STORIES FROM THE PAST
50 years ago
Rescuers wrestled with an overturned truck, fire, mud and mounds of shattered wallboard for two hours last night to free a man trapped in a ditch one mile south of Brawley along Highway 86.
Norman Hannah, 43, of Pico Rivera, is listed in serious condition today at Pioneers Memorial Hospital after he was extricated from the wreckage of his truck. He apparently suffered a broken left arm and leg, fractured collarbone, facial cuts and other injuries.
The major rescue operation required the coordinated effort of the California Highway Patrol, Brawley police and firemen, nurses and a doctor from the nearby hospital, ambulance attendants, and wrecker and backhoe operators.
Hannah’s northbound semitrailer rig went out of control about 11:25 p.m. on the inside shoulder of the highway curve next to be hospital entrance drive. Spilling its load along the pavement crossed the two northbound lanes and plunged into a six-foot ditch. It came to rest upside down, with Hannah pinned into the cab between a door post and the floor.
40 years ago
Prior to Wednesday’s game, everyone seemed to be mad at everyone else. Holtville was mad at the California Angels and the Angel’s management was mad at the San Diego Padres. For what it’s worth, the Padres scrubs kicked away the ballgame to the Angels, 5-2, before a capacity crowd in Angeltown.
Holtville residents are mad at the Angels for comments attributed to Angel players by the Los Angeles media about the quality of a small town. One Los Angeles Times sports writer had reported that Holtville is so small and has so few streetlights the moths work in shifts.
Last year, Angels infielder Bobby Grich was quoted saying he was surprised the carrot capital had indoor plumbing. One Los Angeles broadcast journalist told viewers recently the team members “hate it in Holtville.” Another added that even the waitresses are slow in Holtville.
“They’re creeps,” said one young Holtville woman. “If they don’t like it here they can just start their preseason in Palm Springs.” She and her friend wore T-shirts reading “Angels Go Home.”
30 years ago
IMPERIAL — Scoring four runs in each of the fifth and sixth innings, the Julian Eagles won their third consecutive game, downing Imperial 10-3, here Friday.
The Eagles (3-0) trailed the Tigers (0-1) by a score of 3-2 after four innings before touching Imperial pitching for eight runs of five hits over the final two innings. The game was called in six innings because of darkness.
It was the first game for new Imperial Coach Mickey Carter.
The Eagles’ left-handed pitching ace Travis Small limited the Tigers to just three singles — one each by Gerardo Castillo, David Woodward and Alex Necochea — and struck out 11 in going the distance for the victory.
20 years ago
Sixteen units from the Imperial County Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement officials were called Monday night to help quell an uprising at the U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service’s detention facility in El Centro.
Agents from the FBI, the U.S. Border Patrol and officers from the El Centro Police Department and the California Highway Patrol also were called in to assist INS corrections officers in containing an apparent riot that started last night in the detention facility.
Border Patrol Assistant Chief Steve Martinez said this morning the situation has been contained but he declined to comment further.
INS spokesperson Lisa McClellan said this morning that three contract security guards became involved in a physical altercation with about 160 detainees about 10 p.m. Monday night.