Nurse Stole Morphine From Elderly Patient
July 6, 2013
A nurse was convicted this week of diluting morphine meant for elderly patients while stealing the drug for herself.
Lisa Macan was convicted by a Santa Rosa County jury of neglect of an elderly person, possession of a controlled substance, and petit theft. Circuit Judge Marci Goodman remanded the 47-year old nurse into cstody in the county jail and set her sentencing for July 31, 2013. She faces a maximum of 10 years state prison.
While Macan was working as a LPN at a Gulf Breeze nursing home, one of her elderly 92 year-old hospice patients received several doses of diluted morphine that failed to abate the patient’s pain. Another nurse had noticed the prescription was not working and thought the prescription appeared to be watered down. The nursing home administration notified the Santa Rosa County Sheriff’s Office. A pharmacist tested the morphine and found it had been diluted.
Prosecutors said Macan admitted to taking the patient’s morphine, a controlled substance, for her own use and adding water to the bottle, so that her theft would go undetected. Macan acknowledged to her employer upon her termination that diluting the medication meant that the hospice patient would receive the diluted medication.
Tri-County 12U Team Wins State Championship, Headed To World Series
July 6, 2013
The Tri-County 12-U All Star softball team is headed to the World Series after winning the Alabama State Babe Ruth softball championship.
The girls beat Covington County 14-5, Flomaton/East Brewton 13-5, Opp 25-14 and Poarch Creek 2-1 to make the state championship game. They brought home the title by defeating Andalusia 14-2.
The World Series is in Alachua, FL, August 1-7. The “Tri-County 12U Softball/Alabama State Champs account” has been established at the Santa Rosa Federal Credit Union for donations to help the team cover tournament fees, hotels, travel and food.
Pictured: (front, L-R) Haylee Watson, Avarie Jackson, Kendall Barrow, Kassadi Borders, (middle) Kolbi Bray, Malarie Foster, Katlynn Hobbs, (back) Coach Stephen Jackson, Kennedy Cato, Olivia Cook, Alyssa Baxley, Manager Stuart Baxley and Coach Kavin Borders. Submitted photo for NorthEscambia.com, click to enlarge.
Deputies Seek Armed Robbery Suspect
July 6, 2013
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Escambia County Sheriff’s investigators are asking for the public’s help in identifying the suspect in a Fourth of July holdup.
The white male robbed The Trand N Save Video Games store at gunpoint in the 5000 block of Mobile Highway about 2:30 p.m. Thursday. He was described only as being about six feet tall. After taking money and some undisclosed items, police say he fled in a small red sports car.
Anyone with information on his identity is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (850) 433-STOP.
Friday Night Wahoos Game A Wash Out; Doubleheader Saturday
July 6, 2013
The Pensacola Blue Wahoos’ contest with the Jackson Generals scheduled for Friday night at Pensacola Bayfront Stadium has been postponed due to inclement weather. The game will be made up as part of a doubleheader on Saturday, July 6 starting at 5 p.m.
Fans with tickets to Friday night’s game can use their ticket for any 2013 regular season home game, subject to availability. Fans must exchange their ticket at least 24 hours in advance of a desired game at the Pensacola Blue Wahoos Ticket Office for a ticket of equal or lesser value. Exchanges must be made in person and cannot be processed via telephone, e-mail or facsimile.
Friday night’s scheduled Trent Richardson appearance has been cancelled.
Saturday’s doubleheader will feature two seven-inning contests starting a 5 p.m with a half-hour between the two games. Gates will open at 4 p.m. The first game will feature Tim Crabbe (3-6, 3.53) going for the Wahoos against the Generals’ Roenis Elias (4-7, 2.96). Ryan Dennick (4-9, 3.54) will get the call in game two for Pensacola while Jackson will counter with Anthony Vasquez (0-0, 4.22)
Florida Gov’t Weekly Roundup: A Focus On Planning
July 6, 2013
During a week that seemed almost as notable in Tallahassee for its monsoon-like conditions as for the Fourth of July celebrations, most of the attention seemed focused on planning.
Education Commissioner Tony Bennett began planning for how to handle the fallout from a slew of changes to the state’s accountability system that could hold school grades down. The state passed a key milestone in its planning for future gambling policies by receiving a study on gaming. And a Panhandle representative abruptly dropped his plans to run for a Senate seat in 2016.
Elsewhere, the week was largely quiet, except for the odd Supreme Court ruling and a challenge to state labor practices by the union for corrections workers. As the first half of 2013 began fading into the rearview mirror, most people already seemed to be looking at the second half and planning.
