Nurses struggle with bomb's aftermath

Massachusetts General Hospital nurse Adam Barrett is one of the nurses who helped save patients in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. Picture: AP Photo/Carla K. Johnson Source: AP

THE screams and cries of bloody marathon bombing victims still haunt the nurses who treated them one week ago.

They did their jobs as they were trained to do, putting their own fears in a box during their 12-hour shifts so they could better comfort their patients.

Only now are these nurses beginning to come to grips with what they endured - and are still enduring as they continue to care for survivors. They are angry, sad and tired. A few confess they would have trouble caring for the surviving suspect, 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, if he were at their hospital and they were assigned his room.

And they are thankful. They tick off the list of their hospital colleagues for praise: from the security officers who guarded the doors to the ER crews who mopped up trails of blood. The doctors and - especially - the other nurses.

Nurses from Massachusetts General Hospital, which treated 22 of the 187 victims the first day, candidly recounted their experiences in interviews with The Associated Press. Here are their memories:

THEY WERE SCREAMING

Megann Prevatt, ER nurse: "These patients were terrified. They were screaming. They were crying...We had to fight back our own fears, hold their hands as we were wrapping their legs, hold their hands while we were putting IVs in and starting blood on them, just try to reassure them: 'We don't know what happened, but you're here. You're safe with us.'...I didn't know if there were going to be more bombs exploding. I didn't know how many patients we'd be getting. All these thoughts are racing through your mind."

Nurse practitioner Maureen Quaranto, a first-year marathon volunteer who worked in Tent A during the explosions at the Boston Marathon, attends Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston on Sunday. Picture: AP/Boston Herald

SHRAPNEL, NAILS

Adam Barrett, ICU nurse, shared the patient bedside with investigators searching for clues that might break the case.

"It was kind of hard to hear somebody say, 'Don't wash that wound. You might wash evidence away.'"

Mr Barrett cleaned shrapnel and nails from the wounds of some victims, side by side with law enforcement investigators who wanted to examine wounds for blast patterns. The investigator's request took him aback at first.

"I wasn't stopping to think, 'What could be in this wound that could give him a lead?'"

THEIR FACES, THEIR SMILES

An ambulance carrying Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, turns into Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center after his capture. Some nurses admit they would find it difficult to care for the suspect if he had been brought to their hospital. Picture: AP

Jean Acquadra, ICU nurse, keeps herself going by thinking of her patients' progress.

"The strength is seeing their faces, their smiles, knowing they're getting better. They may have lost a limb, but they're ready to go on with their lives. They want to live. I don't know how they have the strength, but that's my reward: Knowing they're getting better."

She is angry and doesn't think she could take care of Tsarnaev, who is a patient at another hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre: "I don't have any words for him."

THE NEED FOR JUSTICE

Christie Majocha, ICU nurse: "Even going home, I didn't get away from it," Ms Majocha said.

She is a resident of Watertown, the community paralysed Friday by the search for the surviving suspect. She helped save the lives of maimed bombing victims on Monday. By week's end, she saw the terror come to her own neighbourhood. The manhunt, she felt, was a search for justice, and was being carried out directly for the good of her patients.

Boston Police and Massachusetts State Police stand guard outside of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Centre, where Tsarnaev is being treated. Picture: Getty

"I knew these faces (of the victims). I knew what their families looked like. I saw their tears," she said. "I know those families who are so desperate to see this end."

On Friday night, she joined the throngs cheering the police officers and FBI agents, celebrating late into the night even though she had to return to the hospital at 7am the next day.

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Taliban seize foreigners from helicopter

Western officials said no foreign military were involved and that it was a civilian helicopter. Source: AP

THE Taliban said they had captured foreigners from a helicopter forced to make an emergency landing in Afghanistan.

Officials said had seven Turks and two Russians on board.

The insurgent militia, which frequently makes exaggerated statements, claimed 11 US military personnel were on the aircraft which came down on Sunday in bad weather in Logar province, just south of Kabul.

The US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said no foreign military were involved and the helicopter was a civilian one. It said it had no information on the fate of the aircraft or its occupants.

The Taliban said on its website that the foreigners "were captured alive and were then transferred to the most secure region of the nation," adding that the helicopter had been torched.

The Afghan-based charter firm Khorasan Cargo Airlines, which operated the Mi-8 helicopter, said seven Turks working on a road project, a Russian pilot, a Russian flight engineer and an Afghan co-pilot were aboard.

Turkey's foreign ministry said its diplomats were holding "intensive talks" with Afghan authorities to establish their whereabouts.

There was no immediate comment from the Russian government.

