Stone the Preacher

LOS ANGELES, California (AP) – House Peters Jr., a TV actor who became the original Mr. Clean in Procter & Gamble’s commercials for household cleaners, died Wednesday of pneumonia at the Motion Picture and Television Fund Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 92.

His most memorable role came as Mr. Clean — a muscular man with a bald head, a hoop earring and a no-nonsense attitude toward dirt and grime. From the late 1950s and into the early 1960s, Peters Jr. helped advertise the famous household cleaner with the trademark jingle, “Mr. Clean, Mr. Clean.” From CNN.com

The body of Joey Lutz, a popular Santa Monica High School teacher, washed ashore at a Panamanian beach, three days after a wave swept him away while he waded in shallow waters. “He lived life as if he knew he was going to die young, and he did it with passion,” his mother said. “He did so much, even though he lived a short life.” —L.A. Times, 7/21/08

MISSISSIPPI—An explosion tore through a paper mill after a boiler was inspected, killing a contract worker and injuring 17 others, the company said.

The explosion occurred as a boiler at the International Paper mill was being started after an annual maintenance shut down. L.A. Times, 5/4/08

The AP reports that an Ohio man was locked out of his apartment tried to climb through a window, got stuck and suffocated.

Jack Kasler was found with his legs dangling from the window of his apartment in Columbus.

Franklin County Coroner Brad Lewis said Kasler was lying in a position where his diaphragm was prevented from contracting.

Lewis said it’s not clear why the 45-year-old man couldn’t push himself through the first-floor window or how long he had been hanging there before he died Friday.

The neighborhood is a high-crime area and police said a passer-by told them she didn’t stop to help because she thought Kasler was a burglar. Someone else called police after realizing that Kasler wasn’t moving. (From OneNewsNow)

A construction worker was killed when a backhoe loader tipped over and struck him with its scoop at the Platinum Triangle urban village in Anaheim.

Arturo Gonzalez, 34, was part of a six-man crew putting stucco on a condominium project when the machine crushed him. —L.A. Times, 7-12-08

A young man who died when he slipped and fell off the South Rim of the Grand Canyon was identified as a Canadian citizen.

National Park Service spokeswoman Maureen Oltrogge says 19-year-old Mian Zhang died after falling 250 feet. Zhang was visiting the canyon with a friend and was standing on a rocky outcropping when he lost his footing.

Park rangers rappelled over the edge of the canyon to reach Zhang’s body.

Oltrogge says canyon visitors should use caution and stay at a safe distance from the edge. The fatal fall is the first of the year at the Grand Canyon. —From FoxNews.com, 8/09/08

Read about more Canyon deaths here.

GUATEMALA—At least four people died and about 20 were missing when a mountain of trash collapsed on people foraging in it, emergency workers said.

Heavy rain forced hundreds of police officers and bystanders to call off the search for the missing under an avalanche of old tires, broken glass, rotting food and human remains.

Scores of Guatemala’s poor search for scrap metal and other recyclables to eke out a living in the sprawling dump despite dangers of landslides during the rainy season. Four people dies a month ago in a similar incident at the dump. —L.A. Times

NEW YORK – Horrified bystanders banded together to lift a 5-ton school bus off a pregnant woman pinned underneath, enabling doctors to save her son.

Donnette Sanz, 33, a traffic agent for the city police department, was pronounced dead Thursday, shortly after her baby’s birth by an emergency Caesarean section. The 3-pound, 6-ounce boy was in critical condition.

“It’s a terrible poignancy that Donnette’s son’s birthday will now coincide with the day his mother died,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a statement. Read the rest from the Associated Press here. (Thanks to Paul Latour for this.)

PORTAGE LA PRAIRIE, CANADA—Passengers fled a Greyhound bus in horror as a man repeatedly stabbed and decapitated his seat mate, witnesses said.

Officials did not identify the suspect or victim, and said they had not determined a motive.

Passenger Garnet Caton said the victim, who appeared to be about 19, was asleep with headphones on when the man sitting next to him suddenly started stabbing him.

“When he was attacking him, he was calm,” Caton said. “There was no rage or anything. He was just like a robot stabbing the guy.” —L.A. Times, 8/01/08

Flight attendants discovered the body of a 61-year-old woman in the restroom of a plane shortly before the flight landed in Atlanta Wednesday morning, a spokeswoman for the airline said.

It was unclear how Michaele O’Neil Carnahan died, and flight attendants aren’t sure how long the woman had been in the restroom.

If the death rate is similar for the rest of the flights, annual deaths on airplanes could exceed 260.
(Read the full story at CNN.com here.)

