Dizney Words

Shropshire hospitals are being asked to teach the health service how to save patients from long waits in ambulances outside busy A&E units.The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital Trust is recognised as having one of the best records in the West Midlands for enabling ambulances to meet their “turnaround” times.

Ambulance crews are expected to have handed over their patients at an emergency department within 15 minutes of arrival, though 30 minutes seems to be the generally accepted limit.

However, they can face long delays when A&E units are running at full capacity and are having difficulty admitting patients to the wards.

Witnesses have in the past reported seeing ambulances queuing up outside the entrance to the casualty department at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital.

And this year a report to the West Midlands Ambulance Service revealed that during February more than 370 patients brought to Telford’s Princess Royal Hospital had their handover delayed by between 30 and 60 minutes.

Nineteen had to wait between one and two hours, with three waiting more than two hours.

At the Royal Shrewsbury, 191 patients faced a handover wait of 30 to 60 minutes, with 10 waiting between one and two hours, and three longer than two hours.

The trust can still have what chief executive Tom Taylor describes as “bad days”, but is performing well on “turnaround” times. To-morrow the board will hear from Mr Taylor, that the str- ategic health authority is se- nding representatives to see what lessons the regional NHS can learn from it.

In April, 24 per cent of the trust’s emergency patients faced a handover wait of more than 30 minutes but in May the figure was 19 per cent and last month it was down to 17 per cent. Other trusts have been pushing the 50 per cent mark.

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ALAMEDA - The Turlock American East 11-12-year-old All-star squad couldn’t quite hang with Petaluma Valley during the loser’s bracket final of the Northern California Divisional Little League Tournament Sunday afternoon at Will C. Wood Middle School.

Petaluma Valley’s All-stars opened up this elimination ball game swinging the bats, and PV jumped out to a seven-run lead after the first nine outs.

Petaluma Valley’s Clay Hardy went deep twice for four RBIs, which eventually helped eliminate Turlock, 13-5.

“To come out early and get a few runs settled us,” Petaluma Valley’s head All-star coach Chris Micco said. “Turlock was a great team, but we got after it and played great too. Hats off to Turlock. There are no losers at this level.

“We’ve had a lot of aggressive bats. In this (tourney) we’ve had 11 of our 12 guys hit home runs, and the 12th guy hit the fence.”

Petaluma scored the first three runs on one swing via Hardy. Dominic Garihan knocked in Mitchell Wihelmsen for the 4-0 cushion early on.

In the second inning Petaluma tacked on three more runs to make up the seven-run deficit.

“We haven’t been down like that before,” Turlock’s American East 12-year-old All-star assistant coach Kilani Bush said. “I knew (a comeback) was in them, but this is baseball and we had a long run. I thought our district was the toughest in the area.

“They had fun and saw the light, but it was a long season for some of these kids.”

Turlock’s pitcher Tyler Murphy started the ball game, and after giving up seven runs he got two of them back in the bottom of the second. Murphy hit a two-run shot with Jordan Gonzalez on base to make it 7-2 at that point.

Gonzalez finished 3-for-3 with two scored runs. After a scoreless top of the third inning for PV, Turlock got another run in the bottom of three to cut their deficit to four. Austin Bush got on with a hit, then Gonzalez followed it. Gonzalez eventually crossed the plate on Murphy’s RBI that was ruled a fielder’s choice.

Both teams went scoreless in the fourth inning, but in the top of the fifth Petaluma tacked on the proverbial exclamation point.

Petaluma Valley hit its third and fourth home runs of the ball game back-to-back to make it 9-3, and two additional runs in that inning made it 11-3.

“The boys did extremely well,” Bush said. “They over-achieved. A lot of people may have expected more out of them, but this group of kids matched up very well.”

Turlock made it a six-run contest in the bottom of the fifth frame. Bush and Gonzalez got on base with two singles. Gonzalez and Bush’s pinch-runner Dakota Edwards crossed the plate to make it 11-5. In the top of the sixth, Petaluma scored two more runs to make up the game’s final score.

“We played one game at a time,” said Phil Salazar, the head skipper of the Turlock AE 12 year old All-stars. “Considering the long haul from Taft to Alameda, it took a toll on everybody. Pleasanton (American) and Petaluma did their homework on our guys, and I was expecting a good game out of both of them.”