The Afghan interior ministry said a police team had been sent to the area and a search for the passengers and crew had begun.

It could not confirm the number or nationality of those held. Officials in Logar had earlier said eight Turks and one Afghan were missing.

Adding to the confusion, a Logar provincial government spokesman said that seven Turks, two Ukrainians and an Afghan interpreter were on the helicopter when it came down in Azra district.

"We have also been talking to the village elders to persuade the Taliban to release the captives," said the spokesman, Din Mohammad Darvish.

Hamidullah Hamid, governor of Azra district, said the captives were thought to be in the district's Mangal valley, a Taliban-controlled area.

The helicopter had been travelling from the eastern city of Khost to Kabul when it was forced to land.

The Taliban, ousted from power in 2001 by a US-led invasion, claimed it had 11 US military members, including two translators, on board.

"The foreign forces, by disassociating themselves from the helicopter, are trying to make it seem as the detainees are civilians but denial will not benefit them as all were captured while wearing American military uniforms," it said.

An ISAF spokesman said NATO troops were ready to assist Afghanistan security forces but that there had been no request so far.

Turkey, one of only two Muslim-majority members of NATO, has around 1,800 soldiers serving with ISAF. But unlike its European allies, their mission is limited to patrols and its troops do not take part in combat operations.

ISAF is preparing to withdraw all its foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014, handing over to Afghan troops and police despite widespread fears about instability in the country.

Attacks by the Taliban and other guerrillas soared in the first quarter of 2013, according to a study by an independent group released on Saturday.

The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office reported 2,331 insurgent attacks in January-March, a 47 per cent rise on the first quarter of last year.

Helicopter mishaps are common in mountainous Afghanistan.

Last month five foreign soldiers died in a crash in the south of the country. In February this year a NATO helicopter came down in the east but there were no fatalities.

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Nephew killed aunt for witchcraft

A PNG woman was set alight in Mount Hagen in Papua New Guinea in February after being accused of sorcery. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

A PAPUA New Guinean who accused his aunt of sorcery and killed her with an axe has been jailed for 30 years.

Saku Uki Aiya, 21, was found guilty of the "senseless, barbaric and brutal" killing after a two-day trial in Enga province in the impoverished Pacific nation's northern highlands.

The ruling comes days after the United Nations urged a tougher stance on such murders.

The National newspaper cited local police commander Sergeant Simon Mek as saying it was the first sorcery-related killing in the area to reach a national court.

"So many such cases are reported but rarely go through to the high court as relatives accept their own customary ways of settlement in the village courts," Mek said.

There is a widespread belief in sorcery in PNG, where many people do not accept natural causes as an explanation for misfortune and death, and there have been a spate of recent high-profile cases.

The beheading of an elderly woman accused of witchcraft earlier this month prompted the UN to demand the government in Port Moresby tackle the scourge.

The UN urged an end to extra-judicial killings linked to accusations of sorcery and renewed calls for the government to repeal the Sorcery Act 1971, introduced to aid the passage of witchcraft cases through the courts.

While the act criminalised the practice of sorcery, critics say that granting the phenomenon legal recognition has led to an increase in false accusations.

"The UN is deeply disturbed with the increasing reports of violence, torture and murder of persons accused of practising sorcery around the country," the UN said.

"These vigilante killings constitute murder and must not be treated with impunity."

In Aiya's case, the court heard he blamed his aunt for the death of his brother and with two accomplices, who remain at large, went to her home in 2010 and bludgeoned her on the neck and head with axes and knives.

In jailing him, Justice Mekeo Gauli said accusations of sorcery were becoming more frequent, the newspaper reported.

"In my view some are using sorcery as an excuse to terminate someone's life though the suspect may not be a sorcerer," the judge said, urging people to use the courts to settle disputes and not take the law into their own hands.
 

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Boston marks week from bombing

Nurse practitioner Maureen Quaranto, a first-year marathon volunteer who worked in Tent A during the explosions at the Boston Marathon, attends Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston on Sunday. Picture: Faith Ninivaggi Source: AP

SEVEN days after the Boston Marathon bombings, the city is bustling, with runners hitting the pavement, children walking to school and enough cars clogging the streets to make the morning commute feel almost back to normal in the hours before the traumatic week would be marked with mournful silence.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has asked residents to observe a moment of silence at 2.50pm Monday (4.50am AEST Tuesday), the time the first of the two bombs exploded near the finish line. Bells will ring across the city and state after the minute-long tribute to the victims.

Many Boston residents headed back to workplaces and schools for the first time since a dramatic week came to an even more dramatic end. Traffic was heavy on major arteries into the city on Monday morning, and nervous parents dropped their children off at schools, some for the first time since the attacks.

