Motorist badly burned in fire; arson probed
Arson investigators were trying to determine the cause of a car fire that badly burned an unidentified person Saturday evening in north Denver.
The vehicle’s occupant was rushed to a nearby hospital in critical condition with severe burns.
Firefighters were dispatched about 8:45 p.m. to West 38th Avenue and Lipan Street, where a car was facing east in the westbound lane and was in flames, Denver Fire Department spokesman Eric Tade said.
There were no signs of the vehicle being in a collision or some other type of accident, Tade said.
Fire officials would not say whether the victim was a man or woman or provide other distinguishing characteristics while the investigation was ongoing.
Shots fired at vehicle in apparent road rage
An apparent case of road rage ended Thursday night with shots being fired at a vehicle, damaging it.
Larry McDonald of Denver said he was driving east on East 17th Avenue near Colorado Boulevard when he got into a fight with a man driving a white vehicle.
The other driver fired shots at his vehicle, causing damage to the windshield, and driver-side and passenger-side doors. McDonald was not injured.
No arrests have been made.
Anti-referendums campaign got $2,500
A campaign opposing two budget-reform measures on November’s ballot raised $2,500 last month.
The single contribution to Vote No It’s Your Dough came from former Republican U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong, said Jon Caldara, campaign chairman. He said the group will begin raising funds in earnest this month.
The proponents’ campaign, Vote Yes on C&D, has raised more than $1 million total.
Referendum C would let the state keep between $2.9 billion and $3.6 billion more over the next five years than it is allowed to under constitutional limits.
Referendum D would allow the state to take out $2.1 billion in bonds to pay for transportation and other improvements.
Engine deemed OK in fatal plane crash
A preliminary inspection turned up nothing wrong with the engine of a small plane that crashed in western Colorado, killing its pilot, a federal investigator said Friday.
John Pete Kramer, 77, of Washington, Mich., was killed Wednesday when his 1946 single-engine Taylorcraft BC12- D crashed during a landing attempt at a remote airstrip about 120 miles southwest of Denver.
Sheriff’s officials have said he overshot the runway, applied power and stalled before crashing.
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Jennifer Kaiser said witnesses reported seeing the plane touch down around midfield, become airborne again, strike an embankment at the end of the runway and then hit trees.
Kaiser was reviewing autopsy results, aircraft maintenance records and Kramer’s training and his flight and medical history.
Relatives said Kramer, his son and a friend had been planning to camp in Marble overnight. They had each flown their own aircraft in New Mexico from Edgewood to Taos, where they refueled before heading to Marble.
Victim who was child in ’92 hit-and-run dies
Rachel Sanchez, 24, who overcame a coma and many injuries suffered when she was hit by a hit-and-run driver and left bleeding on the street in 1992, has died.
Sanchez had been lauded by city officials for her accomplishments, including relearning how to walk and overcoming memory difficulty to graduate from high school. She was engaged to be married this summer.
Her mother, Lois Smart, said she’s still waiting to learn what killed Rachel, who survived 23 days in a coma after the crash on July 1, 1992.
“She accomplished a lot from the time of the accident until the time she died,” Smart said.
The man who hit her, Randall Laswell, pleaded guilty in 1993 to vehicular assault and was sentenced to six years in prison. Laswell told the judge that cocaine use caused the crash, which resulted in head and internal injuries as well as a broken leg and collarbone for Sanchez.
She was left with permanent short-term memory loss and many lesser medical problems, but relatives said the disabilities never got her down.
“I never heard her once say, ‘I wish this never happened to me,”‘ said her sister, Snowdrop Sanchez. “She wasn’t that type of person. She lived a happy life.”
Then-Mayor Leon Young gave Sanchez the city’s Star Award in 1997 for her attitude and ability to overcome adversity.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
Third case of plague reported in Wyo. cats
A second case of bubonic plague in a cat has been found in Laramie County, the third in the Wyoming this year, health officials said Friday.
Until this year, no cases of plague in cats had been reported in Wyoming since 1982. Human cases are also rare, with five in the state since the late 1970s.
“The discovery of these cases is significant, and we’re taking this very seriously,” said Gus Lopez, Cheyenne-Laramie County health director. “I urge people to take precautions to protect themselves and their pets against infection.”
Officials along the northern Front Range of Colorado also are reporting increased plague, he said.
Plague is a bacterium typically transmitted among rodents by infected fleas.
