CAMDEN, N.J.

Officers form human net, catch three escaping fire

Several police officers formed a human net to catch a woman and her two young daughters as they jumped from their burning home in southern New Jersey.

Camden County police said the fire on Atlantic Avenue in Camden was reported around 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, when residents notified two officers who happened to be on patrol in the area. They told them the woman and her children, ages 4 and 7, were trapped on the home’s second floor.

Two other police officers soon arrived at the home, and all four gained entry by kicking open the front door. They tried to find the family, but thick smoke and heavy flames hampered their efforts.

One officer collapsed and was helped out of the home as another officer shouted for the mother to take her children to a rear window, police said.

Six other county officers who had responded to the scene circled beneath the window and locked arms, creating a human net. They encouraged the mother and her daughters to jump and safely caught all three.

The woman and her children remained hospitalized in critical condition Thursday with undisclosed injuries. Their names were not released.

CREVE COEUR, Mo.

Man has auto part removed from left arm 51 years later

Fifty-one years ago, Arthur Lampitt of Granite City, Illinois, smashed his 1963 Thunderbird into a truck. This week during surgery in suburban St. Louis, a 7-inch turn signal lever from that T-Bird was removed from his left arm.

Dr. Timothy Lang removed the lever Wednesday during a 45-minute operation. Lampitt, now 75, is recovering at home.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the accident broke Lampitt’s hip, drawing attention away from the arm, which healed. A decade or so ago, his arm set off a courthouse metal detector. An X-ray showed a pencil-sized object, but since it caused no pain or hardship, Lampitt let it be.

He was moving concrete blocks a few weeks ago when the arm began to hurt for the first time, prompting surgery.

ATLANTA

Police chief suspended after shooting his wife

A police chief has been suspended after shooting and critically wounding his wife in their bedroom with his service pistol early Thursday morning, officials said.

Peachtree City police Chief William E. McCollom called 911 shortly after 4 a.m. to report that he accidentally shot his wife, Margaret McCollom, twice, according to a department news release.

Margaret McCollom appeared to have been shot once, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, which is handling the investigation and will refer the case to the local county prosecutor’s office for any possible criminal charges.

– From news service reports

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