St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 3

3 JUL 1 3 1991 ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH AS ST. LOUISSATU1DAY SATURDAY, JULY 13, 1991 3A Three Injured In Rescue Of Man In Burning House "XL i Site Of Fire Trapped Victim I -m I 7 I 1 I. I LAr, mmrnLM 44 ts.iyxm CountMt Ouchott 5 a Empress -5 EM js- a Post-Oispatcri Map giHu.Mi.nwM i ft Electric Current By Virgil Tipton Of the Post-Dispatch Staff 'Three people were seriously hurt FriJay morning trying to rescue a man trapped in an electric current inside a burning house in north St. Louis County.

man, Divad Wells, 20, was listed in serious condition at St. John's Mercy Medical Center In Creve Coeur. He was suffering from burns and smoke inhalation, said a spokeswoman, Elizabeth Freeman. His father, David Wells, 45, was listed in critical condition at Christian Hospital Northeast in North County, said, spokesman Chris Little. David Wells was suffering from electrical shock and smoke inhalation.

'witnesses said David Wells had escaped from the fire unscathed but rushed back into the house to try to rescue his son. Two other people were shocked trying to pull Divad Wells to safety. They were Moline Acres Police Officer William' Smith 27, and Edward Brueg-geman, 37, a neighbor. Both were listed in serious condition at Christian Hospital Northeast. other people three youths and two children escaped injury after one of the youths awakened the other people inside the house.

According to police, firefighters and witnesses, this is how events unfolded: fire broke out about 5 a.m. at the Wells home at 10141 Earl Drive in the Castle Point area of North County, near Moline Acres. Gwendolyn Wells, David Wells' wife, was not at home. She had been admitted to a hospital for heart problems, said her mother, Tarlice Dozier. At home were David Wells and their children, Divad, Carlos, 16, Juanita, ABOVE: William Ostendorf (left) and Dean Joerling of the St.

Louis County Bomb and Arson Squad inspecting damage at the house. BELOW: From left, are Virginia Rodgers, 15; Divonne Wells, 10; Carlos Wells, 16; and Gainita Wells, 14. tIShr Vri iTf if- -ETC 1 11 Uavid Wells escaped from the fire unscathed but rushed back into the house to try to rescue his son. 15, Jenny, 10, and Divon, 10. Laronne Wells, 16, Gwendolyn Wells' brother, also was in the home.

The fire may have been ignited by an electrical short, said St. Louis County Police Detective Butch Albert. Laronne Wells said rainwater had dripped through an air vent onto the fuse box earlier in the evening. "I smelled the smoke and woke up," Laronne Wells said. "I started telling everybody to get out." Divad Wells fell and was unable to escape, Laronne Wells said.

Authorities said Divad Wells apparently fell into a pool of water that was electrified or was wedged against a freezer that had shorted out. Laronne Wells said he had kicked in the back door and tried to pull his nephew to safety but was unsuccessful. He asked for help from Bruegge-man, who suffered a shock when he touched Divad Wells. Smith then tried to pull Wells from a doorway to safety but suffered a shock, said Moline Acres Chief Robert Yarnall. Whenever rescuers tried to touch Wells, "they would get an electrical shock, too," said Capt.

Floyd Renner of the Moline Fire Protection District. Smith and Officer George Sample pulled Wells partly out of the doorway using nightsticks, Yarnall said. Firefighters wearing rubber gloves were Clinical Laboratories Inc. and three physicians who treated Ryan. It seeks unspecified actual and punitive damages.

The suit says the defendants should have known that Ryan suffered not from poisoning but from methylmalonic acidemia, a genetic disorder that produces symptoms similar to ethylene glycol poisoning. It says the defendants knew before Patricia Stallings' trial that Ryan's younger brother, David Stallings suffered from the disorder but refused to perform additional testing that would have shown that Ryan also had it. The suit says that because of a misdiagnosis: Ryan suffered and died. Patricia Stallings was prosecuted criminally. The Stallings ran up heavy medical and legal bills.

They lost custody of David Jr. They suffered damage to their a Convicted Woman Sues Her Child's Doctors, Lab Girl From Belleville, 1 1 Drowns In Meramec; Brother Is Rescued Parents Reported To Have Told Wading Children To Come Back By Virgil Tipton Of the Post-Dispatch Staff An 11-year-old girl from Belleville apparently drowned Friday afternoon when she and her brother were pulled into swift currents in the Meramec River and she lost her grip on the inflatable armbands her brother was wearing. Officers from the Missouri Water Patrol and the Franklin County Sheriffs Department were looking Friday evening for the body of the victim, Joanna J. Kohlbrecher. The names of the parents and of the brother were unavailable.

