South Florida Personal Injury Lawyers

More than 30 years ago, an abandoned mine in Pennsylvania coal country was turned into a dump for toxic waste. Lots of it.When government officials finally shut down the site in 1979, they found nearly 7,000 storage drums, and dead birds and animals. Many of the drums were badly corroded and leaking dangerous chemicals. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency called it the state’s worst environmental hazard, placed it on the Superfund list and began a cleanup.

Years later, officials say the site does not pose a health hazard. But residents who live nearby are skeptical. They say they seem to be getting cancer and other serious diseases in startling numbers. By one unofficial estimate, 70 of 100 homes within a half-mile of the site have been touched.

This week, the government will report on a possible cluster of polycythemia vera, or PCV, a rare blood disease that has sickened dozens of people. Dr. Peter Baddick, an internist who grew up near the Superfund site and has sounded the alarm about PCV, said he expects the number of cases to be three or four times higher than what would be expected for the region.

Such disease clusters are difficult to prove. Investigators must establish an unusually high number of cases of a specific disease within a given population and then figure out whether it can be attributed to something in the environment. Most reported clusters are found to be due to chance.

Thomas Burke, a professor of public health at Johns Hopkins University, said cluster investigations rarely yield a definitive cause. “Most clusters, even those that are significantly elevated, have not been successfully investigated to find a particular environmental link,” he said.

But residents hope the report will force a re-evaluation of the safety of one of the worst toxic waste dumps in the United States - and, perhaps, focus attention on people who not only contracted PCV but also suffer from cancer, multiple sclerosis, lupus and other serious illnesses.

Is there a link to the Superfund site? The government has consistently said no. But there is no question this region 80 miles (128.7 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia has endured one environmental headache after another.

Three current or former Superfund sites, including the toxic dump, are only a few miles (kilometers) apart. Abandoned strip mines have been filled with coal combustion waste, a state-approved practice that an environmental group believes has led to groundwater contamination.

“There are a lot of people who should not be sleeping at night because they’ve created a lot of havoc and misery in people’s lives for a few bucks,” said Joe Murphy, a 41-year-old community activist diagnosed with MS in 2003.

For now, government epidemiologists are focusing on PCV, an acquired genetic mutation that thickens the blood and can result in heart attacks and strokes.

The condition, whose cause is unknown, only became reportable to state cancer registries in 2001. The government estimates it occurs in one in every 100,000 people, although some scientists believe it is even more rare. The disease, which is treatable, is more prevalent in older people and men.

The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry began looking into PCV in August 2006 after 97 cases in Schuylkill, Carbon and Luzerne counties were reported to the state cancer registry between 2001 and 2005 by doctors, hospitals and labs. Based on its population, the region should have reported about 25 cases.

The agency’s task: to confirm the cases that appeared on the registry, and to search out cases the registry might have missed. Scientists also tried to find common factors among PCV patients, including their proximity to toxic waste sites.

The study is finished. The agency has scheduled a community meeting for Wednesday night to discuss its findings with the public. Agency officials would not discuss the study results ahead of meeting.

Along Interstate 81, there is a nondescript field surrounded by barbed wire, with several wellheads poking out of the ground. This is where a company called McAdoo Associates began operating in 1975, its purpose to extract and recycle metals from chemical wastes.

The company accepted hundred of thousands of gallons of paint sludge, waste oils, used solvents, PCBs, cyanide, pesticides and many other known or suspected carcinogens. Four years later, when the EPA stepped in, McAdoo Associates had stockpiled enough chemicals to nearly fill an Olympic-size swimming pool.

And that was just on the surface. Jim Leber, a former state mine inspector, said he routinely saw tanker trucks pouring their contents directly into an abandoned mine shaft on the site. The ground became so saturated with chemicals that it was spongy underfoot, he said. A chemical smell hung in the air.

But the EPA says that because of the geology of the region, the contaminated groundwater beneath McAdoo Associates does not pose a risk to either private wells or public water supplies. Residential wells, for example, tap into a deeper aquifer, authorities say.

Lester and Betty Kester live across the street from the reservoir. They also live downhill from McAdoo Associates. And they both have PCV - an extreme rarity.

“Almost as rare as her husband getting pregnant,” said Baddick, who knows the couple. The Kesters’ neighbors also report a variety of cancers, and at least one more case of PCV.

