South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Safety regulators warn about Peloton treadmill after death
NEW YORK — Safety regulators warned people with kids and pets Saturday to immediately stop using a treadmill made by Peloton after one child died and others were injured.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said children and at least one pet were pulled, pinned and entrapped under the rear roller of the Tread+ treadmill, leading to fractures, scrapes and the death of one child.
The safety commission said it knows of 39 “incidents” with the treadmill, involving “multiple” or “dozens” of children, but it did not specify a number of children. It said the majority of the incidents resulted in injuries, including the one death.
Of the 39 incidents, 23 involved children, according to New York-based Peloton Interactive Inc.; 15 included objects such as medicine balls, and one included a pet, it said.
Peloton said in a news release that the warning from the safety commission was “inaccurate and misleading.”
It said there’s no reason to stop using the treadmill as long as children and pets are kept away from it at all times, it is turned off when not in use, and a safety key is removed.
But the safety commission said that in at least one episode, a child was pulled under the treadmill while a parent was running on it, suggesting it can be dangerous to children even while a parent is present.
If adults want to keep using the treadmill, the commission said, they should use it only in a locked room so children and pets can’t come near it. When not in use, the treadmill should be unplugged and the safety key taken out and hidden away.
South Africa hospital fire:
Nearly 700 patients were evacuated Saturday from Johannesburg’s Charlotte Maxeke Hospital, where a fire blazed through parts of the facility in South Africa’s largest city.
No injuries or casualties were reported.
The fire was contained, but the hospital has been closed for seven days, said David Makhura, premier of Gauteng province where Johannesburg is located.
Early Saturday morning the fire caused the third floor of the hospital’s parking garage to collapse.
The fire started Friday morning and had been doused by the afternoon, but then it reignited in the evening and continued burning overnight.
The fire has caused extensive damage to the hospital, which has more than 1,000 beds and serves Johannesburg, a city of 6 million people, and the surrounding Gauteng province.
It is one of the biggest public hospitals in the country.
It is also a designated treatment center for COVID-19 in Gauteng.
Overturned boat rescue:
Divers returned Saturday to the murky, roiling waters of the Gulf of Mexico in search of lost crew members aboard a capsized lift boat off Louisiana, the Coast Guard said.
“They took a break overnight because of the weather, operating as long as they could, but got back out there this morning and they’re in the water now,” said Petty Officer John Michelli.
Late Friday, divers recovered two more unresponsive crew members, the Coast Guard said. Commercial divers on the capsized Seacor Power lift boat found them, the Coast Guard statement said.
Lafourche Parish Coroner’s Office investigator Jamie Folse, in an email Saturday, identified the crew members as Anthony Hartford, 53, of New Orleans and James Wallingsford, 55, of Gilbert, Louisiana.
The cause of death for both men remained under investigation Saturday.
Navalny‘could die’:
A doctor for imprisoned Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is in the third week of a hunger strike, says his health is deteriorating rapidly and the 44-year-old Kremlin critic could be on the verge of death.
Physician Yaroslav Ashikhmin said Saturday that test results he received from Navalny’s family show him with sharply elevated levels of potassium, which can bring on cardiac arrest, and heightened creatinine levels that indicate impaired kidneys.
“Our patient could die at any moment,” he said in a Facebook post.
Anastasia Vasilyeva, head of the Navalny-backed Alliance of Doctors union, said on Twitter that “action must be taken immediately.”
Navalny is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most visible and adamant opponent.
His personal physicians have not been allowed to see him in prison. He went on a hunger strike to protest the refusal to let them visit when he began experiencing severe back pain and a loss of feeling in his legs. Russia’s state penitentiary service has said that Navalny is receiving all the medical help he needs.
Navalny was arrested Jan. 17 when he returned to Russia from Germany, where had spent five months recovering from Soviet nerve-agent poisoning that he blames on the Kremlin.
Russian officials have denied any involvement.
Asked about Navalny’s worsening condition, U.S. President Joe Biden told reporters Saturday: “It’s totally, totally unfair and totally inappropriate.
Migrant shipwreck:
Navy divers recovered another body Saturday f rom a migrant boat that floundered and sank off the coast of eastern Tunisia, bringing to 22 the number of known dead, including nine women and a baby, as police searched for the smuggler.
An estimated 40 people were aboard the boat, which sank Friday off the coast of Sfax in the Mediterranean Sea, and the search for the missing continued, according to Ali Ayari, spokesman for the port city’s National Guard.
Also sought is a Tunisian said to have been the main smuggler and two others from sub-Saharan Africa, Ayari told The Associated Press. A Tunisian middleman has been arrested, he added.
The craft was allegedly headed to Italy, a main destination for migrants taking to the Mediterranean from this North African country and looking for a foothold in Europe to escape poverty or conflict.
On March 9, two boats ran aground in the same area, killing 39 people.
Ex-Italian politician to stand trial:
A judge on Saturday ordered former Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini to stand trial on kidnapping charges for having refused to let a Spanish migrant rescue ship dock in an Italian port in 2019, keeping the people onboard at sea for days.
Judge Lorenzo Iannelli set Sept. 15 as the trial date during a hearing in Sicily.
Salvini, who attended the hearing, insisted that he was only doing his job and his duty by refusing entry to the Open Arms rescue ship and the 147 people it had saved in the Mediterranean Sea.