The incident took place about 1:40 p.m. at the Meramec Caverns Campground near Stanton, said Cheryl Holmes, a radio operator for the Water Patrol. Sheriff's Deputy Kenneth Hotsenpiller said Joanna and her Ram I annaPnet-nisnafoh who was wearing floaters on his arms, Hotsenpiller said. But she lost her grip and went under, he said. -j A man from Fenton, whose namp was unavailable, waded into the river twice to try to find Joanna.

"The current was pulling him under, so he had to come back," Hotsenpiller said, Another bystander, a woman fror(i St. Louis whose name also was unavailable, pulled Joanna's brother from the river. She spotted the boy because of his inflatable armbands, Hotsenpiller said. "Those little floaters were probably what saved his life," he said. Les Turilll, manager of Meramea Caverns, said swimming was especial5 ly dangerous in the high water.

just had torrential rains. The river up about four feet," he said. "Youj can't see one inch into the river." u-i Hi '-) the allegation had been influenced by- a recent Belleville News-Democrat' report quoting a former officer and unnamed sources as saying Chief Rotn ert Hurst formed a special unit -bt officers to harass black motorists ih' the west end of Belleville in the late 1980s. Hurst and Mayor Richard Brauer were unavailable for comment Fr day. But they have denied that the special police unit was formed to hi-j rass blacks or that police and city policies contained racial prejudice, Roland Whitley and his parents were unavailable for comment, and Kurowskl said he had told them not tp5 discuss the case.

'vj Kurowskl said Roland Whitley was "a good kid" who had no record or anything in his background that would have made police wary tf him. $3 House Seat cause the House district also Is heavljy Democratic. ii The game of political musical chairs began when Sen. John F. quit in the middle of his four-year term to take a congressional staff position in Washington arranged by elder Clay.

Bass' resignation to make way for, Clay Jr. had been rumored for several, years. Williamson, 68, worked 15 years for" the courts here, most recently as chief clerk of the circuit court's juvenile division. Williamson, a longtime worker Ifti the Clay political organization, sue-' ceeded the elder Clay as 26th Ward committeeman four years ago. Williamson said he had been among those who marched with Clay In th4 milestone civil rights demonstrations 1 against Jefferson Bank in the 1960s.

able to pull him out of the blazing doorway, Renner said. Before firefighters arrived, David Wells entered the house to help Divad Wells and got trapped inside, said Marian Woolfolk, a neighbor. "He went back in to get his son," she said. Firefighters from the Moline, Blackjack and Riverview Fire Protection Districts pulled David Wells from the house, Renner said. Standing outside the gutted home Friday afternoon, Dozier said she thanked God that so many people had escaped injury.

"It'a a miracle they were saved," she said. "Looking at the inside of the house, I don't know how they got out." 3 I ff 'mum Patricia Stallings Sentenced to life term reputations. They lost earnings. In Stallings' criminal trial, Judge Gary P. Kramer ruled that evidence about David condition was irrelevant and was inadmissible.

David Jr. has been in foster care since he was born in February 1990. If that happens, "we are going back to square one" because there are many nations willing to sell arms to Iraq all over again, he said. "I can't understand why people are so critical of these people being convicted of collaboration" with the Iraqis, al-Sabah said. "We could have easily captured those collaborators, executed them and none of you would have ever heard about it," he said.

But after the initial action by vigilantes, al-Sabah said, "full legal access" was provided for those arrested. Death sentences have been commuted to life, and only 15 of the 112 accused collaborators have been convicted, he said. Those who accuse Kuwait of violating human rights are opponents of the war who "are trying to show that Kuwait was not worth liberating," he said. Kuwait is preparing for elections next year to restore the Parliament that was dissolved in 1986, he said. He said he expected that women would be given the right to vote.

mm v. Black Parents Sue Belleville They Say Police Officer Assaulted Youth As Result Of City Policy hf i ill 4 ill. Yydfe By Thom Gross Of the Post-Dispatch Staff Patricia Stallings, convicted of poisoning to death her 5-month-old son, has filed suit, charging that doctors and, a clinical laboratory misdiagnosed the baby's ailment, which she claims was a genetic disorder. Stallings, 25, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of first-degree murder Jan. 31 in Jefferson County Circuit Court.

She was accused of poisoning her son, Ryan, with ethylene glycol the main ingredient in antifreeze. He died in September 1989 after being hospitalized twice that year for symptoms of vomiting and lethargy. The conviction is under appeal. The suit was filed Thursday in St. Louis Circuit Court by Stallings and her; husband, David P.

