STUART — An affidavit released by sheriff’s deputies accuses a man of a brutish attack Tuesday on an 11-year-old boy.

William Raymond Dion, 18, of the 5800 block of Southeast Avalon Drive, has been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and battery.

According to the affidavit, the boy was riding his bicycle near the intersection of Southeast Dixie Ross Street and Southeast Robert Loop Road at 6:40 p.m. when Dion hit him in the hip and the face with a chunk of cement.

He then pushed the boy off his bicycle as the boy attempted to get away, the affidavit says.

The boy’s face was extremely swollen when deputies arrived. His parents took him to an unspecified hospital for treatment.

Dion was being held Wednesday in the Martin County Jail in lieu of $10,500 bond.

By staff report, TCPalm.com

STUART — Two girls were charged with aggravated battery Friday after they attacked a woman who was attempting to break up a fight between her son and another man, according to an affidavit released Monday.

The girls, ages 15 and 16, were at a party with the two men and rode with them to the woman’s house in the 4300 block of Southeast Chesapeake Bay Drive around 3:30 a.m.

The report says the two men began fighting as they arrived at the residence, and the woman came outside to try and break up the fight.
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MIAMI — After a long and exhaustive investigation, the deaths of two infants and the sickening of a third at Miami Children’s Hospital is a medical mystery.

The infants, born extremely prematurely, their immune systems compromised, were in the hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit when two of them died of a common yet lethal bacterium in March. (more…)

MARTIN COUNTY — When Martin Memorial Medical Center hired a jet in 2003 to repatriate a brain-damaged patient to his native Guatemala, hospital officials “never took the law into their own hands,” according to documents filed ahead of a June 23 trial.

“They never stuffed Mr. (Luis Alberto) Jimenez in the back of a van under the cover of darkness and drove him out of town,” Martin Memorial attorney Scott Michaud stated in papers detailing Jimenez’s predawn flight to Guatemala City on July 10, 2003.

“When Martin Memorial discharged Jimenez to the facility in Guatemala,” Michaud noted, “Martin Memorial did so with the honest belief based on the evidence it uncovered, that the hospital in Guatemala was properly equipped to care for him.”
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STUART — A circuit judge has thrown out a lawsuit from one of several people who claimed they contracted a dangerous staph infection while at Martin Memorial Hospital.

According to court records filed this week, Circuit Judge William Roby dismissed Louise and Alexander Webster’s medical malpractice case against the hospital claiming Louise contracted methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA, in 2002 after having ankle surgery.

In his ruling, Roby said the Websters failed to prove that Webster contracted the infection because of any negligence on the hospital’s part.
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ST. LUCIE COUNTY — St. Lucie County officials say they’re tired of paying higher-than-Medicaid rates in hospitals for their jailed inmates.

St. Lucie County is lobbying the state to force hospitals to accept the Medicaid rate for inmate medical care. But hospitals are warning that forcing more people on the Medicaid rolls could increase costs to taxpayers.

As it is now, when a Medicaid patient goes to the hospital, the county does not get the bill. Hospitals are required to accept and treat indigent patients. If that same person needs medical care at a hospital while an inmate, the county — and ultimately taxpayers — pay the bill, St. Lucie County Commissioners say. (more…)

A minivan crashed into a church van in Fort Pierce last night, injuring 18 people, including six children.

St. Lucie County Fire District crews responded to the rollover at Edwards Road and 25th Street at about 9:20 p.m., according to district spokeswoman Catherine Chaney.

In all, 20 people were in the vehicles; 16 ended up at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center with minor injuries, according to St. Lucie County Sheriff’s officials. Two children — a 2-year-old boy and a 14-year-old boy — were sent to St. Mary’s Medical Center in West Palm Beach with non-life-threatening injuries, officials said.

According to investigators, Fort Pierce resident Carmelo Pineda, 42, was driving his minivan south on 25th Street where he turned left onto Edwards and turned in front of the van owned by Port St. Lucie church Iglesia de Cristo Misionera. Both Pineda and his passenger were treated for minor injuries at Lawnwood.

Investigators obtained a sample of Pineda’s blood to test if he was impaired while driving, officials said.

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — An accident along Interstate 95, about two miles north of the Fellsmere exit, resulted in 13 people being transported to hospitals Tuesday morning.

None of the injuries were life threatening, according to Lt. Tim Frith, with the Florida Highway Patrol.
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FORT PIERCE — Not much will change Friday when Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute begins serving as a provisional state trauma center.

Much of the $15 million Lawnwood invested in five trauma surgeons, staff training, new equipment and emergency department renovations was earmarked two years ago when hospital officials proposed St. Lucie County taxpayers chip in $7 million a year to pay for the regional, Level II trauma center.

Trauma tax opponents said then Lawnwood’s parent company, Tennessee-based HCA Inc., would find the cash if it really wanted to care for trauma patients. Nearly 75 percent of voters rejected the trauma tax.
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A second Beagle, suffering from Parvo, was found staggering in traffic in Lake Park, very close to the location where a mother Beagle and her puppies were found April 17.

Kay-Lynette Roca, executive director of Safe Harbor Animal Sanctuary & Hospital, said Tuesday that the male Beagle brought to Safe Harbor and the female Beagle that was found last week have matching collars and seem to know each other.

“Parker, the male Beagle dog that was found in traffic in Lake Park, looks very similar to the Beagle mom who is now fighting for her life. I’m afraid there may be a backyard breeder in the Lake Park area who is neglecting these dogs and tossing them out.”
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