Emergency drill gets workers ready for real thing

This morning Tosha Brooks lay on a stretcher, pretending she was unconscious, with an IV bag full of fake blood taped to her chest. It attached to a hose that led down to her thigh. With the pump in her hand she squirted blood from the hose, steadily, to the rhythm of her heartbeat.

The fake blood splashed all over a paramedic’s shirt.

When she reached the operating room, the machines said her heart stopped from excessive blood loss. Hospital staff pronounced her “dead,” so she was free to leave the hospital.

Brooks, 27, an emergency medical technician student at Gaston College, participated in a practice session for medical emergencies at Gaston Memorial Hospital.

[Read the whole story here and watch a video at The Gaston Gazette.]

Belmont Abbey monk dies at age 86

Placid Solari, abbot of Belmont Abbey Monastery, glanced at his watch as he stepped into the parking lot of Gaston Memorial Hospital on Sunday afternoon. It was 3:45.

He was visiting his friend Raymond Geyer, an 86-year-old monk of Belmont Abbey. Solari gave Geyer communion and they spoke about death — they knew Geyer’s heart couldn’t last much longer — but he expected to visit again Monday, and to see Geyer back at the monastery this week.

When he got to the monastery, hours later, the other monks told him Geyer had died of heart failure around 3:50 p.m.

“I thought that his life expectancy might be in terms of weeks rather than months, but not in terms of minutes,” Solari said. “It was not on my mind that he was, at that moment I was leaving, dying.”

Geyer’s heart problems made him weak during his last few weeks, but friends say they will remember his energy and friendliness most.

[Read the whole story here at The Gaston Gazette.]

Beer brewer finds ground good for hops

For a month last spring, Rusty Chambers and his girlfriend Shannon McLaughlin would come home from work and dig holes, for four hours, every day.

The 30-year-old couple planted 20 varieties of hops, which they plan to sell to brew supply stores beginning next year, when they harvest their first substantial crop.

“It was just non-stop digging,” McLaughlin said.

Although hops are gaining popularity as a crop for small-time farmers, a few large families in the Pacific Northwest have traditionally run the industry, Chambers said, so he couldn’t find many resources for learning how to grow them on a small scale.

So he invented his own model. He dug French-style holes that have top soil in the bottom, and he cut down 19-foot locust trees to stake in the ground, then strung a heavy cable between the poles from which to hang the hop vines.

[Read the whole story here at The Gaston Gazette.]

Father kills wife, shoots son, before killing self

Sharon Gwinn, 44, was murdered by her husband, Gary Gwinn, 46, on Sunday night — about two months after she filed to divorce him, but before she could attend the hearing, said York County Sheriff’s Capt. Jerry Hoffman.

Hoffman said Gary Gwinn shot and killed Sharon around 10 p.m., then shot their 21-year-old son, Brenton, in the abdomen, before ending his own life.

Brenton Gwinn was taken to the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, where he was listed in fair condition Monday afternoon, according to the hospital.

Hoffman said his office found out about the shooting from a 911 call. He declined to say whether the son or a neighbor made the call.

[Read the whole story here at The Gaston Gazette.]

House fire destroys garage and attic in Mount Holly

A house fire in Mount Holly started Thursday afternoon with a small explosion that Doris Stafford heard while watering her flowers across the street.

“I heard something pop. Real loud. Then I saw flames coming up out of the garage,” she said.

By the time firefighters arrived, flames had engulfed the entire garage, located at 914 Rollingwood Drive, and the attic above it.

[Read the whole story here at The Gaston Gazette.]

Jobs program offers second chance for young people

Tyaira Hall, 18, found her calling while she was sitting in a hospital bed, preparing to give birth to her son seven months ago. She couldn’t stop watching the nurses while they drew blood and measured heartbeats.

After getting expelled from a third high school for fighting, Hall had given up on education. But her son and her new interest in nursing inspired her to enter a Gaston College program that will let her finish her diploma in March.

As a jobless single mother, though, she’ll need more breaks than that to become a registered nurse.

On Monday Gaston College started a three-week class session for young people like Hall. Seventy-two students enrolled—among them homeless youth, foster children, high school dropouts and single parents. Their ages range from 16 to 24.

[Read the whole story here at The Gaston Gazette.]

Elderly woman hospitalized after her bedroom caught fire

Paramedics drove an elderly woman, Evangeline Koutro, to Gaston Memorial Hospital this morning after she inhaled smoke while struggling to exit her burning house.

She was listed in fair condition as of 1 p.m. Friday.

Neighbor Arthur Moore said he told his wife to call 911 when he saw smoke coming out of Koutro’s window shortly after 11 a.m.

“I thought someone was cooking out at first, ‘cause it barely wasn’t burning,” Moore said.

[Read the whole story here at the Gaston Gazette.]

Tractor trailer crash slows traffic on I-85

The two cars collided about 9:40 a.m., said Thomas Sellers, 30, who was driving the tractor trailer for Trexler Trucking Inc. The road was wet with rain.

“He come off the ramp, spun in front of me, and I hit him head-on,” Sellers said. “It kind of threw me around on the inside of the truck a little bit.”

[Read the whole story here at the Gaston Gazette.]

Lincolnton man: My mom was engaged to a serial killer!

By Nick Tabor and Corey Friedman

Patrick Burris told his fiancée he needed to go find work. Then, the killings started.

The 41-year-old suspected of gunning down five people in Gaffney, S.C., phoned Martha Ugalde regularly after leaving the Vale mobile home he shared with her in mid-June. He met Ugalde two years ago while on work release from prison.

“He still sounded normal every time he spoke to her,” said Ugalde’s son, Jimmy Vargas. “Everything still seemed fine. He told her he was working, and everything was like (they) planned.”

[Read the whole story here at the Gaston Gazette.]

Neighbors knew Burris as quiet, nice

Mark Blevins lives beside the trailer in Vale that Patrick Burris occupied until about three weeks ago. Since Blevins owns a sanitation company he collected Burris’ trash, and the two stopped to chat three or four times while they were still neighbors.

Blevins received a shock when he saw Burris’ photo on the news and realized his former neighbor was the serial killer.

“I ‘bout fell on the floor,” he said. “[My wife] said, ‘Oh my god!’”

Burris usually kept to himself, Blevins and other neighbors said.

“He was really quiet. He didn’t bother anybody,” said Crissy Peake, 34, another resident of the trailer park Burris lived in.

[Read the whole story here.]