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McDonnell Douglas, needing to demonstrate that 410 passengers could be safely evacuated from its MD-11 jetliner, conducted two tests in October in Los Angeles. Although 11 passengers were injured in the first test, the company proceeded with the second test, in which 36 more people were injured, including a 60-year-old woman who suffered a broken spine and is now paralyzed from the neck down. Though most of the victims were McDonnell Douglas employees, the paralyzed woman was part of a group recruited from a senior citizens’ organization (at $49 a head) to comply with the federal requirement that 15 percent of the test passengers be over age 50. A company spokesman said the number of injuries was “well within the FAA and company expectations.”
In October in Key West, Florida, 38-year-old Vicki Childress had an asthma attack during the night, reached for the atomizer she keeps under her pillow next to a loaded .38-caliber gun, grabbed the wrong thing, and shot herself in the jaw. The bullet shattered her teeth and passed through her jaw into the wall of her bedroom.
A burglar, bringing his four-year-old daughter with him on a heist, broke into a house in Newark, New Jersey, in October, stole some things, then left in a hurry without her.
Latest Incident of a Girl Dressing Like a Boy So She Can Go Out With Girls: Niki Faye Eichman, 20, was charged with assault in September after getting aggressive with high school girls in Highland Village, Texas. She had bandaged down her chest claiming a rib injury.