A Latino couple died at the scene of a collision at 6440 W. Hollywood Blvd., about two blocks west of Vine Street, around 9 p.m. Sunday, according to a Los Angeles Police Department statement.

Witnesses told broadcast outlets that the pedestrians were holding hands and walking in a crosswalk when a vehicle, which had been stopped for a red light, suddenly lurched forward and hit them.

Police had just started pursuing a motorist suspected of reckless driving when his car struck the man and a woman, both in their late 30s, said LAPD Officer Karen Smith. Both victims died at the scene.

“The bodies flew quite a ways, so rescuers were looking about a block away to find people who may have had other injuries,” said d’Lisa Davies of the Los Angeles Fire Department. —From MSNBC, July 15, 2008

While putting up backyard antennas on the afternoon of Sunday, July 12, Edward Thomas, of Kansas City, Kansas, and his son were electrocuted. The elder Thomas, 65, was pronounced dead at the scene. His son, 27, was rushed to the hospital but died later that day.

Initial reports suggest that the antenna they were installing came in contact with 7620 V power lines. Neighbors reported a “loud popping sound” and the electricity went out on the block. —From ARRL Amateur Radio News
(Thanks to Chris Hobeck)

A 30-year-old man died from injuries sustained during a skateboarding accident in Torrance on Saturday, June 7.
Teppai Nakano was riding a skateboard when he lost control and fell. He hit his head on the street and sustained critical injuries. Nakano died later that day during surgery at County-Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. —The Daily Breeze, 6/10/08

Asia Leeshawn Ferguson was decapitated by the Batman ride at Six Flags Over Georgia on June 28, 2008. After he rode the ride, the 17-year-old climbed two six-foot fences to get inside a restricted area under the ride to recover his hat. His cousin was reportedly accompanying him, but was not harmed. See the CNN video here.

At least 10 people died as hundreds of young party-goers rushed to get out of a crowded nightclub in Mexico Ccity during a raid on under-age drinkers, police said.

“More than 1,000 people left in a stampede and that caused the…deaths,” Mexico City’s police chief Joel Ortega said.
—L.A. Times, 6/11/08

Bird flu hit Florida this last week.  
A disaster!  Killed a bunch of them.

This is for those who say that evangelism is for the birds.

A homeless woman has died of suffocation after being buried by three men on a California beach-a fate her family described as her greatest fear.
Three men were being held on involuntary manslaughter charges in the death Wednesday of 53-year-old Patricia Ann Kalbskopf. They allegedly poured sand over her while she was passed out drunk at some dunes along the state’s central coast. Click here to read the rest!

Frequent contributor and blogwit, Paul LatOur, contributed this from Canada:

A young fellow is out for a walk in small town out west and is struck by a vehicle and killed. The vehicle is not a car; it’s a helicopter that fell out of the sky, which also killed it’s three occupants.

Who would ever even think? You’re out for a peaceful little stroll in a peaceful little town and WHAM! you’re taken out by a helicopter! Sad circumstance, but, boy if that could happen to him it could happen to me. Glad I’m ready no matter what!

Here’s an excerpt:

A friend said that Otieno, 23, a student at the College of the Rockies, was out for a walk and was wearing stereo earbuds, so he might not have heard the falling helicopter.
Read the rest of the story here.

Otieno was hit by the Bell 206 helicopter as it came in low and dragged 10 to 15 metres before being trapped under it when it crashed. Witnesses told CBC News they tried to pull him from the wreckage but efforts to save him failed.

The bodies of the four victims were removed from the scene late Tuesday night. The coroner service supervised the removal and will likely verify the identities by using dental records.

I post articles about sudden death every Monday to remind everyone that death can strike at anytime. My hope is that by posting these morbid little curiosities people will be spurred on to think about where they will go in eternity, Heaven or Hell. Also, these articles show how very creative God is when causing death.

America’s greatest theologian and philosopher, Jonathan Edwards, reminds us of these very things in his famous sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.”

Here’s a short excerpt where he explains the suddenness of death and the varities of ways in which we can die:

It is no security to wicked men for one moment, that there are no visible means of death at hand. It is no security to a natural man, that he is now in health, and that he does not see which way he should now immediately go out of the world by any accident, and that there is no visible danger in any respect in his circumstances. The manifold and continual experience of the world in all ages, shows this is no evidence, that a man is not on the very brink of eternity, and that the next step will not be into another world. The unseen, unthought-of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable.   (more…)

A 25-year-old man has been arrested in connection with the beating death of his mother, a 58-year-old resident of Highland Park, authorities said.