Betty, 79, is perpetually weak, exhausted and itchy, symptoms of a disease she believes she got “from them drums” up the hill.

“It’s sad, it’s sad,” she said. “Because you don’t expect this in your life. Now is when we should be having a good time, right? Instead, we’re having a kick in the bum.”

A woman driving southbound on I-95 in Hollywood was able to pull over safely after a lug wrench came crashing through her windshield. The wrench smashed through the glass in front of the driver’s seat around 11 a.m. Wednesay. The woman was not injured.Florida Highway Patrol Sgt. Mark Wyscocki said, “The wrench fell off a tow truck traveling in front of her. She was unable to get a tag number.”

The tow truck did not stop.

South Florida was on alert on Tuesday as concern over the spread of the superbug increased.

Four cases of the MRSA superbug have been reported in Miami-Dade County, one case in Broward County and none reported in Monroe County.

All four cases have connections to schools, and that has some parents in a panic.

Many parents criticized the school boards saying they should have let them know about the infections. They said they should have found out about it from school officials and not heard about it on the news.

The school board and health department answered on Tuesday by saying the news coverage was an overreaction by the media. They put out their own letter explaining what is going on. The letter does not specify the number of cases in the area, but it does let parents know what they should do to keep their children safe.

“There has been a lot made of this in the media in the last few days,” said John Schuster of Miami-Dade Public Schools. “We would like to allay any concerns that (parents) may have.”

Many parents were so concerned that they pulled their children out of school after school officials refused to answer questions about MRSA cases within the Miami-Dade County school system.

The school board confirmed one case involving a staff member at Sunset Elementary School, a suspected case of a student at Homestead Senior High School and two suspected cases involving Miami-Dade County school bus drivers.

“The level of concern is actually very low,” said Dr. Vincent Conte of the Miami-Dade Health Department. “It’s a difficult bug to catch in normal, healthy people who have normal immune systems.”

The risk factors for MRSA, known as the 5 Cs, include:

Parents said they will keep their children out of school until they can be confident every classroom and facility has been disinfected. They said they are angry with school officials for not being informative and proactive about the confirmed MRSA case at the school.

“This is very serious,” fifth grader Kevin Reynolds said.

The 10-year-old said he was feeling uneasy after a staff member at the school had a confirmed case of the staph bacterial infection that is anti-biotic-resistant.

“We all try to not touch each other,” Reynolds said. “We did not go to the cafeteria. I was thinking in my head, ‘If we go to the cafeteria, then there is a very good chance that we might get infected.’”

As a precaution, students ate lunch in their classrooms, but there were no announcements made about the disease. Some teachers took it upon themselves to keep the children safe.

“At the beginning of the day, we before we started class, everybody got some wipes and cleaned their desks,” Reynolds said.

Parents said they were angry and frustrated that the school had not notified them of the case at the school sooner.

On Monday, school officials and the Department of Health sent letters home with students. Still, some parents were upset with how school officials handled the situation.

“My concern is that the school administration is not coming forward and being more straightforward,” said a parent who wished to be referred to as ‘Jorge.’

School officials said they have disinfected certain areas of the campus, but one mother said that’s not enough.

“My daughter did not come to school today,” Rosa Hernandes said. “This is a huge issue. These are our kids, and they need to clean the school thoroughly.”

At a press conference, JohnSchuster of Miami-Dade Public Schools said he could not name who had contracted the disease. However, he said it was a staff member who works in daily contact with children.

Miami-Dade Public Schools has not confirmed if the hospitalized employee is a teacher, but students and parents alike seemed to know who she was.

“It’s a third grade teacher,” Hernandes said. “She’s an awesome teacher. She’s great. My heart goes out to her.”

The Florida Department of Health urged all students to keep good hygiene, to keep cuts and scrapes covered with a bandage and to not share personal items. But they said there is no need to pull students out of school because of the superbug.

