Oxygen Tank

HACKENSACK, N.J. - New Jersey fire officials said that an 82-year-old homeless man with emphysema accidentally caused a car explosion when his cigarette ignited gas from a leaking oxygen tank inside his vehicle. The Record reports that four people - the man, two police officers and Fire Department Lt. Stephen Lindner - were hurt in yesterday's explosion. Lindner was approaching the smoke-filled car with a hose when it exploded. An employee of a nearby store had pulled the man from the car. Fire Chief Matt Wagner said that the man, who wasn't identified, uses about a tank of oxygen a day and was storing them in his car. - Associated Press

Kirstie Alley has one of the most peculiar beauty rituals around. She drags a tank of oxygen wherever she goes and sprays the stuff on her face. "The day after you do this you look so great," she tells US magazine. "The sprayer is full of all kinds of good things: enzymes and ions and jojoba. " It may have something to do with playing a fortysomething woman who runs a lingerie business on TV's Veronica's Closet. Impossibly taut, flawless, younger models are always lounging around the set. But Alley says she doesn't care that much about her looks.

HOUSTON - A murder charge has been dismissed against an ailing 76-year-old woman who spent more than four decades on the run after being accused of killing her husband by dousing him with hot grease. Mary Ann Rivera, who needs an oxygen tank to breathe, was arrested Oct. 11 after a Texas investigator tracked her down in Lake Park, Ga. She was brought back to Houston to face the murder charge. She allegedly threw grease on her husband, Cruz, in October 1970 at their Houston home.

It involved an upstart airline, errors that could have been avoided, and an oxygen tank that was supposed be empty. Ten months before the fatal crash of ValuJet Flight 592, the discount airline was cited by federal investigators for improperly accepting a pressurized oxygen tank as cargo aboard a passenger flight from Washington to Orlando. In the Feb. 15, 1995, incident at Dulles International Airport, a ValuJet ticket agent - new to her job and untrained in handling hazardous materials - checked through as baggage a partially full oxygen tank for a passenger in a wheelchair.

An elderly Gloucester County woman died Wednesday night in a three-alarm fire that authorities say may have been caused by her smoking in bed. The blaze, on Key West Drive in Monroe Township's Holiday City retirement community, broke out shortly before 10:30 p.m. Dead in the fire was Alfreda Scharble, 92, formerly of South Philadelphia. Her daughter, Patricia Palermo, described her as a heavy smoker known to smoke in bed, a spokesman for the Gloucester County Prosecutor's Office said.

An 89-year-old Haddonfield man died in a house fire on Tuesday after lighting a cigarette while hooked up to an oxygen tank, officials said. Frank Berry, who was wheelchair bound, was recovered from the back bedroom of his home on the 800 block of Edge Park Drive, Lt. Gary Pearce said. An adult daughter managed to escape the flames uninjured. The cause of the blaze, which broke out shortly before 3 p.m., was careless smoking, said Camden County Deputy Chief Fire Paul Sandrock.

You could see her breathe as Pauline M. Frick walked to her car. She pulled her coat tightly around her, revealing what seemed to be a round tummy. The bulge under the coat, however, was an oxygen tank. "This took a lot of getting used to," said Frick, who suffers from emphysema. "I was too embarrassed to even go to the grocery store at first. " Through the help of the Better Breathers support group at Grand View Hospital in Sellersville, Frick has learned that "life does go on. " For the last seven years, Frick has maneuvered around the house and outdoors with the aid of the oxygen tank and a plastic breathing tube dangling from her nostrils.

Sixteen-year-old Samuel Smith told detectives that he wanted to steal his ailing neighbor's 1986 Chrysler so that he could drive to Florida. The problem was that the neighbor, 64-year-old David B. Kenny, knew Smith and his family, and would call the police, Smith told police. So on Wednesday morning, the Coatesville boy hit Kenny at least 10 times on the head with a pipe wrench, slit his throat, and left him for dead in his home in the 600 block of Madison Street, according to his confession, recorded in an affidavit released yesterday.

A man who smoked despite relying on oxygen was killed and his wife was injured in a fire that ripped through a ground-floor garden apartment in Camden County late Tuesday, officials and neighbors said. The man, who was confined to his bed, was smoking when the fire started in a bedroom at the Bellmawr Manor complex on Kings Highway in Bellmawr, said the Camden County acting chief fire marshal, Paul Sandrock. He said careless smoking caused the blaze. A dog named Rocky was being called a hero by its owner because its incessant barking helped his wife and his two daughters escape their second-floor apartment.

The 55-year-old woman never thought any good would come from suffering with emphysema. But Barbara McKinzy's disease is responsible for saving the life of her daughter, Rosalind Miller, 37, on Oct. 17, 1996. Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Jobes said that after Craig Gaddy, 37, stabbed Miller six times, puncturing both lungs, McKinzy used her oxygen mask to keep her daughter alive until help arrived at their home on Susquehanna Avenue near 29th Street. "Doctors said that the victim would have died if the mother hadn't acted," said Jobes.