Petaluma advanced to Monday’s championship series against Pleasanton, and they pulled off a 4-3 victory in seven innings. The two played for the Northern California Divisional Little League championship on Tuesday at Will C. Wood. The winner of that game moved on to the Western Regional Little League Tournament to be held in San Bernardino, and televised on ESPN2.

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The Turlock American East 12-year-old All-star squad understood that, probably after repeatedly hearing it throughout each of their Little League lives.

Following Sunday afternoon’s season-ending loss to Petaluma Valley in the Northern California Divisional Little League Tournament, I was completely shocked when I discovered that only one Turlock player shed a tear.

I was expecting all the 12 year olds to cry a river after such a loss. Turlock was just three wins away from advancing to the Western Regional Tournament in San Bernardino, which meant Turlock was just one tournament victory away from perhaps making it to the 62nd Little League World Series Aug. 15-24 in Williamsport, Penn.

By the way, this was the furthest any Turlock 11-12-year-old All-star club had ever gone in the summer. It was clearly historical, and ground-breaking.

The Little League World Series features 16 ball clubs from around the globe. The Northern California Tournament featured six teams from the upper half of the state, all of which had won their sections.

Turlock was the Section 6 champion, and they rolled into the Northern California Tournament ready to play. They dropped one of the toughest teams in the tourney, 1-0, not to mention one of the toughest pitchers, a left-hander from Briarwood of El Camino that threw a no-hitter against Turlock and tallied up 20 strikeouts in a game that went eight innings.

After that, Turlock AE dropped Woodcreek’s All-stars of Sacramento Thursday, which made them 2-0 and put them in the winner’s bracket semifinals Saturday.

Turlock came up short against Pleasanton American’s All-stars 8-3, which knocked them into the loser’s bracket Sunday. There they had to face Petaluma Valley, who knocked off Briarwood and Woodcreek just to make it to Sunday.

The funny thing is, Turlock and Petaluma both lost to the same team and beat the same two teams in this tournament before facing off.

Something had to give.

Petaluma jumped on Turlock quickly, scoring four runs in the first and three in the second, which gave them a 7-0 cushion. Clay Hardy of Petaluma went out the park twice in the first two innings. He hit a three-run bomb that gave PV a 3-0 lead, then he sent a solo shot over the fence that made it a 5-0 contest.

Turlock’s AE squad didn’t quit, though. They made it a four-run contest with three innings to go. However Petaluma still had fuel in the tank.

In the top of the fifth they hit back-to-back shots to make it 9-3, and that essentially crushed the Turlock boys’ dreams of making it to the Western Regionals.

After the inning was up the score was 11-3 with six outs left.

That’s when I expected the tears.

Instead, the kids didn’t seem too worried about it. In the dugout they all laughed and made jokes about it.

Some of the kids were even being slightly sarcastic about the situation. If I just got to that game late I couldn’t have told you who was moving on or going home for the rest of the summer.

Even though they lost it wasn’t life or death. That’s what I applaud. If I was that age, in that kind of a ball game, I know I wouldn’t have been joking around like everything was fun and games.

I would have took it far more serious - maybe a little too serious. I would have been a kid whose mom and dad would have had to slap around just to get out of the sour mood I was in for two weeks after the fact.

I would have been a little more like Jordan Gonzalez, a kid who reminded me a little bit of myself Sunday; not skill or talent-wise of course, just the attitude part.

Gonzalez gave me the sense that he really cared. A lot of the other kids didn’t show me that. Gonzalez did, and he showed me he’s a leader. Gonzalez didn’t want to go home.

After Petaluma scored their 12th and 13th runs of the ball game, which made it a 13-5 contest with a half of inning to play, Gonzalez did something that I will never forget for as long as I cover the kid here in the city of Turlock. With basically no chance of the Turlock AE stars winning the game, Gonzalez went back to the dugout and strapped up the bottom half of his gear. He was the catcher that day, and he was ready to go back out and catch if this game went an extra inning.

Of course it wasn’t, but that’s the heart of a fighter.

Telling other kids to go home if they do not want to play, or if they don’t think they can come-back from such a deficit - that’s a leader. Telling the coach to not let a certain kid bat because he’s already thinking strikeout…that’s someone who wants to win.

As for the rest of the boys, I’m not saying you didn’t want to win. I know it’s been a long haul, and I know you guys would like to have the rest of your summer vacations before going back to school.