S. Fla. Infection Count:

On Oct. 13, 2002, plaintiff Nathaniel Gardner was born via Caesarian section at Broadlawns Medical Center. The pH of his blood was highly acidotic. He was immediately taken to a neonatal intensive care unit at Blank Hospital. Before he was transported, an umbilical catheter was inserted. Four days later he was still being fed through the catheter. It moved into his heart and eroded a hole in the heart lining. He suffered a cardiac arrest. He was treated and later diagnosed with cerebral palsy.His mother, Debra Gardner, presented to Broadlawns on Friday, Oct. 12. She was nearly 41 weeks and five days pregnant. Doctors did an ultrasound and a non-stress test, both of which were normal. That Friday morning they decided to induce labor. The only obstetrician at the hospital left at 5 p.m. that day, leaving the mother in the care of a family practitioner, a first-year resident and a medical student.

By Saturday afternoon, labor had not progressed, so the family practitioner decided to perform a C-section. He took Gardner off the fetal monitor. The baby’s heart rate was normal up until the time the monitor was removed. For more than 30 minutes the baby’s heart rate was not monitored.

When the anesthesia was administered, the mother’s blood pressure dropped. The C-section was delayed for another 12 minutes before it was started, and then it took another 12 minutes to deliver Nathaniel. He was born with an Apgar score of 1 at one minute, 1 at five minutes and 3 at 10 minutes.

Gardner sued Broadlawns Medical Center and the physicians for medical malpractice. Blank Hospital was also named in the suit, but was dismissed before trial.

Plaintiff’s counsel noted that when the anesthesia was administered, Gardner’s blood pressure dropped.That should have been a mandate that medical personnel either monitor the baby’s heart rate, or deliver as quickly as possible because the mother’s blood pressure can affect fetal circulation. Neither was done.

Nathaniel has cerebral palsy. He cannot walk. He cannot control his bladder and bowels. He cannot speak. He has no control over use of his arms. He is able to swallow, but someone needs to feed him. He appears to have normal intelligence.

The jury found that Broadlawns Medical Center is 75 percent liable and Blank Hospital is 25 percent liable. It awarded $13,491,735, which was reduced to $10,118,801.25.

Debra Gardner

$65,000 Personal Injury: past loss of services

$165,000 Personal Injury: future loss of services

$231,735 Personal Injury: future medical expenses to age 18

Nathaniel Gardner

$134,000 Personal Injury: past loss of function

$8,555,673 Personal Injury: future medical expenses after age 18

$1,866,000 Personal Injury: future loss of function

$67,000 Personal Injury: past pain and suffering

$1,200,000 Personal Injury: future loss of earning capacity

$933,000 Personal Injury: future pain and suffering

Defense counsel is pursuing post-trial motions.

An 83-year-old steam pipe that exploded beneath a Manhattan intersection over the summer, terrifying New Yorkers and seriously burning two people, may have burst because of a defect in its iron skin, according to an engineering firm hired by the blast victims.In a letter made public Tuesday, an investigator at the forensic engineering firm Exponent said the pipe appeared to have ruptured along a “crack-like flaw” that ran for several feet along a welded seam.

“But for this significant pre-existing crack-like flaw, it is my opinion at this point in time that the pipe would not have ruptured at this specific location on July 18,” said Exponent’s principal engineer, Robert D. Caligiuri.

He added that the flaw appeared to be old enough and large enough that Con Ed should have detected it sooner. His letter didn’t say whether he believes the flaw was a manufacturing defect, or a problem that developed over the pipe’s many decades underground.

The explosion occurred in a busy intersection near Grand Central Terminal following a heavy rain. It tore a crater in the street, smashed windows, hurled debris at pedestrians and engulfed a tow truck carrying two people, both of whom were horribly burned. A woman also died of a heart attack.

Caligiuri questioned whether any other old steam pipes in use beneath city streets have similar defects.

More investigation is needed, he said, “to more fully assess the broader integrity of the steam system, and in particular to determine if other portions of the pipe network are susceptible to a similar failure.”

A spokeswoman for Consolidated Edison declined to immediately comment. She said the utility, which owns the steam system, had received a copy of the letter and was evaluating it.

Previously, the company has insisted that its steam delivery system, which throbs below much of midtown Manhattan, is safe.

Exponent was hired by the legal team representing the tow truck driver, Gregory McCullough, and his passenger, Judith Bailey. McCullough is still hospitalized.

“Why didn’t Con Ed discover this problem, and why didn’t they fix it?” said an attorney for the pair, Kenneth Thompson.