WILL THEY GET ALONG ON THE FLOOR NOW?
Perhaps the most surprising news of the week came Monday, when Rep. Jimmy Patronis, R-Panama City, said he was bowing out of the race for a seat held by Senate President Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, who’s required to leave the Legislature due to term limits in 2016.
Patronis was the first candidate to file for the 2016 race in Senate District 1, but also faced a potentially bruising primary battle against the incumbent’s son, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fort Walton Beach. With Patronis leaving the race, Matt Gaetz becomes the uncontested early favorite to keep the district, which includes all or parts of six counties, in family hands.
The race between Patronis and Gaetz, who didn’t officially open an account for the race until May, had provided blog and Twitter fodder for months. Some observers even saw the outlines of the race when Patronis and Gaetz clashed on the House floor or voted differently on legislation.
But Patronis said politics did not play a role in the discussion.
“I have a strong desire to continue to serve the people of the Northwest Florida another eight years in the state Senate,” Patronis said in a prepared statement. “However, an overwhelming part of me has come to realize it is not what’s best for me and my family at this time in our lives. So I have decided I will no longer be a candidate for state Senate.”
The 41-year-old lawmaker, who will leave the House due to term limits next year, did not close the door on a future campaign.
“I am not stepping away from community service, and I have not ruled out a future run for public office,” Patronis said. “For now, I have decided this is not the right time to run, and I’m looking forward to finishing strong during my last year in the Florida House of Representatives.”
GRADING ON A CURVE?
As news of Patronis’ decision was beginning to filter out, Education Commissioner Tony Bennett was trying to avoid the second botched rollout in two years of the state’s report cards on individual schools. He met with five superintendents, as well as a researcher and a couple of Department of Education officials, to brainstorm ways of minimizing confusion about the school grades.
It’s a touchy issue for the agency. While Bennett’s predecessor, Gerard Robinson, said he resigned in 2012 to spend more time with his family, it happened in the middle of a months-long controversy about the state’s testing regimen and errors on school grades that forced the department to change the marks for dozens of schools.
Many educators blame what appears to be a wave of falling scores — detected in the early calculations that school districts run — to a spate of changes in the state’s accountability system for schools, including 13 this year alone. In addition to making it more difficult to meet the standards, they say, the number of changes makes it more difficult to figure out what’s causing the drop.
“If we had just done one or two of these, it might have been digestible,” said Escambia County Superintendent Malcolm Thomas. “But the fact that we’re doing all of this … it has become very traumatic.”
Bennett was noncommittal about one of the superintendents’ preferred suggestions, limiting the drop in each school’s grade to one letter level — for example, allowing the grade to drop from a “C” to a “D,” but not to an “F.” That policy was temporarily used in 2012 in the middle of the snafus during Robinson’s tenure.
Superintendents say they aren’t opposed to accountability, and expressed frustration at the fact that the state hasn’t spent more time trying to educate the public on the possibility that school grades could fall even as students were learning more.
“The canvas is still blank, and when you have a blank canvas, all kinds of people start painting on it,” said Miami-Dade County Superintendent Alberto Carvalho.
ODDS ARE, GAMBLING WILL INCREASE
Perhaps even more closely watched than the release of school grades, at least among the lobbying industry in Tallahassee, was the first part of a study looking at whether Florida should take a chance on an expansion of gaming that could be at the center of one of the biggest battles of the 2014 legislative session.
The first part of the state-commissioned study largely focused on the current gambling industry in Florida. The New Jersey-based Spectrum Group didn’t put all its cards on the table with the 307-page report, but made it clear that Florida doesn’t need $2 billion destination casinos in Southeast Florida or a Native American group opening venues along Interstate 10 to be considered a “major gambling state.”
And the study said the gaming industry is going to grow, with or haphazardly without state regulation.
“Intentionally or not, the policies established by lawmakers — or the lack thereof — play a critical role in the evolution and expansion of gaming,” Spectrum stated. “Indeed, in the views of many, the ‘evolution’ and ‘expansion’ of gaming are largely synonymous. The industry rarely shrinks, and quite often, expands as a result of expansion.”
Gambling generated $2.47 billion last year in tax revenue for Florida, and if nothing changed with the current gaming options, including the massive drop already experienced in play on the horses, dogs and humans tossing the jai-alai pelota against a wall, that jackpot would still double by 2060.
The rest of the $388,845 study is expected to look into the potential economic impacts of changing gaming across Florida, such as the impacts of ending or altering the exclusive Seminole Indian compact and allowing international casino operators into the state. It is due by Oct. 1.