At the same time, even though I was surprised that only one player cried, I wanted to see the kids take the situation a little more seriously. Clearly there was no pressure on them at all, and that’s kudos to the parents. In the end everyone knew it was just a ball game…maybe that’s why there were no tears.

After all, the Turlock boys had nothing to cry about.

Out of 30 districts in Northern California (approximately 12 teams per district), Turlock AE finished third out of roughly 360 12-year-old All-star teams in the upper half of the state.

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Washington, July 29 :Disney star Miley Cyrus may soon be bidding goodbye to the famous Disney TV series ‘Hannah Montana’.

Apparently the multitalented teenager, who will soon be turning 16, has been working with Disney since age 11 and feels it’s time to finally break the monotony and end the Disney series.

“I just think we did a lot of episodes, we basically did two seasons in one last year, usually people would do one season that would be, like, 16 episodes, and we did almost 30 episodes!” E! Online quoted Cyrus, as saying.

“It seems like it’’s been on, like, longer,” she added.

Although Cyrus has been thinking on lines of leaving the show, she insists all the talk about her distancing herself from the show is mere codswallop.

“I”m still with my family, you know, they”re safe, they always feel like home, and that’’s what I love about the company, they are family,” Cyrus said.

“We do not know if this is the last season,” the star’s representative said. (ANI)

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Recently there was supposed to be a mega fight between Mauricio “Shogun” Rua and Chuck Liddell in London.  Then Rua got injured and the UFC threw Rashad Evans in to fight Liddell in June.

Then the “Iceman” went down with a hamstring tear and was out of action…fight off.

Because of this, Liddell and about ten of his entourage decided to have a European vacation/ tour, not with the Griswold’s, but with Liddell’s girlfriend Erin Wilson.

Even though Chuck could not put together a fight plan, there was another plan going on.

This was the time Liddell would propose to his girlfriend at the the Eiffel Tower.

Apparently, there are light shows that go off every thirty minutes and the atmosphere is an incredibly romantic environment for this type of situation, at least a friend told him.

Liddell has never been married and was ready to do it, and do it right.  This seemed perfect.

When Liddell and his crew arrived they waited for the light show…

Then they waited some more…

An hour went by and still no lights.

“I was showing everybody everything in the area, just making stuff up,” Liddell says.

Chuck continued to stall for another half hour as a friend of his hinted that the light show would begin any second.

Another half hour rolled by and still…no lights.

At this point everyone was ready to leave.  Liddell realized waiting for the lights has come and gone. 

However,  Liddell got down on one knee and proposed. Wilson, his girlfriend, was speechless for a few seconds, then said yes.

They sealed the deal with a kiss.

As everyone was leaving the typical “ooohhs” and “aaahhs” were heard.

“That kind of sucked, those g*& dam* lights,”  said Liddell.

No wedding date has been set yet.

Now let’s see if Liddell can make a smooth move on the Light Heavyweight Title.

With one more win, he could get that shot.

If so, you can guarantee there will be a “light show” that night.
Credit ESPN.com/ Ryan Hockensmith

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Long after he left school, Emmitt Thomas remained a student.

Quick and agile, the undrafted cornerback from tiny Bishop College became a five-time Pro Bowler. His 12 interceptions in 1974 were two shy of the NFL record. His 58 interceptions in a 13-year career are fourth most among cornerbacks and stand as the record for the Kansas City Chiefs.

But teammates also admired a quietly studious approach to an inherently violent craft, the way he used his mind to complement his speed. Thomas would analyze every aspect of football. He wanted to know where everyone else was going to be and what they were going to do and when they were going to do it.

“He was a scholar of football,” said Hall of Fame linebacker Bobby Bell, who teamed with Thomas to form one of the NFL’s great defences of the ’60s. “Emmitt was so smart. He always knew what was going on. Nobody who played with him was a bit surprised that he became a successful coach.”

They’re also not surprised that he’s finally headed for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Nominated by the veterans committee, Thomas will be taking a few days off from his duties as assistant head coach and secondary coach of the Atlanta Falcons to be enshrined Saturday in Canton, Ohio.

Coming late in life makes the honour even sweeter.

“It’s overwhelming,” the 65-year-old Thomas said. “My last playing days were 1978, so I figured it was all over.