In his brief report on the blast, Caligiuri said much about the explosion remains unknown.

The primary cause of the rupture, he said, appeared to be a sudden buildup in pressure within the pipe, which then burst through the flawed section. What caused that pressure surge, however, is still unclear, he said.

Con Edison has hired its own forensic engineering firm, Lucius Pitkin Inc., to help find the cause of the explosion. It has yet to issue a report.

The Miami-Dade School Board suspects that two county school bus drivers have the infection methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, known as the superbug.

They are now taking precautions to make sure that no students get sick.

Bus driver Maria Campo went home on high alert on Monday after she and others were warned about fellow employees with the contagious staph infection.

“Of course (I’m worried),” Campo said. “I have skin cancer and, you know, this is a problem.”

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said staph are bacteria commonly carried on the skin or in the nose of a healthy person.

Campo said that at least five bus drivers reportedly have the infection. Bus attendant Michelle Robinson told NBC 6’s Tisha Lewis that she heard seven people were infected.

“You said there’s seven bus drivers?” Lewis asked.

“Drivers or aides,” Robinson said. “There’s two of them that I know of particular in person.”

Robinson said officials have not told employees exactly what is going on.

“One of the workers who has this virus, she came out today,” Robinson said. “She brought her papers to show that she was positive with this virus.”

The Miami-Dade Public School District said it suspects two bus drivers have the infection, and both drivers have not reported to work in the last few days.

Noemi Deltoro is one of two bus drivers suspected of having the superbug. Her son said the disease is hitting too close to home.

“At first I was really worried because I had heard that it had killed people and it was really dangerous, and I got really worried and I felt like crying,” Daryl Hevia said. “My friends helped me through it. I heard that we caught it really early, so I’m glad we found it.”

One employee, who did not want to show her face on camera, said she knows the victims.

“She’s really upset about the situation because she doesn’t really have a route,” bus attendant Pam said. “She’s a standby driver, and the driver that tested positive for it, she was doing her route, and now she tested positive for it.”

There was also some confusion about whether the reportedly two infected bus drivers showed up for work on Monday.

The Miami-Dade Public School District said they have not been to work the last few days, but Pam said otherwise.

“They worked a half a day,” she said. “They worked an a.m., but they didn’t work a p.m.”

Hevia said when his mother found out she was infected, she told her employers.

“She went Thursday to her job and told them,” he said. “They kept it hush hush and haven’t told anyone in the school, haven’t told anyone about it. There’s going to be a meeting soon.”

Bus attendant Carolisa Burgess wondered what was stopping the drivers and attendants from bringing home the infection to their children.

“I have a sick child that I have to go home to, and she doesn’t need any more problems,” Burgess said.

The school district released a statement.

“We advised other employees of the situation,” the statement said. “The district is taking precautions as needed to protect the safety and health of other employees and students.”

The CDC said most staph skin infections are minor, but the way some employees said they were alerted has been a major disappointment, some said.

“I just heard about it because I heard the drivers talk about it,” Campo said. “But (officials) don’t say anything.”

“It could be getting off the bus with the children,” Robinson said. “We could be getting it from the children, but we don’t even know where it’s coming from.”

The CDC said the infection is spread by what it called the 5 C’s: crowding, contact, cuts and bruises, contaminated areas and lack of cleanliness.

Superbug Case Confirmed At Local Elementary School

The Miami-Dade County Health Department said the first South Florida student with a confirmed case of MRSA attends Sunset Elementary School in Coral Gables.

On Monday, many parents said they weren’t aware of the case at the school and many said they didn’t even know of the superbug.

“Well, we should have been advised of that,” Jesus Cue said. “We should have been advised that the first case was here in Sunset.”

“It’s kind of scary to know that are kids are being around all these situations,” Daniela Diego said. “It’s kind of dangerous, I guess.”

Most cases of MRSA are skin infections. The infection forms boils, which are swollen, red and have pus.

Officials said schools are a common location for the infection to be transmitted because of the crowding and frequent skin-to-skin contact.

“I, personally, am finicky,” parent Edda Meller said. “He’s used to the wipey, you know, that’s what we do when he gets out of school. It’s our routine before he eats, whatever it is, his snack.”

Some parents said they will start stricter hygiene habits when the children are at home, but others had never even heard of MRSA.