Authorities on Friday had made the unprecedented request that residents stay at home during the manhunt for suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He was discovered that evening hiding in a boat covered by a tarp in suburban Watertown. His older brother Tamerlan was earlier killed during a furious getaway attempt.

At the Snowden International School on Newbury Street, a high school set just a block from the bombing site, jittery parents dropped off children as teachers - some of whom had run in the race - greeted each other with hugs.

Carlotta Martin, 49, of Boston, said that leaving her kids at school has been the hardest part of getting back to normal.

"We're right in the middle of things," Ms Martin said outside the school as her children, 17-year-old twins and a 15-year-old, walked in, glancing at the police barricades a few yards from the school's front door.

Police in the US are awaiting a response from the Boston Marathon bombing suspect who remains in hospital.

"I'm nervous. Hopefully, this stuff is over," she continued. "I told my daughter to text me so I know everything's OK."

The city is beginning to reopen sections of the six-block site around the bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 180.

Tsarnaev remains in hospital and unable to speak, with a gunshot wound to the throat. He was expected to be charged by federal authorities. The 19-year-old also is likely to face state charges in connection with the fatal shooting of MIT police officer Sean Collier in Cambridge, said Stephanie Guyotte, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex District Attorney's office.

On Norfolk Street, where the brothers lived, neighbours said they thought they saw some more detectives Monday morning. But unlike Friday, the street was open.

Outside City Paint, the paint store a half-block from the brothers' home, Brian Cloutier smoked a cigarette. "We'll get back to normal," he said. "Cambridge and Boston are resilient."

A private funeral was scheduled for Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant worker killed in the blasts. A memorial service will be held that night at Boston University for 23-year-old Lu Lingzi, a graduate student from China.

Bombing suspects Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, left and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Picture: AP

City churches on Sunday paused to mourn the dead as the city's police commissioner said the two suspects had such a large cache of weapons that they were probably planning other attacks.

After the two brothers engaged in a gun battle with police early Friday, authorities found many unexploded homemade bombs at the scene, along with more than 250 rounds of ammunition.

Police Commissioner Ed Davis said the stockpile was "as dangerous as it gets in urban policing".

"We have reason to believe, based upon the evidence that was found at that scene - the explosions, the explosive ordnance that was unexploded and the firepower that they had - that they were going to attack other individuals. That's my belief at this point." Mr Davis told CBS television.

On Fox News Sunday, he said authorities cannot be positive there are not more explosives somewhere that have not been found. But the people of Boston are safe, he insisted.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, the suspects in the twin bombings, are ethnic Chechens from southern Russia. The motive for the bombings remained unclear.

Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the surviving brother's throat wound raised questions about when he will be able to talk again, if ever.

The Boston Red Sox line up during a tribute to victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath, as an image of Massachusetts Institute of Technology Police Officer Sean Collier is displayed on the scoreboard. Picture: AP

The wound "doesn't mean he can't communicate, but right now I think he's in a condition where we can't get any information from him at all," Senator Coats told This Week, on US network ABC.

It was not clear whether Tsarnaev was shot by police or inflicted the wound himself.

In the final standoff with police, shots were fired from the boat, but investigators have not determined where the gunfire was aimed, Mr Davis said.

In an interview with The Associated Press, the parents of Tamerlan Tsarnaev insisted he came to Dagestan and Chechnya last year to visit relatives and had nothing to do with the militants operating in the volatile part of Russia. His father said he slept much of the time.

A lawyer for Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife said federal authorities have asked to speak with her, and that he is discussing with them how to proceed.

Attorney Amato DeLuca said Katherine Russell Tsarnaev did not suspect her husband of anything, and that there was no reason for her to have suspected him. He said she had been working 70 to 80 hours, seven days a week, as a home health care aide. While she was at work, her husband cared for their toddler daughter, he said.

A Boston Red Sox cap decorates a makeshift memorial on Boylston Street, near the scene of Boston Marathon explosions.

The younger Tsarnaev could be charged any day. The most serious charge available to federal prosecutors would be the use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill people, which carries a possible death sentence. Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

Across the rattled streets of Boston, churches opened their doors to remember the dead and ease the grief of the living.

At the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in South Boston, photographs of the three people killed in the attack and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer slain on Thursday were displayed on the altar, each face illuminated by a glowing white pillar candle.

"I hope we can all heal and move forward," said Kelly McKernan, who was crying as she left the service. "And obviously, the Mass today was a first step for us in that direction."