“I didn’t think anyone else from the Chiefs in my era would possibly make it. After so long, I just kind of gave up. But my son and my wife kept saying, ‘It’s going to happen, it’s going to happen.’ ”

In 181 games, all with the Chiefs, Thomas led the NFL twice in interceptions. One of his three picks in the playoffs in the 1969 season stopped a drive in the club’s 23-7 upset of Minnesota in the Super Bowl.

“Emmitt seemed always to know where to be,” former Chiefs linebacker Jim Lynch said. “You could always go to him with a question and he would give you a straight, direct answer.

“This may sound like a cliche, but he really was like having a coach on the field.”

During the rigorous practices Hall of Fame coach Hank Stram liked to conduct, Len Dawson would use Thomas as the gold standard for cornerbacks.

“I would throw a pass in Emmitt’s direction and then go over to him and ask him if he could have caught it or not in game conditions,” the Hall of Fame quarterback said. “He would give me an honest answer, and that was a huge help.

“I would throw a pass and the receiver would catch it and I’d go to him and say, ‘Emmitt, could you have been there?’ If he said, ‘Yeah, Len, I think I could have been there,’ that told me my timing had to be a little sharper. We’d keep practising and finally Emmitt would say, ‘Yeah, that was good.’ I figured if I could beat Emmitt, then I had a darn good shot at beating anybody.”

When Thomas came into his first camp as a bashful, undrafted free agent in 1966, the Chiefs were loaded with talent. Tom Bettis, their defensive co-ordinator, pulled him aside.

“He said, ‘Emmitt, you’re going to have to learn everything,’ ” Thomas recalled. “So I learned the safety position and both corners.

“Then I learned about the linebacker play, which was very instrumental in me knowing where to leverage the play because I would know where the linebackers were going to be. Yes, it really helped me.”

Shortly after retiring as a player, Thomas began a coaching career that’s included stops with the St. Louis Cardinals, Washington Redskins, Philadelphia Eagles, Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings along with the Falcons.

Now he goes into the Hall with Stram and five other players from Kansas City’s Super Bowl team - Bell, Dawson, Willie Lanier, Buck Buchanan and Jan Stenerud.

“To be signed as a free agent and walk on and make the team, and to get in there with a group of great athletes in a nice community in Kansas City - and look where I am now,” he said. “It’s fantastic.”

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BOSTON — As if dealing away Manny Ramirez wasn’t complicated enough, the Red Sox last night were working feverishly to move the controversial outfielder in a three-team deal involving the Florida Marlins and Pittsburgh Pirates that, if completed, would give the Sox a power bat to replace Ramirez in left field and some bullpen help.

The basic structure is this: the Red Sox would send Ramirez (and cash to pay his remaining salary) and a prospect to the Marlins. The Red Sox would get two or three prospects back from the Marlins, and send them and a prospect of their own to Pittsburgh and the Sox would get outfielder Jason Bay and reliever John Grabow. The Pirates would also get Jeremy Hermida from the Marlins.

But late last night there was nothing official in place and the deal was fluid, with plenty of details still to complete. It stood an equal chance of collapsing under its own weight as today’s 4 p.m. non-waiver trading deadline approached.

The Marlins emerged fairly late in the process as a player for Ramirez. Earlier in the week, the Red Sox had sounded out the Mets, Phillies, Dodgers and Diamondbacks to gauge their level of interest in Ramirez and found little.

The prospect of the Sox paying off the remaining $7 million on the final year of Ramirez’s deal, however, enticed the low-budget Marlins to become serious bidders. The Marlins’ total payroll of approximately $22 million is barely more than the $20 million Ramirez makes this season.

In an effort to eliminate as many obstacles to a deal as possible, however, the Sox let it be known that they would be responsible for Ramirez’s entire remaining salary. The opportunity to get Ramirez for free — at least in terms of salary — intrigued the Marlins.

Locked in a three-team N.L. East race with the Mets and Phillies, the Marlins could use an offensive boost. Ramirez would be strictly a short-term rental for the Marlins, who would not exercise the first of Ramirez’s options. By offering Ramirez salary arbitration — which Ramirez would surely decline — they would be entitled to two compensation draft picks next June.

The player cost for Ramirez is relatively low for the Marlins. The two picks would immediately replace the prospects, meaning that the club gives up Hermida for two months of Ramirez..