“Well, I’m very concerned,” Jeanette Simoni said.

Simoni has a child that attends Sunset Elementary, and she said the school has a great reputation for keeping parents informed.

“I’m sure that the principal here at Sunset Elementary would have sent some sort of notice out to all the parents, because she is very concerned and she gets the information out as soon as possible,” Simoni said.

The school board, however, said they do not have to quarantine the school or take any extra precautions.

Preventative Measures To Take Against MRSA

Erie County has filed a lawsuit against Merck & Co., the maker of the prescription drug, Vioxx, alleging the pharmaceutical maker defrauded the Medicaid program of an estimated $6 million dollars.

In papers filed in New Jersey, where Merck (NYSE: MRK) is based, attorneys for Erie County say the company engaged for many years in an aggressive and fraudulent marketing campaign to the medical profession and consumers designed to minimize the dangers of Vioxx, and convince physicians to write prescriptions for the drug that they would not have written had they known the truth.

The county said in a news release that Vioxx was sold as a painkiller for treating arthritis, headaches and other conditions, and was many times more expensive than over-the-counter pain relievers like Naproxen (Alleve) and Advil. The complaint said Merck had evidence of cardiovascular risks associated with Vioxx before it ever sold the drug to the public. The county refers to a study, sponsored by Merck, that showed patients who took Vioxx had five times the risk of having a heart attack, compared with those taking Naproxen.

Despite the results of this study, Merck failed to warn of these adverse consequences and continued to conceal or minimize the dangers of Vioxx in order to promote sales.

Merck withdrew Vioxx from the market in September 2004.

New York state, along with at least six other states, has filed similar actions against Merck. The company has defended its actions, saying it carefully studied Vioxx before and after receiving U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration (FDA) approval, and consistently made the results of those studies available to the FDA and the medical and scientific communities.

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized.NASA gathered the information under an $8.5 million safety project, through telephone interviews with roughly 24,000 commercial and general aviation pilots over nearly four years. Since ending the interviews at the beginning of 2005 and shutting down the project completely more than one year ago, the space agency has refused to divulge the results publicly.

Just last week, NASA ordered the contractor that conducted the survey to purge all related data from its computers.

The Associated Press learned about the NASA results from one person familiar with the survey who spoke on condition of anonymity because this person was not authorized to discuss them.

A senior NASA official, associate administrator Thomas S. Luedtke, said revealing the findings could damage the public’s confidence in airlines and affect airline profits. Luedtke acknowledged that the survey results “present a comprehensive picture of certain aspects of the U.S. commercial aviation industry.”

The AP sought to obtain the survey data over 14 months under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.

“Release of the requested data, which are sensitive and safety-related, could materially affect the public confidence in, and the commercial welfare of, the air carriers and general aviation companies whose pilots participated in the survey,” Luedtke wrote in a final denial letter to the AP. NASA also cited pilot confidentiality as a reason, although no airlines were identified in the survey, nor were the identities of pilots, all of whom were promised anonymity.

Among other results, the pilots reported at least twice as many bird strikes, near mid-air collisions and runway incursions as other government monitoring systems show, according to a person familiar with the results who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.

The survey also revealed higher-than-expected numbers of pilots who experienced “in-close approach changes” - potentially dangerous, last-minute instructions to alter landing plans.

Officials at the NASA Ames Research Center in California have said they want to publish their own report on the project by year’s end.

“If the airlines aren’t safe I want to know about it,” said Rep. Brad Miller, R-N.C., chairman of the House Science and Technology investigations and oversight subcommittee. “I would rather not feel a false sense of security because they don’t tell us.”

Discussing NASA’s decision not to release the survey data, the congressman said: “There is a faint odor about it all.”

Miller asked NASA last week to provide his oversight committee with information on the survey and the decision to withhold data.

“The data appears to have great value to aviation safety, but not on a shelf at NASA,” he wrote to NASA’s administrator Michael Griffin.

The survey’s purpose was to develop a new way of tracking safety trends and problems the airline industry could address. The project was shelved when NASA cut its budget as emphasis shifted to send astronauts to the moon and Mars.