Jehad Ramzi Razack was apprehended and held in lieu of $1-million bail. His mother, whose name has been withheld by police was found by a family friend at her home. —L.A. Times, 3/2/08

A West Covina woman who was on the phone talking with 911 dispatchers about a possible burglary was shot and killed, apparently while the crime was in progress, Los Angeles County Sheriffs’ officials said.

The victim, whom authorities described as a “female Asian adult,” was pronounced dead at the scene.

“It was perfectly obvious that she was defenseless and in absolutely no position to harm these individuals,” said Lt. Dan Rosenberg. “For whatever reason, they elected to shoot her. It was vicious.”
—L.A. Times, April

Canada—The floor of a church filled with about 1000 people, mostly teens, collapsed during a concert, injuring at least 40 people, one of them seriously.

The youths were at the Central Heights Church in Abbotsford, British Columbia, to hear the Christian rock band Starfield when a large area in front of the stage gave way.

One concertgoer said that minutes before the floor collapsed, the band urged audience members to stop jumping up and down. —L.A. Times, 4/28/08

A young man was shot dead early Saturday in Walnut Park after a wordless exchange of glances at a red light, L.A. County sheriffs deputies said.

The victim, Diego Rey Garcia, 20, of Los Angeles, was driving in a car with one passenger when the vehicle pulled up to a red light at Firestone Blvd. and Alameda St. about 1:40AM, said Lt. Chris Nee.

A black Honda with four to five young Latino men inside pulled up next to them, and one exchanged looks with the driver.

“Nothing was said, but apparently the suspect took exception… got out of the car and fired several rounds at the victim,” Nee said.
—L.A. Times, 3/16/08

A 31-year-old man was killed in a drive-by shooting as he stood holding a machete in front of a pay telephone in Montecito Heights, authorities said.
The man was acting strange shortly before the 4:40PM shooting, repeating in Spanish, “I’m looking for death” and pacing in front of a phone in the 3600 block of Pasadena Avenue, police said.

The man had beaten the receiver against the console until it broke. Los Angeles police later recovered a second machete from behind the phone.

Witnesses told police that a gray Honda sedan pulled up to the sidewalk near the phone, multiple shots were fired and the victim dropped to the ground. A male with a shaved head climbed into the passenger side of the car before it sped away, witnesses also said.
—L.A. Times, 2/21/08

(Steve’s note: Never stand in front of a payphone shouting, “I’m looking for death,” in the Hood, while holding a machete.)

Authorities are offering a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the case of a 62-year-old man found dead in a street with an arrow in his chest.

Authorities say retired NASA employee Angel Martinez was on one of his frequent walks in Lancaster on March 11 when he was hit in the chest. There are no suspects in the case. Martinez had recently been released from a hospice and walked at night because he had trouble sleeping.

A woman found dead and packed in dry ice at an upscale hotel near John Wayne Airport has been identified as Felicia Tripp of Huntington Beach. No further information was available on how she died or how long her body had been in the hotel room. Police found Tripp packed in dry ice in a rubber or plastic container in one of the hotel’s rooms. —L.A. Times, 3/9/08

A 27-year-old Orange County man climbed a 50-foot Italian Cyprus tree to rescue a cat, then fell to his death while reaching out to grab the stranded feline.

Sgt. Dan Adams says the man managed to grab hold of the cat, but lost his grip and fell to the sidewalk. The cat fell to the ground with the man, was taken to an animal care facility, treated for minor injuries and returned to its owner. —The Daily Breeze, 2/29/08

25-year-old Jehad Ramzi Razack has been arrested in connection with the beating death of his mother, a 58-year-old resident of Highland Park, authorities said.

***

A 26-year-old man died after a vehicle-to-vehicle shooting on the Hollywood Freeway early Saturday morning, the LAPD said.
—Both reports from The Daily Breeze, 3/2/08

A 22-year-old man died Sunday after the homemade soapbox car he was racing down a street spun out of control and crashed into a sports utility vehicle, police said.

Michael Garcia sustained serious injuries and was pronounced dead at Tarzana Medical Center. He was one of 36 contestants racing in an event held by the San Fernando Valley Illegal Soapbox Federation whose memebers meet periodically to race.
—From the Daily Breeze, 3/10/08

Rescuers continued to search Tuesday for James Jun Hee Goh, who was swept out to sea off the coast of Palos Verdes over the weekend. 23-year-old Goh was walking along the rocks on the beach shore Sunday when a wave hit him and two companions. Goh’s friends escaped, but he was pulled into the ocean.
—The Daily Breeze, Wednesday, 2/27/08