Meanwhile, the biggest sticking point last night lay with the Pirates, who were demanding a huge return for Bay, the team’s most popular player. Bay is signed through the end of 2009 when he can become a free agent.

His salary is $5.75 million this season and $7.5 million in 2009.

The Pirates shipped outfielder Xavier Nady and reliever Damaso Marte to the New York Yankees last week for four prospects and the relatively modest return may have helped drive up the price for this deal.

Bay, who will turn 30 in September, is obviously the centerpiece of the deal from the Red Sox standpoint. A patient hitter with a career .376 on-base percentage, he has a .282 lifetime average. The National League Rookie of the Year in 2004, he’s been a two-time All-Star selection. His best season was 2005, when he hit .306 with 32 homers and 101 RBI. A year later, he established career-highs in homers (35) and RBI (109).

Grabow, meanwhile, would give the Sox a lefty specialist for their bullpen. This season, he’s limiting lefty hitters to a .240 batting average, though over the course of his career, he’s been more effective against righties (.266 batting average) than lefties (.272).

This season, Grabow is 5-3 with a 3.19 ERA in 48 games. Over the last four seasons, he’s been a workhorse for the Pirates, appearing in no fewer than 63 games each year.

Until the Ramirez deal commanded all their attention, the Red Sox were also continuing their search for other left-handed relief reinforcements.

Their interest in Atlanta’s Will Ohman is minimal, since they have questions about Ohman’s ability to pitch in a market like Boston.

The Sox remain in pursuit of Ohman’s former teammate with the Cubs, Scott Eyre. The Cubs have two other lefties — Neal Cotts and Sean Marshall — and have some depth from which to deal.

Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals have proposed a deal that would send Ron Mahay to the Sox in exchange for Brandon Moss. Mahay, who was drafted by the Red Sox as an outfielder, then converted to a pitcher, and has emerged as one of the game’s better lefty specialists.

Mahay is in the first year of a two-year, $8-million deal. Mahay’s money next year would merely replace the $3 million the Sox are paying Mike Timlin this season. Timlin, 42, is a free agent and is not expected back in 2009.

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Think you know everything there is to know about sharks? We talked to Dr. Aaron Fisk, a scientist from the University of Windsor, and Arctic shark expert, and he shared some interesting tidbits about the Canadian sharks of the North. Find out some fascinating facts from our shark specialist and learn about some unusual scenarios he encounters during his many expeditions to the Arctic.

The shark experts give us the answers:

Dr. Aaron Fisk, Associate Professor, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research University of Windsor

Dr. Steven Campana; Research Scientist, Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Halifax
Bailey McMeans, PhD student, Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research, University of Windsor

1. They are amongst the longest living sharks known to man. The Pacific Sleeper and the Greenland shark are believed to live over 100 years, and might even live to 200 years.

Fisk and his team can estimate the age of these sharks by their measurement in centimeters. As he explains, these species have been found to grow about 12 centimeters every 16 years - that’s approximately a centimeter a year. When born, these sharks are believed to be around 50-70 centimeters long, whereas grown adults have been found to be as large as 300 to 400 centimeters - some scientists even report adults that stretch up to 600 centimeters. These finding suggest they have been around for a very, very long time.

2. They eat anything and everything. The Pacific Sleeper and the Greenland love to eat. In fact, there is nothing that they won’t munch on. Dr. Fisk has come across a wide variety of things sitting within the stomachs of these sharks, including Polar bears, seals, Minke whales, Porpoises, starfish and up 50 kg of fish. Dogs, horses, birds, and even a human foot have also been reported amongst the list of contents found in the Greenland and the Pacific’s belly.

Dr. Fisk notes: it is really rare to come across a Greenland or a Pacific shark with an empty stomach. As very opportunistic fish, they are constantly eating. In 95% of the Greenland sharks Dr. Fisk has examined, their tummies have been full.

3. They are cannibalistic creatures. Very often when Greenland sharks get caught on a line they are eaten by their peers. There is nothing these guys won’t chow down on, not even their own kind.

Scientists can tell when the attackers are Greenland sharks because of the tell-tale, cookie cutter bite marks they leave behind.

