Writing Basic News Leads exercise

1.      A local man, Charles R. Lydon, was killed in an automobile accident this morning when his van collided with a fire engine Mr. Lydon was pronounced dead at the scene, and police have yet to determine who was at fault. The two firefighters involved in the crash were hospitalized, and their condition is currently unknown. While damage to the fire truck totals at approximately $50,000, Lydon’s van was destroyed entirely. The event happened at the intersection of Post Road and Rollins Avenue at 7:10 this morning. When the collision occurred, the fire engine was travelling at 25mph, responding to an emergency call reporting a store fire. This, unfortunately, was only a false alarm.

 

2.      Driving larger cars may give motorists special advantages according to a recent report from the Highway Loss Data Institute. Larger cars, by comparison, have more favorable injury and repair records than small two-door models and many small or midsize sport or specialty cars. This data suggests that repair losses and injury claim frequencies are 30 percent higher than average for these smaller cars while larger vehicles can boast 40 percent to 50 percent better than average claim records. For a motorist in a four-door Oldsmobile Delta 88, this means that he is 41 percent less likely to be injured in an accident, according to an example in the analysis.

 

 

3.      Perhaps you should think twice before feeding your family hotdogs for dinner, as they can be deadly. According to an article appearing today in the Journal of the American Medical Association, hotdogs are one of the most likely foods to choke children – especially if they are cut crosswise or fed whole to children under 4. Estimates show that someone in the United States chokes on a hotdog every five days. A researcher warns, “If you were trying to design something that would be perfect to block a child’s airway, it would be a bite-size piece of hotdog.” One should also be cautious when giving children under nine any candy, nuts, grapes, apples, carrots, and popcorn.

 

4.      The heartbroken family of Kristine Belcuore realized they had accidentally buried the wrong body when they received a repentant call today from the medical examiner. Due an unpredictable error, the family buried the body of a woman whose corpse has been unclaimed for a month. “We went through all the pain and everything, all over the wrong body,” said a relative. “And now we have to go through it again.” Over 100 relatives and friends attended the funeral last Saturday, which cost over $7,000. Mrs. Belcuore died suddenly at the age of 51 last week of a heart attack so unexpected that an autopsy was performed before the funeral. Her body remains in the morgue.