Great white shark bite victim recounts attack ADVERTISING Great white shark bite victim recounts attack MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Steven Robles was an hour into his regular weekend swim off some of Southern California’s most popular beaches when he
Great white shark bite victim recounts attack
MANHATTAN BEACH, Calif. (AP) — Steven Robles was an hour into his regular weekend swim off some of Southern California’s most popular beaches when he came face-to-face with a great white shark.
The 7-foot-long juvenile had been trying to free itself from a fisherman’s hook for about half an hour when it attacked.
“It came up to the surface, it looked at me and attacked me right on the side of my chest,” Robles told KABC-TV. “That all happened within two seconds, I saw the eyes of the shark as I was seeing it swim towards me. It lunged at my chest, and it locked into my chest.”
He tried to pry open the shark’s mouth, but it quickly disappeared.
Robles was familiar with the waters of the Southern California coast. His Saturday morning routine included a swim from Hermosa Beach north to Manhattan Beach with fellow amateur distance swimmers, and last summer he completed a difficult swim approximately 20 miles from Santa Catalina Island to the Rancho Palos Verdes peninsula to raise money for a school in Nicaragua.
Robles had been going for 2 miles with about a dozen friends Saturday when the attack happened around 9:30 a.m., fellow swimmer Nader Nejadhashemi said Sunday.
“He said ‘I’ve been bit,’ and he was screaming,” said Nejadhashemi, who didn’t see the shark even though he was just 5 feet away. “Then I saw the blood.”
Nejadhashemi reached his friend and checked that “all his extremities were intact,” then comforted him as others in the group flagged a nearby paddle boarder.
“I don’t know how we managed to push him on the paddle board but we did,” he said. Once several surfers came over to help pull the board in, Robles was on his way to the shore, where paramedics treated his wounds.
He was taken to the hospital but by Sunday morning had been released.
Vets turn to American Legion for medical help
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A counselor at the local Veterans Affairs office looked at Rebecca King, a victim of domestic violence and abuse who was seeking help for depression, and told her she would not be able to see a psychologist. She looked too nice and put together for someone depressed, King was told.
Like others who’ve failed to receive help at troubled VA offices, the Army veteran then gave up.
“I have a son, I’m his only support system, I have to keep it together” King recalled telling the VA office in El Paso, trying to explain why she didn’t look disheveled.
She is now among nearly 1,800 people who have turned to the American Legion, which has held town-hall meetings and opened temporary crisis centers in Phoenix, Fayetteville, North Carolina, and El Paso. People can gain access to health benefits, schedule doctor’s appointments, enroll in the VA and even get back pay.
The centers come in the wake of the VA scandal that brought to light long wait times and false record-keeping among other things, and are being established in towns where the VA audit showed wait times were longer. Between now and October, crisis centers will come to Fort Collins, Colorado; Saint Louis, Missouri and Baltimore, Maryland. They also plan to visit Clarksburg, West Virginia; White City, Oregon and Harlingen, Texas.
Jessica Jacobsen, deputy director of the VA’s regional public affairs office in Dallas, said the VA will use community partners, such as the American Legion, to help “accelerate access and get veterans off wait lists and into clinics.”
“This is an example of this type of partnership and how it is successful,” Jacobsen said, noting the VA is helping the Legion with the crisis centers, providing them with counselors, nurses, schedulers and benefits rates.
Cord sparked fire that killed NYC firefighter
NEW YORK (AP) — A high-rise blaze that killed a fire lieutenant started in a pinched electrical cord in a cluttered apartment, fire officials said Sunday, adding that the fire had been ruled accidental.
An air-conditioner cord was pinned between a bed frame and a wall in the 19th-floor Brooklyn apartment, where Lt. Gordon Ambelas became trapped while looking for possible victims, Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said in a statement as investigators probed the conflagration responsible for the Fire Department of New York’s first line-of-duty death in more than two years.
“Though the cause and origin of the fire has been determined, the Department’s investigation remains ongoing,” Nigro added in a statement. A pinched electrical cord can fray or otherwise become damaged enough to spark a fire if it’s near combustible items, especially if heat builds up in a tight space.
Earlier Sunday, firefighters solemnly hung flag bunting at the Brooklyn firehouse where Ambelas had worked for the last several months of his 14-year career as residents returned to the building where he had died.
The fire broke out around 9:30 p.m. Saturday in the apartment, near the top of a 21-story building owned by the New York City Housing Authority. Flames spread to the 17th and 18th floors.
The apartment was crowded with belongings, making searches difficult, the Fire Department said.
“Ambelas went into the apartment to search for life and did not come out, and by the time his brother firefighters found him, it was too late for him,” Nigro said earlier Sunday.
Fellow firefighters found Ambelas unconscious and carried him out of the building. They worked with emergency rescuers to try to revive him, but he died at a hospital, Mayor Bill de Blasio said.
“New York City and the FDNY suffered a terrible and tragic loss,” he said.
Two other firefighters and two residents were treated for minor injuries.
The Housing Authority said in a statement Sunday that it was working with firefighters on the investigation; the agency didn’t answer questions about what fire prevention devices might have been in the apartment.
A light smell of smoke hung in the air outside the building Sunday as investigators went about their work and residents came back.
Steven Jimenez, 15, had been returning from a cookout to his ninth-floor apartment when he saw flames in a 19th-floor window. As he waited outside, he watched as a bandaged Ambelas was carried out, he said.
“It looked scary … and it was scary that it happened in my neighborhood,” said Jimenez, who ultimately spent the night at a friend’s home.
Ambelas, whose fellow firefighters called him Matt, was the first New York City firefighter killed on duty since Lt. Richard A. Nappi was killed fighting a Brooklyn warehouse blaze in April 2012.
A police officer, Dennis Guerra, died this April after he and his partner were overcome by smoke and carbon monoxide while responding to a mattress fire on the 13th floor of a Coney Island public housing complex.
Ambelas, a 40-year-old married father of two daughters from Staten Island, had been promoted to lieutenant 10 months ago. He had helped the city respond to Superstorm Sandy and recover from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, among many other emergencies, said his fellow firefighter, friend and former roommate Eric Bischoff.
“He died a hero — that’s how he lived,” Bischoff said, calling Ambelas “truly one of the best human beings that anyone would ever want to meet.”
Ambelas was among the firefighters from Ladder 119 honored last month for helping to save a 7-year-old boy who became trapped in a roll-down gate in May. The boy was pulled 15 feet off the ground when his arm and head got stuck.
Ambelas said at the time that the incident “shows that FDNY members are always ready to help others. It was great teamwork all around.”
The boy is being raised in the neighborhood’s Satmar Hasidic Jewish community, and members of a local synagogue put up fliers Sunday mourning Ambelas’ death.
“The entire community’s heartbroken and saddened,” Rabbi Lieb Glanz said.
