Crime Scene

Severed pinky ends cruise fun

The Coast Guard had to medevac 16-year-old Patrick Galloway from the Miami-based Carnival cruise ship Fascination on Thursday after the teen severed a finger in an elevator accident.

"Patrick was inside the cruise ship elevator and attempted to stop the elevator door from closing with his right hand. The elevator door closed and when Galloway pulled his hand from the door, his pinky finger was severed," according to the Coast Guard.

The ship's on-board doctor reported the injury about 1 a.m. Thursday. By noon, a Coast Guard HH-60 helicopter crew from Clearwater located the cruise ship about 120 miles southwest of Key West and plucked Patrick to safety.

The teen is currently recovering at Tampa General Hospital.

No gels, liquids...or powder

American Flight 917 from Miami to Lima, Peru, was delayed more than 12 hours Wednesday after a powdery substance was found on the plane.

TSA workers evacuated passengers from the plane and from the nearby gate areas in the A Concourse. Dogs and a bomb squad swept through the area to make sure the powder was nothing dangerous.

Once everything was deemed safe, the airline rescheduled the flight to depart at 8 a.m. Thursday, according to flightstats.com.

The Rule of Nines

A call from the police scanner caught my attention tonight. A 5-year-old girl near Goulds was burned by scalding water, requiring paramedics to fly her to the nearest trauma center.

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Lt. Eddy Ballester said the burns covered at least 18 percent of the girl's body.

Eighteen percent. Seems arbitrary to come up with such a specific figure so quickly, and it wasn't the first time I've seen 18 percent used to describe burn coverage. So I Googled it.

Turns out, it's not arbitrary at all. One of the first things paramedics do when evaluating burn victims is determine how much of the body is affected.

A fast way to evaluate scope of burns is by using the Rule of Nines, described in some detail here at a Minnesota burn center's website.

As you see on the left, the body is divided into areas that make up either 9 or 18 percent of total body area: The head, right arm and left arm are each 9 percent, each leg is 18 percent, and the back and chest are each 18 percent. That adds up to 99 percent, and the difference is rounded out by the hands, which are each considered 1 percent of total body area.

So, if your right leg is burned, a quick medical assessment will indicate you have burns covering about 18 percent of your body.

Ain't medicine interesting?

Fiery chips and some serious road rage

Today was full of strange news for Kevin Deutsch (left), a veteran cops reporter and Miami Herald alum who now covers southern Palm Beach County for The Palm Beach Post.

First he reported on a bag of seriously hot potato chips. How hot were they? En fuego. For real, the chips caught on fire. Investigators are checking whether some roofing materials may have sparked the blaze. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they determine it was spontaneous combustion.

Next up, Deutsch tells the tale of a Delray Beach man pulled over by state troopers after he was seen punching his girlfriend while driving. Still feeling fiesty when the cuffs came out, Malcolm Straghn kicked an FHP trooper and tried to kick out the window of a patrol car, police said.

That must be a violation of, like, four of the Vatican's 10 Commandments of Driving.

A lesson in non-copspeak

When interviewing police sources, reporters often find our notebooks filled with jargony words most people never use: The victim expired, he was airlifted, we extricated her, officers apprehended them, etc.

Not so when the info is coming from Miami police Lt. William Schwartz, one of the department's public information officers.

Some bloggers picked up on today's Miami Herald story where Schwartz described an accused double murderer as "a sociopath little thug without two brain cells to rub together."

Miami Vision Blogarama posts this compilation of memorable Schwartz quotes, as well as some details about his moonlighting career as a ventriloquist.

The photo up top, by Herald staffer Peter Andrew Bosch, is of Schwartz (center, in black shirt) being mobbed outside the home of Elian Gonzalez's Miami relatives.

Got graffiti tips? Call police

Graffiti has become such a problem in Coral Springs that police there are trying something new to stop it.

Police are offering $500 to anyone who dishes information that leads to an arrest or conviction of someone who paints graffiti or tags.

Posters announcing the new program - called the Graffiti Abatement Program - will hang in storefront windows and business cards with reward information will be handed out to teenagers.

Anyone with information on Coral Springs graffiti problem can call 954-277-2677.

Employee of the month?

When Roni Garcia, the store manager at Charlotte Russe in the Broward Mall, noticed two women stuffing clothes into their bags, she decided to take the matter into her own hands.

On a recent afternoon, Garcia watched the two women steal $300 worth of clothes, pass the register without paying and walk out the door.

Rather than calling police, Garcia followed them. She approached the women outside the store and tried to retrieve the stolen merchandise - several pairs of crop pants, shorts and corset tops.

One of the women, Keysha Millwood, grabbed a stolen white shirt and threw it at Garcia as a distraction. She also managed to hit Garcia in the face.

Then, the thieves started running. Garcia followed them - all the way to the parking lot.

There, a police officer observed the chaotic scene and found the thieves hiding underneath a car. The stolen clothes were scattered nearby.

Millwood, of Fort Lauderdale, and Sherika Berry, of Lauderhill, were arrested and charged with petit theft and simple battery. They were booked into jail.

I hope Garcia was awarded Employee of the Month - or year - for her actions.

Dog

It happened in Miami at 93rd Avenue and SW 4th Street on Wednesday morning.

A 74-year-old man told police he was walking his dogs when an unaccompanied schnauzer attacked him. 

Lucky for him, he was packing heat. Not so lucky for the dog, who was shot and killed.

No charges will be filed.

Sunrise police: Never leave valuables inside cars

The message comes after four men broke into a Toyota Highlander Friday afternoon, while it was parked in the garage at Sawgrass Mills Mall.

Police say the men smashed the window of the car, which was parked on the third-floor near the Burlington Coat Factory.

When security caught the men in the act, they darted inside the mall and ran in different directions, police said.

But they were all caught.

According to police, the thieves are: Anton Brown, 19; Corey Lindsey, 19; Elize Pierre, 19; and Keny Dieujste, 20.

When police interviewed them, the men said they had driven from Miami to the mall to break into cars.

Inside the Toyota, was an iPod that they were trying to steal, police said.

            

Anton Brown

Corey Lindsey

                                                                                                                                                                         

K-9 finds pot, cocaine in car trunk

Kevin Reed probably wishes he hadn't run that stop sign.

A Sunrise police officer stopped Reed, 22, as he drove his blue Chrysler 300 through an intersection in the 5200 block of Northwest 94th Avenue. It happened shortly after midnight on a recent night.

When the officer began speaking with Reed, he smelled a "strong odor of cannabis inside the car, according to a police report.

Another officer and his K-9 companion, Kira, were called to the scene.

Police give this account of what happened next:

Kira was let inside the car, where she began sniffing the drivers side floor board. Officers found about two grams of marijuana and a scale behind the passenger seat.

Then, Kira was let loose inside the trunk of the car. She began sniffing a purple gift bag, which, police later found, contained a gram of loose marijuana, a small clear Ziploc bag filled with cocaine and a black scale with cocaine residue on it.

Reed, who lives in Sunrise, was arrested and booked into jail. He was charged with cocaine possession, marijuana possession, possession of drug paraphernalia and failing to obey a stop sign.