Stallings, of the Hillsboro area. Defendants are St. Louis University Hospitals, Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital, Smithkline Beecham Saddam's Successor Is Feared May Be Worse, Envoy Ot Kuwait Says Here By Fred W. Lindecke Missouri Political Correspondent The Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States says it is only a matter of time before Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is removed but that Kuwait is in no hurry to see him go because his successor could be just as much trouble. Meanwhile, if Saddam ignores U.N.

orders to destroy his nuclear weapon capability, "I think he is going to face another confrontation with armed forces," the ambassador, Sheik Saud Nasir al-Sabah, told the St. Louis World Affairs Council on Friday. At a press conference, al-Sabah said Kuwait was giving accused Iraqi collaborators fair trials and due process of law. But after Iraq forces were driven from Kuwait, "vigilante groups took things into their own hands" against suspected collaborators. After speaking to the World Affairs Council at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Clayton, al-Sabah went to McDonnell Douglas Corp.

to inspect the first of 40 FA-18 Hornet fighter planes that Kuwait is buying from the United States. Al-Sabah told the council's lunch meeting that he sometimes had to laugB at critics who say the United States and its U.N. allies should not have stopped the Persian Gulf War in February because Saddam Hussein still controls Iraq. "These are the same people who were against the war originally," al-Sabah said. He said the United Nations mandate was "liberation of Kuwait, period." He said coalition forces had no authority to occupy Iraq and topple Saddam.

If they had done so, "we would have oanna grabbed onto her brother, who was wearing floaters on his arms. But she lost her grip and went under. brother were with their parents at the campground's beach and waded into the river. "Apparently, they got out too far, and the mother and father told them to come back," Hotsenpiller said. "Apparently, they Just ignored them." The river, which is swollen by the recent rain, was carrying a fast current, which pulled the two children downstream.

Joanna grabbed onto her brother, orderly conduct complaint at a pizza restaurant on Feb. 15. Kurowskl and the suit charge that Whitley was not involved in the disturbance and did nothing to provoke the unidentified officer who attacked him. The suit charged that Belleville "has engaged in policies and a pattern of conduct whereby it has encouraged its officers to target citizens of African-American descent, such as Roland Whitley, for arrest and investigation, and subjected them to great bodily harm merely because" they were black. The suit charged that the pattern of conduct by the city caused Roland Whitley to be deprived of his civil rights.

Kurowskl would not comment on the allegation of a pattern of encouraging police to harass blacks or whether he had evidence to support it. He would not comment on whether Lines Up For Williamson Clay pected to choose Gretchen Liff, 8th Ward GOP committeewoman, as the GOP nominee against Clay Jr. If Clay Jr. wins the Senate election, whoever is then nominated to succeed him in the House would then run In a second special election to be held later this year. The Democratic nominee, who most observers expect would be Williamson, then would be favored be AP Kuwaiti Ambassador Saud Nasir al-Sabah, who spoke to the World Affairs Council in St.

Louis Friday. about reparations for Iraqi war damage. By Charles Bosworth Jr. Of the Post-Dispatch Staff The parents of a 16-y ear-old black youth from Belleville sued the city Friday on charges that a police officer assaulted their son without provocation, an attack they say resulted from city policies that encourage officers to target blacks for suspicion and arrest. Patricia and William Whitley filed the suit in St.

Clair County Circuit Court on behalf of their son, Roland, who graduated last month from Belleville Township High School East. The suit seeks damages of more than $15,000 and punitive damages of $250,000 on each of three counts charging civil rights violations, battery and negligence by the city. Their attorney, John J. Kurowskl of Belleville, said Roland Whitley was struck on the head and thrown against his car, injuring his back and neck, while police were investigating a dis Williamson By Mark Schlinkmann Regional Political Correspondent Frank Williamson, the 26th Ward Democratic committeeman and a retired court official, has been tapped to succeed state Rep. William Clay Jr.

in the Missouri House later this year. Clay, the Democratic nominee for a state Senate vacancy in a special election Sept. 3, said he had asked party committeemen and committeewomen in his district to nominate Williamson to succeed him in the House. Williamson said Clay's father, U.S. Rep.

William Clay, also was expected to support Williamson. The younger Clay is a favorite to win the Senate vacancy in the special election because the district is heavily Democratic. Republican committeemen and committeew)jhen in the Senate district will meet Tuesday and are ex- heik Saud Nasir al-Sabah said Kuwait was giving accused Iraqi collaborators fair trials and due process of law. found ourselves in a messy situation, difficult to get out of," he said at the press conference. The United States and its allies would have become involved in Iraqi domestic politics, and any government installed would have been viewed as a puppet government, he said.

The fate of Saddam should be left to the Iraqi people, al-Sabah said. "I'd rather see him sitting there, crippled as he is and so obedient." No matter whether Saddam stays or goes, "there will be turmoil and civil disturbances" in Iraq, he said. Kuwait fears that if Saddam is replaced, the United States and the world would be willing to lift sanctions and the ercbargo for a new Iraqi regime and would tell Kuwait to forget.