NASA said nothing it discovered in the survey warranted notifying the Federal Aviation Administration immediately. Its data showed improvements in some areas, the person who was familiar with the survey said. Survey managers occasionally briefed the FAA during the project. At a briefing in April 2003, FAA officials expressed concerns about the high numbers of incidents being described by pilots because the NASA results were dramatically different from what FAA was getting from its own monitoring systems.

An FAA spokeswoman, Laura Brown, said the agency questioned NASA’s methodology. The FAA is confident it can identify safety problems before they lead to accidents, she said.

In its space program, NASA has a deadly history of playing down safety issues. Investigators blamed the 1986 and 2000 shuttle disasters on poor decision making, budget cuts and improperly minimizing risks. NASA decided to go ahead with a 2006 shuttle launch and is moving ahead with one this week despite safety concerns by NASA engineers in both cases.

Aviation experts said NASA’s pilot survey results could be a valuable resource in an industry where they believe many safety problems are underreported, even while deaths from commercial air crashes are rare and the number of deadly crashes has dropped in recent years.

“It gives us an awareness of not just the extent of the problems, but probably in some cases that the problems are there at all,” said William Waldock, a safety science professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Phoenix, Ariz. “If their intent is to just let it sit there, that’s just a waste.”

Officials involved in the survey touted the unusually high response rate among pilots, 80 percent, and said they believe it is more reliable than other reporting systems that rely on pilots to voluntarily report incidents.

“The data is strong,” said Robert Dodd, an aviation safety expert hired by NASA to manage the survey. “Our process was very meticulously designed and very thorough. It was very scientific.”

Pilot interviews lasted about 30 minutes, with standardized questions about how frequently they encountered equipment problems, smoke or fire, engine failure, passenger disturbances, severe turbulence, collisions with birds or inadequate tower communication, according to documents obtained by the AP.

Pilots also were asked about last-minute changes in landing instructions, flying too close to other planes, near collisions with ground vehicles or buildings, overweight takeoffs or occasions when pilots left the cockpit.

The survey, known officially as the National Aviation Operations Monitoring Service, started after a White House commission in 1997 proposed reducing fatal air crashes by 80 percent as of this year. Crashes have dropped 65 percent, with a rate of about 1 fatality in about 4.5 million departures.

NASA had begun to interview general aviation pilots and initially planned to interview flight attendants, air traffic controllers and mechanics before the survey was halted.

In earlier interviews that helped researchers design the NASA survey, pilots said airlines were unaware how frequently safety incidents occurred that could lead to serious problems or even crashes, said Jon Krosnick, a survey expert at Stanford University who helped NASA create the questionnaire. Krosnick also led a Stanford team that paid for a joint AP-Stanford poll on the environment.

“There are little things going on everyday that rarely lead to an accident but they increase the chances of an accident,” said Krosnick. “It’s the little things beneath the surface that cause the very infrequent crashes. You have to tackle those.”

NASA directed its contractor Battelle Memorial Institute, along with subcontractors, on Thursday to return any project information and then purge it from their computers before Oct. 30.

An elderly driver ran off the highway and was trapped and injured in her overturned car for nearly two days before a trooper saw skid marks and found her.Betty McCord, 78, was hospitalized in serious condition after being pulled from the wreckage off State Highway 9.

“I was hanging upside down in a car for two days; you talk about some kind of horrible,” McCord said Monday in a phone interview from her hospital bed. “I couldn’t get out of the car. There was no way out and believe me I would have found it if there was.”

McCord, who had injuries to her knees, ankles and head, said she doesn’t know how or why she ran off the road.

She had called her granddaughter while on the way to visit Friday evening, but was reported missing by relatives after she failed to show up, said Capt. Chris West, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol spokesman. West said a trooper noticed skid marks Sunday and walked through some brush to find her car.

“She couldn’t get out,” West said. “She had a head wound, but she was coherent and able to talk.”

Two people are dead after a fatal crash in Hialeah Gardens. Local 10 reported that there were at least one, maybe two people, standing where the Florida Turnpike meets Okeechobee Road.The investigation is ongoing, but Local 10 reported that police said they believe two people were trying to change the right front tire of a black Buick.

It is believed that a truck hit them and then flipped over, according to Local 10.

One person was airlifted to Jackson Memorial Hospital, but there is no word on that person’s condition.

Florida Highway Patrol found a jack and a lug wrench next to the car.