Lede Exercise 4a

Story 1:

Christy Wapniarski died suddenly yesterday night after a leisurely afternoon sailing with three of her friends turned dangerous.

Randy Cohen, one of the three who accompanied Christy during this trip, tells how the events occurred from his hospital room in Halifax Hospital in Daytona.

The four friends went out to sea in a 16-foot catamaran, which at about 5 pm started leaking until it sank. They weren’t wearing life jackets, Cohen says. The four friends hung onto one of the pontoons throughout the night, but with a strong ocean current taking their toll on them, they decided to swim four miles to the nearest shore, Ormond Beach.

Partway through the swim, Wapniarski called to Cohen for help, claiming a shark had attacked her. Cohen called for help from the one swimming ahead of him who warned him not to go back or he would also be attacked.

Cohen went to help anyway, but Wapniarski was unconscious by the time he got to her, no sign of sharks in the area. He tried swimming her back to shore, but Perrin, another of their friends who were swimming behind Cohen and Wapniarski took her pulse and pronounced her dead.

Cohen tried swimming her body back to shore, but with another six hours before the three reached the beach, he let her go and finished the swim.

While Cohen is still in residence of the hospital, the other two were examined and released.

Story 2:

A United Airlines jet bound for Omaha, NE crashed into a residential district outside of Chicago’s Second City Airport Friday Afternoon.

Of a total of 61 people on board, 55 were killed, though only 42 bodies have been found so far. One of the deceased was Rep. George W. Collins who was coming back from Washington. The remaining 16 survivors of the crash were admitted to Holy Cross Hospital with injuries.

One survivor reports that the pilot told his passengers that everything was going well, but “knew something was wrong a few seconds later because he began to rev the engines.”

Eyewitnesses, such as John Eldon, are concerned with how Chicago is running their airports and are considering moving.

   

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