In brief: Eskridge recovering from heart surgery

A North Idaho lawmaker is in stable condition after undergoing open-heart surgery, friends of the family say.

Rep. George Eskridge, a four-term Republican from Dover, is recovering from a quintuple bypass performed last week at the Kootenai Medical Center in Coeur d’Alene.

“It was a very successful surgery and he’s out of intensive care,” Susan Kiebert, a friend of the family, told the Bonner County Daily Bee.

Eskridge, 64, represents a district spread across Bonner and Boundary counties and serves on the House Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee, the Environment, Energy and Technology committee and Resources and Conservation committee.

Kiebert said Eskridge reported feeling poorly last week and visited the family physician, who immediately refereed Eskridge to cardiologists. During the operation, surgeons replaced an aortic valve and inserted a stent to improve blood flow around the heart, Kiebert said. Eskridge was moved Monday from intensive care to the hospital’s cardiac unit and is alert, conscious and oriented, she said.

Coeur d’Alene

Play examines lives of Katrina victims

“The Katrina Project: Hell and High Water,” a one hour documentary-drama, will be performed Friday from noon to 12:30 p.m. at the Human Rights Education Institute, at the corner of City Park and Mullan, in Coeur d’Alene.

The play is based on interviews of Hurricane Katrina survivors conducted by Hattiesburg, Miss., high school students just days after the storm hit. The play is written and directed by Michael Marks, former Mississippi Teacher of the Year, and director/playwright Mackenzie Westmorland.

High school students who conducted the interviews are performing the play about the devastation, heartbreak, anger and hope during and after the storm.

Popcorn will be served.

Boise

Boise man indicted in two murders

An Ada County grand jury indicted a Boise man Tuesday on two counts of first-degree murder and one count of first-degree arson after two bodies were found at his home after a fire there in late April.

Todd C. Hagnas, 38, is accused of killing 48-year-old Jeffrey Alan Willett and 36-year-old Jody Collingsworth. Both were found buried at the residence where Hagnas was a renter after firefighters responded to a fire call.

Willett and Collingsworth were the man’s part-time roommates, police have said.

The case began April 26, when police dispatchers received an anonymous call about 7 a.m. from a man telling them they would be busy and that they’d need to bring cadaver dogs. The man hung up without identifying himself or his location, but two hours later, dispatchers were called by the same man, now believed to be Hagnas, saying his home was ablaze.

When firefighters arrived, Hagnas was sitting on a porch swing just feet from where flames were consuming the house. He had to be forcibly removed from the home, and in questioning later indicated that two homicides had taken place, police said.

Officers then searched the home’s crawl space, finding freshly moved dirt and human remains as well as the decaying body of a dog. A second body was recovered two days later from the backyard.

Idaho Falls, Idaho

Man out of hospital after bear mauling

A wildlife photographer mauled by a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park last month has been released from an eastern Idaho hospital.

Jim Cole, 57, of Bozeman, suffered serious facial and eye damage when he disturbed a female bear while shooting photographs in the park’s Hayden Valley. Park officials say Cole was hiking alone, off a trail, and was two or three miles from a road when the bear with a single cub attacked.

Longtime friend Michael Sanders said Cole was released from the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center on Sunday and will spend the next several weeks recovering.

Cole “is experiencing problems with his vision and speech,” Sanders told the Idaho Falls Post-Register. “His arms are very weak, but he is doing some exercises and feeling better.”

The May 23 attack is not the first for Cole, who has written and taken photos for two books about grizzly bears.

In 1993, Cole surprised a young bear in Montana’s Glacier National Park. That bear tore a hole in Cole’s scalp and broke his wrist before a friend used pepper spray.

From staff and wire reports