Woman dies in fall into hole

An elderly Spokane woman died Saturday evening after she fell down a man-made hole at a residence, firefighters said.

Firefighters responded to the home in the 12700 block of North Ruby Street about 5:30 p.m. to rescue the woman after her daughter called 911, said Mike VanHeel, deputy chief of Spokane County Fire District No. 9.

The woman’s daughter told firefighters that she and her mother had been sitting in chairs next to the open hole that holds a pressure tank for a water well, VanHeel said. The daughter went inside the house momentarily, and when she came out her mother was gone.

Firefighters found the woman in the hole. “We lifted her out,” VanHeel said. “But we were unable to revive her.”

The woman’s age and identity were not immediately available.

VanHeel said police are checking into the woman’s death.

Man hurt in fall off Nordstrom escalator

A 28-year-old man was in critical condition after falling three stories from an escalator Saturday at Nordstrom in the River Park Square Mall, police said.

The man, whose identity was not immediately available, was taken to an area hospital with head injuries, said Spokane Police Lt. Dave Richards.

Police responded to the Nordstrom store about 1:15 p.m.

Initially officers thought it may have been a suicide attempt, but further investigation revealed the man was “riding the railing and horsing around” when it happened, Richards said.

Nordstrom closed its store at 1:30 p.m. and sent employees home for the rest of the business day while police investigated the fall, said Brooke White, a spokeswoman for the retail store. “We believe it will reopen in the morning.”

“It was very difficult and sad for our employees and customers to witness,” White said. “There were a lot of customers in the store when it happened.”

Revised rules could increase HIV testing

Seattle More than 3,000 people in Washington are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and don’t know it, according to state health officials.

New rules should change that, they say.

“Our goal is to dramatically increase testing and make it more routine. To do that we needed to drastically revise the rules,” said Tom Locke chairman of the Washington State Board of Health.

The old rules, adopted by the board in 1989, required doctors to give patients extensive information about the virus before every test, even if the patient had already received the information during previous tests.

The new rules allow doctors to consider patient histories when they offer counseling, and local health agencies are now responsible for notifying the sex partners of patients who test positive.

Previously, doctors who administered the test had to contact partners and many were uncomfortable with the task, so doctors often directed patients to health agencies for testing, said John Peppert, manager of the state Health Department’s HIV prevention program.

“This isn’t a bad thing, but every time you add a step there will be less people going to get tested,” Peppert said.

More than 15,000 cases of HIV and AIDS have been reported in Washington since the epidemic began in 1982.