HACKENSACK, N.J. - New Jersey fire officials said that an 82-year-old homeless man with emphysema accidentally caused a car explosion when his cigarette ignited gas from a leaking oxygen tank inside his vehicle. The Record reports that four people - the man, two police officers and Fire Department Lt. Stephen Lindner - were hurt in yesterday's explosion. Lindner was approaching the smoke-filled car with a hose when it exploded. An employee of a nearby store had pulled the man from the car. Fire Chief Matt Wagner said that the man, who wasn't identified, uses about a tank of oxygen a day and was storing them in his car. - Associated Press

HOUSTON - A murder charge has been dismissed against an ailing 76-year-old woman who spent more than four decades on the run after being accused of killing her husband by dousing him with hot grease. Mary Ann Rivera, who needs an oxygen tank to breathe, was arrested Oct. 11 after a Texas investigator tracked her down in Lake Park, Ga. She was brought back to Houston to face the murder charge. She allegedly threw grease on her husband, Cruz, in October 1970 at their Houston home.

Alfred J. Navazio, 88, of Bustleton, a pioneer in the use of aircraft for oil exploration, died of complications of emphysema on Sunday, Aug. 7, at Holy Redeemer Hospital in Meadowbrook. Soon after he was hired in 1949 as a photographer for Aero Service, an aerial surveying company, Mr. Navazio began collaborating with physicist Homer Jensen. The two developed equipment to search for oil and minerals from the air. Mr. Navazio's magnetic gradiometer measured changes in the Earth's magnetic fields to pinpoint the location of deposits.

A man who smoked despite relying on oxygen was killed and his wife was injured in a fire that ripped through a ground-floor garden apartment in Camden County late Tuesday, officials and neighbors said. The man, who was confined to his bed, was smoking when the fire started in a bedroom at the Bellmawr Manor complex on Kings Highway in Bellmawr, said the Camden County acting chief fire marshal, Paul Sandrock. He said careless smoking caused the blaze. A dog named Rocky was being called a hero by its owner because its incessant barking helped his wife and his two daughters escape their second-floor apartment.

FRANNY PAUL was a patient at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, walking the hall to get a little exercise, pushing her IV pole ahead of her, when she saw behavior that she absolutely couldn't tolerate. There were doctors going into a patient's room and not wearing sterilized gowns. "You're putting your patient at risk," she snapped at them. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves. " That was Franny. When it came to knowing what was right and what was wrong, she pulled no punches, not even when she herself was a cancer patient fighting for her life.

JACK BROWN, a retired truck driver who so loved Phillies baseball games that he turned off the volume on his TV to call his own plays, died Monday after a long battle with heart and lung disease. He was 72 and lived in North Cape May, N.J. "Jack was more than just a fan of baseball and the Phillies," said his wife, Maureen Dougherty Brown. "He had an incredible grasp of the game, and understood all the aspects and nuances that make baseball such a compelling sport. " While sitting in the sunshine at Citizens Bank Park or in his living-room recliner, Jack's calls were always on point.

An 89-year-old Haddonfield man died in a house fire on Tuesday after lighting a cigarette while hooked up to an oxygen tank, officials said. Frank Berry, who was wheelchair bound, was recovered from the back bedroom of his home on the 800 block of Edge Park Drive, Lt. Gary Pearce said. An adult daughter managed to escape the flames uninjured. The cause of the blaze, which broke out shortly before 3 p.m., was careless smoking, said Camden County Deputy Chief Fire Paul Sandrock.

ARLINGTON, Texas - DeSean Jackson stopped, turned, extended his arms, and fell backward into Eagles-Cowboys lore forever. Eleven months later, Jackson finally did "sting" the Cowboys' backsides. The wiry little wide receiver is a perplexing combination, as infuriating as he is exhilarating. That Twitter boast last year was just one example. If he wore a different uniform, Philadelphia fans would despise his brashness and his petulance. But all is forgiven when No. 10 gathers in a short pass, as he did in the fourth quarter of a tie game Sunday night, and turns the corner.

At 83, Jeanne Mooney may seem like an unlikely Bruce Springsteen fan. But when she was a middle-aged woman, she lost her daughter, husband, and son in the space of seven years, and a chance encounter with Springsteen's music helped lift her out of her grief. "I fell in love with him," Mooney, of Middlesex, N.J., said as she made her way through the concourse at the Spectrum Monday night. "We had a lot of tragedy in our lives, but the wonderful thing was that there was so much love there in our family.

A blind, 80-year-old disabled woman whose meals were usually prepared by a home health aide died last night in her West Philadelphia kitchen after she put aluminum foil in a microwave, setting off an explosion and fire that consumed her apartment, officials said. Nicole Swaayze was pronounced dead in her fourth-floor unit in the Katie B. Jackson Apartments, a Philadelphia Housing Authority senior facility at 400 N. 50th St. The four-story, 59-unit brick building was evacuated, and two other residents were treated for minor injuries.