Free Republic

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – According to the Florida Highway Patrol, a wrong-way driver caused a crash on Interstate 95 Friday night before she carjacked a FedEx truck, crashed it downtown and jumped into the St. Johns River.

The boy was 11-year-old Ben Baltz of Valparaiso, Florida. At six years old, Ben was diagnosed with bone cancer in his right leg and had his fibula and tibia removed. He walks with a mechanical knee and prosthetic walking leg, which he switches out for a running leg to play sports (including soccer, baseball and children's triathlons). On Sunday, Ben completed the 150-yard swim and 4-mile bike ride and half the one-mile run when a screw came loose and his running leg broke in half. His mom was standing at the finish line, wondering what happened. 'It was only a...

ST. PETERSBURG — A Tampa woman saved the life of a man who had a heart attack during a triathlon Saturday morning, race officials said. Teresa McCoy, 37, was just about to finish the bike portion of the Meek and Mighty Triathlon, part of the annual St. Anthony's Triathlon events, when she saw two police officers huddled over a fellow rider along Bayshore Drive. McCoy recognized the middle-aged man as runner No. 100. The two had chatted briefly before the start of the race. McCoy, a nurse at Tampa General Hospital's cardiac lab, was No. 96. With other riders speeding...

RYE, N.Y. (CNS) -- Atonement Father Dan Callahan evangelizes underwater. And on a bike. And while he's running. All on the same day. And he helps recovering alcoholics and substance abusers at the same time. Father Callahan, 57, is known as the "Iron Friar" for successfully completing 12 daylong triathlons since 1997. Most recently, he finished the Ford Iron Man USA competition July 20 at Lake Placid in 14 hours and 43 minutes. Three inches of rain fell while he swam 2.4 miles in Mirror Lake, biked 112 miles through the Adirondack Mountains and ran a 26.4-mile road marathon. In...

Army Capt. David Rozelle's right foot was blown off when his Humvee rolled over a land mine in Iraq, in June 2003. The next morning, resting in a hospital bed in a tent outside Baghdad, Rozelle woke up, pressed his palms against the sheets and started doing pushups, then situps. He had been a four-sport high school varsity athlete in Austin, Texas, played international rugby in the Army and didn't want to lose his athletic identity. "I wanted to stay fit," said Rozelle, who would become the first amputee soldier to return to combat in Iraq. Since being wounded, Rozelle...

Cycling partner recalls horrifying moment of friend's hit-and-run fatality BY d. LANCE LUNSFORD AVALANCHE-JOURNAL Kedric C. Hobbs, 20, spoke several times about the agony of possibly getting struck by a car while cycling. He and cycling partner Luke Thornton, 20, had been riding together for about a week until Monday night when a red pickup - allegedly driven by 32-year-old Jason D. McInroe - struck Hobbs, killing him. On the side of the road, in the 7800 block of Fourth Street's dusty shoulder, Thornton held Hobbs in his arms, having unsuccessfully felt for a pulse in the moments after the...