In brief: Health park offers car seat checks

Kootenai Medical Center’s certified car seat technicians will be at the Post Falls Health Park on Friday to perform free car seat inspections.

Inspections will be from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Each takes 20 to 30 minutes. The health park is at 1300 W. Mullan Ave.

Four out of five car seats on the road are not used correctly, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says. Child safety drops dramatically, even for top seats on the market, with improper use.

Free car seat inspections also are offered at Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d’Alene every Thursday, 1 to 3:30 p.m. Appointments are required and can be made by calling Kootenai’s Educational Services Department at (208) 666-2030.

For more information, visit www.kmc.org/carseats.

Usk, Wash.

Woman in hospital after cycle crash

A Chewelah woman was in critical condition Wednesday after taking a curve too fast on a motorcycle near Usk, according to a Washington State Patrol report.

Nancy M. McCormick, 44, was riding east on McKenzie Road near state Route 20 about 12:30 p.m. when her motorcycle veered into a ditch and landed on top of her. No other vehicles were involved, the report states.

McCormick was wearing a helmet, according to the report. She was taken by ambulance to Newport Community Hospital then airlifted to Deaconess Medical Center in Spokane.

Yellowstone National Park, Wyo.

Mudslide closes park entrance

Heavy rains Wednesday afternoon triggered a mudslide at a construction zone just east of Sylvan Pass, leading to the temporary closure of the East Entrance to Yellowstone National Park.

The slide, which occurred about 5:30 p.m., is 50 feet long and varies in depth from 1 to 5 feet, park officials said. No vehicles were trapped in the slide and no one was hurt.

The road was also temporarily closed at the Pelican Creek barricade near Fishing Bridge.

Rangers, park maintenance staff, a representative of the Federal Highway Administration and employees of H-K Contractors, Inc., were at the site. They scanned the debris with a metal detector for unexploded ordinance used for avalanche control in the winter and then removed the mud and rocks from the road.

Park officials said they did not know when the East Entrance Road will reopen.

Olympia

Recalled food sold in Washington

Three products involved in a national food recall are known to have been sold in Washington, the state Department of Health said Wednesday, suggesting that state residents check their shelves for the items.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned this week that people should immediately throw away more than 90 different products, including chili sauce, corned beef hash and dog food, produced at a Castleberry’s Food Co. plant linked to a botulism outbreak. The plant in Georgia has been temporarily closed.

Four cases of botulism have been reported – two from Indiana and two from Texas. All four people consumed Hot Dog Chili Sauce Original, a product made by Castleberry’s.

The state Health Department identified the three recalled foods known to have been sold in Washington as: 15-ounce cans of Cattle Drive Chili, 15-ounce cans of Castleberry’s Corned Beef Hash and 15-ounce cans of Castleberry’s Beef Stew.

As of Wednesday, the department said there have been no reported cases of illness in Washington related to the recall.

Seattle

Two women found shot in graveyard

A 93-year-old woman fatally shot at a Seattle cemetery was the widow of a man buried on the grounds, police said Wednesday. A 60-year-old woman, believed to be the older woman’s daughter, was shot and seriously wounded.

An employee of Evergreen-Washelli Funeral Home and Cemetery found the two women Tuesday evening in a car on the grounds, both with gunshot wounds to their heads, police said.

Police spokesman Mark Jamieson confirmed the older woman’s age Wednesday and said she was from Seattle.

Police continued their investigation but think the younger woman fired the handgun that killed her mother, then turned the weapon on herself. She was in Harborview Medical Center with life-threatening injuries.

A gun was recovered and police were trying to determine who owned it.

The King County medical examiner’s office did not release the dead woman’s name Wednesday, pending notification of relatives.

From staff and wire reports