Briefly

Two injured in head-on wreck near Athol

Two Spokane-area men were injured Friday in a head-on collision on U.S. Highway 95 near Athol, Idaho, the Idaho State Police reported.

Harvey G. Eggleston, 71, of Mead, Wash., was northbound on the highway operating a pilot car for an oversized load ahead of him when his car crossed the centerline and struck a southbound pickup head-on, the ISP said.

The southbound truck, driven by Leonard J. Novelli, 41, of Spokane spun sideways and rolled, coming to rest in the southbound lanes.

Eggleston’s car stopped in the northbound lane and part of the southbound lanes. The crash forced the closure of both lanes of the highway for more than an hour, ISP said.

Both men were transported to Kootenai Medical Center for treatment. Eggleston, who was airlifted by MedStar to the hospital, was in critical condition Friday night, a hospital spokesman said. Novelli was listed in fair condition.

Hundreds of pounds of steel fall on man’s legs

A warehouse worker suffered serious injuries Friday morning when two bundles of carbon-steel tubing fell on his legs, a company official said.

The 49-year-old employee suffered severely injured legs, requiring several hours of surgery, said T. Ray Looper, general manager of Haskins Steel Co., 3613 E. Main.

“He was doing his job. We just can’t imagine what took place that he ended up with that on top of him,” Looper said. “It’s a real mystery. Hopefully he can explain it to us because we can’t figure it out.”

The employee was working only a few feet away from co-workers about 9:30 a.m. but was out of sight and around a corner, Looper said. He estimated that about 500 pounds of steel fell on the employee’s legs.

An investigator from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration visited the warehouse after the accident, Looper said.

Haskins employs 75 people. All of the employee’s family had not been reached, so Looper said the company was withholding his name.

“He’s a six-year good employee,” Looper said.

Security breach slows airport passengers

Four flights were delayed and two concourses were evacuated at Spokane International Airport on Friday after a woman walked through security without being screened, the Transportation Security Administration said.

The unidentified woman went through the exit lane at the security checkpoint to get to Concourse A about 12:30 p.m., said Jennifer Marty, a TSA spokeswoman. The woman did not have a ticket for travel, Marty said.

Once security located the woman, both the A and B concourses were evacuated, and several hundred passengers had to be re-screened, said airport spokesman Todd Woodard.

The line of passengers waiting to be screened stretched all the way down the corridor to the C concourse, Woodard said. It took about 40 minutes to re-screen all the passengers, and both concourses were open again by 12:53 p.m.

The woman was questioned by law enforcement and released, Marty said.

“We don’t know if she didn’t realize she was going through the exit, or what her intentions were,” Marty said.

Code enforcement letters are bogus

Several Spokane Valley residents have contacted Spokane City Hall about letters they received that say they are from the Spokane Code Enforcement office.

The letters, which order them to clean up their property, are fakes, Spokane Police spokesman Dick Cottam said.

The page-long letters order property owners to clean up “trash and or garbage” on their property, Cottam said. And, if the cleanup isn’t completed within two weeks, the letters claim there will be further action.

The letters are printed on what appears to be City of Spokane letterhead, Cottam said. Anyone who has received a suspicious letter of this type should call the Spokane Mayor’s office at 625-6250.

Arrest ordered up for driver in drive-through

A 33-year-old woman was arrested for drunken driving Wednesday night after she got her car wedged in a southeast Spokane fast food restaurant drive-through lane.

An employee at McDonald’s, 29th and Regal, called about 9 p.m. to report an impaired driver at the restaurant, said police spokesman Dick Cottam.

A woman, later identified as Michelle C. James, was attempting to move her stuck vehicle by moving forward and backward, nearly hitting the building, the employee told police.

The car rolled backward, nearly hitting two other cars in the parking lot.

When police arrived, James was unable to stand to perform a field sobriety test, and she was arrested, Cottam said. James also had two prescription drugs with her but no prescription.

She was booked into the Spokane County Jail for driving under the influence and for possession of a legend drug.

Greg Bever is EWU Distinguished Alumnus

Eastern Washington University picked a newspaper publisher to receive its Distinguished Alumnus Award, which will be handed out during the commencement ceremony today.

Greg Bever is publisher of Spokane’s Journal of Business. He attended EWU in 1968, left for a job at The Spokesman-Review and completed his undergraduate work at EWU in 1989. He received a master’s degree in organizational leadership from Gonzaga University in 1992.

Bever is chair and founding member of the Washington State Parks Foundation, president of the Inland Northwest Council Boy Scouts of America and chair and co-founder of the Mirabeau Point board of trustees.

He is also on the executive board of the Spokane Regional Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Council.

He’s taught marketing classes at EWU for the past five years and is on the Business Advisory Council for Eastern’s College of Business and Public Administration. Bever has three children and is married to Debbie Bever.

Truck crashes into gas station, hits pump

Fife, Wash. A tractor-trailer rig veered off Pacific Highway East and into a gas station Friday, hitting a gas pump and several vehicles and sending five people to a hospital with minor injuries, a police spokeswoman said.

No fire resulted from the crash at a Shell station in the 3200 block, said Kristen Sage, a communications officer with the Fife police.