4. There are lots of them. The Pacific Sleeper and the Greenland just might be among the most numerous large sharks in the world, according to this team of experts. They have survived many serious fishing periods (claiming tens of thousands of these sharks per year) and still continue to remain very high in numbers. They are very easy fish to catch, notes Dr. Fisk, and it doesn’t take long to come across one in the field — if you know where to look and how to fish them.

Unfortunately the Basking shark has not been so lucky. What used to be a widely spread population, Canada’s number of Basking’s has close to disappeared; it is now rare to see a Basking shark in North American waters (only 6 have been spotted in the Canadian Pacific since 1996). Historical hunting and eradication programs implemented by the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans (1945-1970) — because of the Basking shark’s interference with Salmon fishing — are believed to be responsible for their disappearance.

5. They have great range. The Basking, Pacific Sleeper and the Greenland shark are all incredibly versatile swimmers and are able to travel to incredible depths underwater. Greenland sharks have been spotted as far as 2200 meters below the surface. The experts note, it is extremely rare for sharks this big to be able to travel so deep, and also be able to swim so close up to ocean surface.

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The parents of slain University of Memphis football player Taylor Bradford hope to learn more about why he was killed from a new episode of “The First 48.”

The A&E show that follows homicide detectives from various cities during two days of investigation will air the episode “The Last Yard” about Bradford on Tuesday night.

The defensive lineman from Nashville was shot Sept. 30 during a robbery attempt after he left his university apartment. He drove his car into a tree on Zach Curlin Drive. A campus security officer found him pinned in the car.

Four men, including a fellow student at the UofM, are charged with first-degree murder and attempted aggravated robbery.

Jimmie and Marva Bradford, who were interviewed for the episode, will watch the show from their Nashville home with their son, Vincent, who attends Kentucky State.

“I hope to get a better understanding of why those four guys would take my son’s life,” Jimmie Bradford said. “It was a senseless act.”

While the Bradfords cooperated with the show, the university chose not to.

The university asked for certain restrictions from the show, but producers wouldn’t agree, said UofM spokesman Curt Guenther.

He said the university wasn’t concerned about its image, but rather whether an episode that could appear in reruns for years would bring any closure for the students and faculty.

“It was a horrific incident, and you don’t want it to keep coming back again and again,” Guenther said.

Tuesday’s show follows a recent episode about the Lester Street murders. John Kim, executive producer for “The First 48,” said the Bradford episode will be the second-to-last Memphis installment on the show.

The Memphis Police Department chose not to renew its contract with the show’s production company, although Police Director Larry Godwin said earlier this month he is reconsidering that decision.

Jimmie Bradford said he’s not worried about the emotions the show will evoke for him Tuesday night.

There’s not an hour of the day he doesn’t think about his son. He sees young people going about their lives and it hurts.

He uses Taylor’s cell phone now. It still has Taylor speaking on the voicemail. Bradford calls it sometimes to hear his son.

“You’ve reached the voicemail of Taylor Bradford. Leave your name and number after the beep, and I’ll be sure to return your call.”

‘The Last Yard’

“The First 48″ will air its episode on the Taylor Bradford murder at 8p.m. Tuesday on A&E. The episode will be replayed at midnight.

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When the 5.4 magnitude earthquake shook Southern California, Ken Lorenz and his family, who live near Maple Valley, were at Disney’s California Adventure Park.

“It started like a low rumble,” said Lorenz, who was with his wife and three kids. “I was on the wharf area, and I could feel it moving. Then it shifted back.”

The 11:42 a.m. quake was centered 29 miles southeast of downtown Los Angeles near the San Bernadino County city of Chino Hills, and the U.S. Geological Survey estimated the quake was about 8 miles below the earth’s surface, according to The Associated Press.

“It felt stronger than the Nisqually Quake,” Lorenz said, referencing the 6.8 magnitude quake that shook Seattle in February 2001.

“I looked across and saw all the rides shut down instantly. Once it was secure, staff stared getting people down.”

Lorenz said he knew of three aftershocks. The AP reported there were more than a dozen, the largest estimated at magnitude-3.8. No injuries were immediately reported because of the quakes.

Lorenz, vice president of Puyallup-based Interstate Construction Group, traveled to California for a business trip, but brought his wife and three kids for an extra few days at the amusement park.

The reactions of his kids – Brandon, 13; Makaili, 12 and Elizabeth, 5:

They were so excited to be at the park, they didn’t notice the quake while waiting to get on another ride, he said.

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