Boston's historic Trinity Church could not host services Sunday because it was within the crime scene, but the congregation was invited to worship at the Temple Israel synagogue instead. The FBI allowed church officials a half-hour on Saturday to go inside to gather the priests' robes, the wine and bread for Sunday's service.

Trinity's Reverend Samuel T. Lloyd III offered a prayer for those who were slain "and for those who must rebuild their lives without the legs that they ran and walked on last week."

Katherine Russell, the American wife of marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, leaves the house where he lived in Cambridge, the day after Tsarnaev, was killed in a shootout with police. Picture: Austral via William Farrington / Polaris

"So where is God when the terrorists do their work?" Lloyd asked. "God is there, holding us and sustaining us. God is in the pain the victims are suffering, and the healing that will go on. God is with us as we try still to build a just world, a world where there will not be terrorists doing their terrible damage."

The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was tracing the suspects' weapons to try to determine how they were obtained.

Neither of the brothers had permission to carry a gun. Cambridge Police Commissioner Robert Haas said it was unclear whether either of them ever applied for a gun permit, and the applications are not considered public records.

But the younger brother would have been denied a permit based on his age alone. Only people 21 or older are allowed gun licenses in Massachusetts.

Meanwhile, surgeons at a Cambridge hospital said the Boston transit police officer wounded in a shootout with the suspects had lost nearly all his blood, and his heart had stopped from a single gunshot wound that severed three major blood vessels in his right thigh.

Richard Donohue, 33, was in critical but stable condition. He is sedated and on a breathing machine but opened his eyes, moved his hands and feet and squeezed his wife's hand on Sunday.
 

Massachusetts State Police released this aerial image of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hiding in a boat.

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Cops baffled by latest US shooting

The scene of the shootings in Federal Way, Washington. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren) Source: AP

FIVE people were shot dead when gunfire erupted at an apartment complex in a city south of Seattle and police are unsure if their fire caused the death of one armed man, or if he had been shot by someone else.

They also fear that a woman killed in the bloodbath may have been an innocent bystander hit by a stray bullet.

Officers responding to an emergency call at the apartments in Federal Way encountered a chaotic scene, with bullets flying.

"When officers arrived there were still shots being fired," said police spokeswoman Cathy Schrock.

They had found two injured men on the ground in a parking lot. One of the men had reached for a gun as police moved in to assist the two, she said.

At that point, had officers opened fire. The suspect died but police said it wasn't immediately clear if it was from their gunfire.

The other man on the ground and a third man in the parking lot were found dead.

In a search of the complex, police found a fourth man dead in one apartment and a slain woman in another unit. Schrock said police were trying to determine if the woman was accidentally hit by gunfire.

A total of eight officers fired their weapons, Schrock said. All have been placed on administrative leave, as per standard policy, as the investigation continues.

There was no immediate word on what set off the shooting.

"We're gonna continue to go door to door in hopes that we can find some additional witnesses, and hopefully we won't be finding any more victims." Schrock said. "We still don't have any idea what started this disturbance tonight."

After police flooded the area and carried out searches, authorities said they were confident there were no more casualties from the shooting. They said they did not think another shooter was on the loose or that there was an immediate threat to the public.

There were no reports of any officers being injured, and the names of the five people who were killed were not immediately available.

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Pandas panicked by China quake

A panda takes refuge in a tree at the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda, after an deadly earthquake hit Sichuan province. The pandas were left "slack-jawed" by the earthquake, researchers said. Picture: AFP Source: AFP

PANDAS living in a reserve near the epicentre of China's weekend quake clambered up trees in panic as their forest home was jolted, but none were injured, officials said.

More than 60 pandas at the Bifengxia Panda Base near Ya-an city were shaken early Saturday by the quake which struck just 50 kilometres away, leaving at least 188 people dead and more than 11,000 injured.

Some pandas climbed high into the tree canopy when the 6.6-magnitude earthquake struck and suffered "differing degrees of shock," the facility said on its website.

Pictures taken by the reserve showed the furry creatures clinging onto tree trunks, while state-broadcaster CCTV showed one panda perched perilously on the top of a tall pine tree, which swayed from side to side.

Ren Yao from Bifengxia's publicity office said that "no pandas or people were injured" in the weekend quake. However, some sections of the facility were damaged, she said without elaborating.

Animals at the base were "slack jawed" with shock after the quake struck, China's official news-agency Xinhua reported.

But staff said that after therapy from staff, the pandas were now feeling secure enough to climb back down to earth.

"The pandas have climbed down from the trees...they are back on the ground, playing and eating," said Ms Ren.

