Walkway cover collapses, 16 hurt

A block-long covered walkway next to a construction scaffold collapsed on Thursday, trapping and injuring 16 pedestrians, three critically.

About 25 people were standing in the walkway to escape the hot August sun when its wooden walls and roof came crashing down. Some scaffolding along the 3-story building also fell.

“The walls started moving, then the bang. Everything started coming down. Everyone started screaming,” said Abigail Reckermann, 50, who went to the hospital with a swollen ankle.

Ariel Medina, 34, was uninjured but saw a board fall onto the back of a man she was talking with. “It was a living nightmare,” Medina said. “The whole thing just caved in. People were trapped.”

Three people suffered life-threatening injuries, including head trauma, when they were hit by falling debris, authorities said.

Father Joe Carroll, president of St. Vincent de Paul Village, said many of the injured had just eaten lunch or were living at the homeless shelter he runs across the street.

Fort Dodge, Iowa

Photo prompts school chief to quit

An Iowa community college president resigned less than a week after a photo was published appearing to show him pouring beer into a young woman’s mouth.

The school’s board of trustees on Thursday unanimously approved Robert Paxton’s resignation. It also approved a severance package that officials said was valued at about $400,000.

Mark Crimmins, the president of the board, said although the incident happened in Paxton’s private life, “it reflected poorly on the college.”

The photo, which was published Saturday in the Des Moines Register, shows Paxton with a group of young people on a boat. He is holding a small keg above a young woman’s head. The Register said the photo was sent to the paper unsolicited.