeswoman said.Kelly and a co-worker, Ottis R. Mullican, 23, of Union Bridge, were painting a barn, working from separate buckets of a cherry picker when a cable snapped, tossing them both 20 to 25 feet to the ground, state police said.

A Thurmont boy is recovering from surgery after he was impaled by a stingray barb in a freak accident while on a fishing vacation in North Carolina last month. Quentin Tokar, 10, is resting at home after Aug. 27 surgery to clean out an abdominal infection, followed by a week's stay at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, said his mother, Candace. The family had caught a stingray on a North Carolina pier Aug. 16 when a man tried to remove the barb. It flew through the air, embedding itself in Quentin's chest and striking his liver.

A lot of NFL players view training camp and the preseason as a necessary evil and welcome the beginning of the regular season. But Ravens tight end Ed Dickson - who is expected to miss the remainder of the preseason after spraining his right shoulder Thursday night - is not happy about joining Dennis Pitta (broken bone in right hand) as an observer until the regular-season opener against the Cincinnati Bengals on Sept. 10. “It's very frustrating because these reps in camp, that's where you gel,” Dickson said in the locker room at one end of Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in Annapolis after Sunday's practice.

A Thurmont boy is recovering from surgery after he was impaled by a stingray barb in a freak accident while on a fishing vacation in North Carolina last month. Quentin Tokar, 10, is resting at home after Aug. 27 surgery to clean out an abdominal infection, followed by a week's stay at the Johns Hopkins Children's Center, said his mother, Candace. The family had caught a stingray on a North Carolina pier Aug. 16 when a man tried to remove the barb. It flew through the air, embedding itself in Quentin's chest and striking his liver.

Surgery for a Thurmont boy who was speared by a stingray stinger while fishing on a North Carolina pier was postponed after his health declined, according to news reports. Quentin Tokar had been fishing with family and friends on August 16 when they caught a stingray, and a nearby fisherman asked to keep it. The man removed the barb, which flew through the air and struck the boy in the midsection and hit his liver. It worked its way inside with every breath. Quentin was scheduled to have surgery on Thursday, but his family physician told WJZ-TV that it was postponed.

James Odom Jr. is living proof that miracles happen. It was Labor Day in 2000, and 32-year-old Odom was sailing toward the Havre de Grace Marina with a canoe in tow. Rough, choppy waters and the weight of the canoe were more than the towline could handle. The line snapped, sending the metal hook like a slingshot into the lower right side of Odom's skull. The Harford County businessman and widowed father of a 3-year-old girl slumped over, motionless. Several of Odom's relatives, including his daughter, Tori, were on board.

Bruce D. Moore, a longtime Baltimore Symphony Orchestra French horn player, prefers thinking positively, but during some of his down moments this fall, one thought eats at him. He worries that his 30-year career as a classical musician could be over -- after a fluke accident and a subsequent year that have included extended pain, multiple surgeries, taking meals through straws, endless physical therapy, and medical and dental bills that have topped $75,000...

Wherever Christy O'Connor Jr. went at Firestone Country Club earlier this month for the Senior PGA Championship, there was someone to welcome him back. Legends like Jack Nicklaus and players you've never heard of all seemed to gravitate toward O'Connor. "To me, it's easier being nice than not being nice; it's 10 times easier," O'Connor said one morning, sitting by the practice green and eating a ham sandwich. "I like to try to have a smile on myself. What the hell's the use of frowning?

A construction worker helping to build a parking garage at The Mall in Columbia was critically injured yesterday morning when a piece of scaffolding landed on him.The worker was identified as Thomas Brook, 43, address unknown. He was listed in serious but stable condition with back injuries at the Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, said Capt. Kenneth Byerly, a spokesman for the Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue Services.Byerly said a beam that was part of the scaffolding of a parking deck next to the Hecht's department store collapsed, pinning Brook to the ground, about 10: 15 a.m. Byerly said the victim's co-workers removed the beam with a crane and called police.

UPDATE (10:30 p.m.): The player was discharged from Shock Trauma and Old Mill athletic director Craig White saw him and his father as they arrived at school to get the family car. An Old Mill junior varsity football player was flown to Maryland Shock Trauma Center by Maryland State Police helicopter Friday afternoon after an accident during warmups for the Patriots' first junior varsity game of the season in Millersville. Old Mill athletic director Craig White said the player sustained a neck or head injury during a “freak accident” in warmups.

POTOMAC - Rich Beem left the Tournament Players Club at Avenel after winning last year's Kemper Open with his future on the PGA Tour apparently secure, with a caddie who helped prod him to victory and with a girlfriend who seemed to give the one-time vagabond some much-needed stability. When Beem returns to defend his first and only title this week, the name of the tournament is not the only thing to have changed. Beem will come into the renamed, $3million Kemper Insurance Open having missed the cut in 10 of the 15 events in which he has played this year.

BUS manufacturers have made safety advances over the years, often after accidents expose dangers. School bus makers, for example, redesigned handrails on stairs because drawstrings on clothing got tangled in them, killing or injuring children as the drivers pulled away from the curb. The bizarre death a week ago of Cynthia Marie Sienkiewicz, who cleaned buses at Huber's Bus Co. in Ferndale, brought to light another, even more rare, hazard. Anne Arundel County police believe Ms. Sienkiewicz, 45, of Pasadena was leaning into one of the company's charter buses to wash the steps when she inadvertently tripped a mechanism that caused the hydraulic doors to close on her neck.