TIME TO PART WITH EX PARTE?
While lawmakers considered their next move in the upcoming gambling battle, one of the fights from the 2013 session went to court. Just hours after changes took effect, plaintiffs’ attorneys Monday filed five lawsuits challenging a key part of a new state medical-malpractice law, contending it violates the privacy rights of patients.
The lawsuits, in state and federal courts, argue that the new law could lead to the improper disclosure of personal health information to defense attorneys representing doctors or other health providers.
Such disclosure could happen without attorneys for the patients being present, a concept known in the legal world as “ex parte communications.”
“When no one is present to protect the victim, sensitive medical information may be disclosed, no matter how irrelevant, personal, or embarrassing it may be to the patient,” said Debra Henley, executive director of the Florida Justice Association, which represents plaintiffs’ attorneys and lobbied against the law. “What is worse is that the (defense) attorney can do whatever he or she wants to with that sensitive information.”
Those who support the law brushed off the challenges as nothing more than an attempt to re-litigate the issue through, well, litigation.
“It is hardly surprising that the trial bar would challenge this, as they were content with the extremely uneven playing field that existed before this legislation was enacted,” Timothy J. Stapleton, executive vice president of the Florida Medical Association, said in a prepared statement.
STORY OF THE WEEK: The Spectrum Group issued the first part of its highly-anticipated study of gambling in Florida, which could set the framework for a fierce battle over the issue during next spring’s legislative session.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “At the end of the day, this is a federal government bait-and-switch situation. They want to dangle money in front of us, get us to take it, and then three or four years from now, expect us to pay for it.”– House Speaker Will Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, once again try to tamp down talk of a special session on Medicaid expansion
By The News Service of Florida
No Injuries In Hwy 97 Crash
July 5, 2013
There were no injuries in a single vehicle wreck Friday afternoon on Highway 97 near South Highway 99 in Walnut Hill.
The female driver of a Buick apparently hit standing water on the roadway and struck a tree about 12:20 p.m.After hitting the tree, the vehicle continued about 500 feet without one rear wheel before coming to rest alongside Highway 97.
The drive refused transport to the hospital.
The accident is under investigation by the Florida Highway Patrol. The Walnut Hill and Molino stations of Escambia Fire Rescue and Atmore Ambulance also responded to the crash. Further details have not been released.
Pictured top and inset: The driver of this vehicle refused transport to the hospital following a single vehicle crash on Highway 97 in Walnut Hill Friday afternoon. Pictured below: After hitting this tree, the vehicle continued without on rear wheel for about 500 feet. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.
Two Teens Arrested For Stabbing, Robbing Transient Outside Church
July 5, 2013
Two Escambia County teenagers have been arrested for the June 25 stabbing and robbery of a transient at a church just off Nine Mile Road.
Damon Scott Rambo, 16 and Kamron Reid Boshart, 14, allegedly attacked 41-year old Bradley Kocian outside Liberty Church, just behind a Wendy’s Restaurant at Nine Mile Road and Music Lane.
Responding Escambia County Sheriff’s deputies found Kocian suffering from injuries that were consistent with stab wounds. Deputies discovered he had been attacked by Rambo and Boshart just before stealing his backpack.
Kocian was transported to Sacred Heart Hospital where he was treated and released after a few days.
Rambo and Boshart were charged with aggravated battery, robbery with a deadly weapon and tampering with evidence.
Mississippi Man Killed In I-10 Crash
July 5, 2013
One person was killed in a single vehicle accident late Thursday morning on I-10.
The accident happened about 11:55 a.m. at the 28 mile marker in Santa Rosa County. The Florida Highway Patrol said 65-year old Isaac Coleman of Gulfport ran off the roadway and struck a concrete culvert with his 2005 Dodge Caravan. Coleman was transported to West Florida Hospital in Pensacola where he was pronounced deceased.
Photos: Jay Celebrates With Fireworks
July 5, 2013
The Town of Jay and the Jay Area Chamber of Commerce celebrated the Fourth of July Thursday night with a fireworks show. Earlier in the day, arts and crafts vendors were on hand at the Bray-Hendricks City Park, along with plenty of food and entertainment. The day started with the Celebrate Freedom 5K Road Race and 1 Mile Fun Run. NorthEscambia.com photos by Ramona Preston, click to enlarge.
Photos: Atmore Fireworks
July 5, 2013
Crowds from across the area celebrated the Fourth of July Thursday with a fireworks show at the Wind Creek Hotel in Atmore. NorthEscambia.com photos by Ditto Gorme, click to enlarge.