Young pandas enjoy some comfort food at the China Conservation and Research Centre for the Giant Panda after the earthquake. Picture: AFP

Staff comforted the animals by feeding them favourite foods including apples and calling their names, she added, as more than 2000 aftershocks set human - and animals - nerves on edge.

"In the last two days, there were a series of aftershocks, and we continued efforts to comfort the pandas...they are already feeling stable," she said.

China has about 1600 pandas living in the wild, mostly in earthquake-prone Sichuan province in China's southwest.

A massive 2008 quake which left more than 90,000 people dead and missing seriously affected another habitat, the Wolong nature reserve, forcing its pandas to be transferred to other bases including Bifengxia.

One animal was killed, another went missing, and some 60,000 hectares of the animals' habitat was damaged.

Pandas have a notoriously low reproductive rate and are under pressure from factors such as habitat loss in their home terrain of Sichuan, northern Shaanxi and northwestern Gansu provinces.
 

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Drunk hairdresser faces 40 lashes

Drinking alcohol is banned in Qatar except for non muslims who can obtain special licenses. Picture: Thinkstock Source: Supplied

A QATARI court has sentenced a Muslim barber from an unknown Asian country to 40 lashes over consuming alcohol in the Gulf state.

The man was arrested following a complaint by another man who accused him of harassing his domestic worker by throwing a piece of paper at her with his phone number scribbled on it, according to a report in Al-Sharq daily.

Police found the man drunk when they arrived, the report said.

"As a Muslim, the sharia applies in his case," said the paper, referring to the Islamic law that prohibits alcohol consumption and is the main source of legislation in Qatar.

In addition to the lashes the man was fined 500 rials ($134) for causing a disturbance.

Alcohol consumption is banned in Qatar, except in hotels and for non Muslims who obtain special licenses.
 

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Doctors warn on 'cinnamon challenge'

Teenager Dejah Reed was rushed to hospital with a collapsed lung after trying the "cinnamon challenge" after seeing it on YouTube. She now runs a website warning teenagers against trying the prank. Picture: AP Source: AP

DON'T take the cinnamon challenge. That's the advice from doctors in a new report about a dangerous prank depicted in popular YouTube videos but which has led to hospitalisations and a surge in calls to US poison centres.

The fad involves daring someone to swallow a spoonful of ground cinnamon in 60 seconds without water. But the spice is caustic, and trying to gulp it down can cause choking, throat irritation, breathing trouble and even collapsed lungs, the report said.

Published online in Pediatrics, the report said at least 30 teens nationwide needed medical attention after taking the challenge last year.

The number of poison control centre calls about teens doing the prank "has increased dramatically," from 51 in 2011 to 222 last year, according to the American Association of Poison Control Centers.

"People with asthma or other respiratory conditions are at greater risk of having this result in shortness of breath and trouble breathing," according to an alert posted on the association's website.

Thousands of YouTube videos depict kids attempting the challenge, resulting in an "orange burst of dragon breath" spewing out of their mouths and sometimes hysterical laughter from friends watching the stunt, said report co-author Dr. Steven E. Lipshultz, a pediatrics professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

Cinnamon is made from tree bark and contains cellulose fibers that don't easily break down. Animal research suggests that when cinnamon gets into the lungs, it can cause scarring, Dr Lipshultz said.

Dr. Stephen Pont, a spokesman for the American Academy of Pediatrics and an Austin, Texas pediatrician, said the report is "a call to arms to parents and doctors to be aware of things like the cinnamon challenge" and to pay attention to what their kids are viewing online.

Doctors say the trend of swallowing a spoonful of ground cinnamon in one minute has led to a surge of calls to US poison centres. Picture: Thinkstock

Michigan teen Dejah Reed,16, who was hospitalised for a collapsed lung after trying the cinnamon challenge heartily supports the new advice and started her own website - http://nocinnamonchallenge.com - telling teens to "just say no" to the fad.

Dejah said she took the challenge four times - the final time was in February last year with a friend who didn't want to try it alone.

"I was laughing very hard and I coughed it out and I inhaled it into my lungs," she said. "I couldn't breathe."

Her father, Fred Reed, said he arrived home soon after to find Dejah "a pale bluish color. It was very terrifying. I threw her over my shoulder" and drove to a nearby emergency room.

Ms Dejah was hospitalised for four days and went home with an inhaler she still has to use when she gets short of breath from running or talking too fast. Her dad said she'd never had asthma or breathing problems before.

Ms Dejah said she'd read about the challenge on Facebook and other social networking sites and "thought it would be cool" to try.

Now she knows "it's not cool and it's dangerous."

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