Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

In brief: Limbaugh: Heart pains a mystery

Talk show host Rush Limbaugh speaks during a news conference  in Honolulu Friday.  (Associated Press)
From Wire Reports

Honolulu – Talk radio show host Rush Limbaugh said Friday tests showed nothing was wrong with his heart after he was hospitalized with chest pains.

Limbaugh, 58, was released from The Queen’s Medical Center two days after he was rushed there during a vacation. Doctors said he did not have a heart attack or heart disease.

“The pain was real, and they don’t know what caused it,” Limbaugh said, adding his best guess was he had a spasm in an artery.

Limbaugh said he was not taking painkillers. In 2003, he acknowledged an addiction to painkillers for severe back pain and took a five-week leave from his radio show to enter rehab.

Crews retrieve pythons after fire

St. George, Utah – Crews responding to a trailer fire in southern Utah had another factor to contend with: snakes.

Kristeen Checketts, the animal control officer in St. George, says there were about 19 pet pythons in the trailer when it caught fire Thursday morning at an RV park in town.

Once the fire was put down, Checketts and firefighters began pulling out snake after snake, most in cages and some up to 18 feet long.

Checketts says 11 survived. The snakes’ owner tried to revive another by massaging it and blowing into its mouth through a plastic pipe.

Fire Capt. Jason Whipple says the accidental fire started with a heat lamp in one of the snake cages.

Car, snowmobiles collide, killing man

Pelican, Wis. – Authorities say one person was killed and four were injured after a car and three snowmobiles collided in northern Wisconsin.

According to a news release from the Oneida County Sheriff’s Office, the snowmobilers were on the shoulder of Highway 8 in the town of Pelican around 1 a.m. Friday when the collision occurred.

A 41-year-old man was pronounced dead at a hospital. The car’s driver, a 76-year-old man, and a 48-year-old man from a snowmobile, also were hospitalized.

The operator of a third snowmobile, a 49-year-old woman, and her 47-year-old female passenger were treated at a hospital and released.