Worse-Case Scenario Suit Filed Against Toyota Over Sudden Accelerations

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Posted on 6th March 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

Toyota is already being sued over accidents caused by the sudden-acceleration of its cars, with some of those lawsuits seeking class action status. But there is one suit that the automaker will likely have a particularly tough time defending itself against, according to The Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703862704575099861335382140.html?mod=WSJ-auto-IndustryCollection#articleTabs_article

That product liability and negligence suit stems from the case of an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer who was killed in an accident, along with his family, in San Diego when the Lexus he was driving suddenly sped out of control, accelerating to 120 miles an hour.

But this accident is different than the others in several important ways. First, the Lexus being driven by the off-duty officer, Mark Saylor, was a loaner car from a dealership. Secondly, the customer who had used the loaner car before Sawyer had told the dealership that its accelerator had gotten stuck.

According to The Journal, Saylor’s fatal crash was a particularly disturbing one. After accelerating, the Lexus hit a Ford Explorer, crashed through a fence, flipped over and then exploded in flames. Sawyer and his three passengers were killed.

The Journal points out that in some of the other litigation pending against Toyota over the acceleration issue, there are mitigating factors that could get the car maker off the hook. One driver had epilepsy, and Toyota argued a seizure could have caused his crash. Another driver was old and had parked near a cliff. A third had a stroke.

Saylor’s survivors filed their lawsuit this month in Superior Court in San Diego.

So far federal officials say that there have been 52 deaths linked to the acceleration of their Toyotas. Some experts suggested that each suit filed from the case could result in Toyota having to pay millions of dollars in damages.

Toyota has recalled more than 8 million cars so far.

 

Attorney Gordon Johnson Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice

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Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
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Toyota’s Acceleration Problems Could Have Lead to Man’s Manslaughter Conviction, He Seeks Exam Of His Camry

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Posted on 4th March 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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We’ve all heard of cases when an innocent man is freed from prison after someone steps forward, or new evidence appears, to clear the convicted one of his crime. A similar case has surfaced, but in this one an imprisoned man claims he should be released in light of Toyota’s admitted problem with the sudden acceleration of its some of its vehicles.

On the surface, it looks like the Toyota acceleration screw-up not only killed people, but also put a guiltless man in jail.

Koua Fong Lee is serving an eight-year term for a manslaughter conviction stemming from an accident that killed three people. Lee was driving a 1998 Toyota Camry, one of the vehicles recalled by the automaker, when the crash happened.

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/koua-fong-lee-claims-faulty-toyota-brakes-caused-deadly-accident/19380139?icid=main|main|dl1|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aolnews.com%2Fnation%2Farticle%2Fkoua-fong-lee-claims-faulty-toyota-brakes-caused-deadly-accident%2F19380139

Lee was 29 when the accident took place in June 2006. He was driving home from church in St. Paul, Minn., with his pregnant wife, daughter, father, brother and niece in his car.

Lee had maintained that his Camry suddenly accelerated. Obviously, a jury didn’t believe him. He crashed into several cars ahead of him, killing Javis Adams and his 10-year-old son, Javis Adams Jr. Another child, 6-year-old Devyn Bolton, also died.

During the trial, the prosecution maintained that Lee, a Laotian immigrant, has his foot on the gas when his car crashed. Two inspections done by mechanical engineers maintained that the car’s brakes were working when the crash took place.

Lee’s legal counsel plans to ask court approval to have his Camry from the accident, which is still in police custody, examined by experts who are familiar with the car’s acceleration problems

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

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All’s Well Is Not Ending Well With Toyota Repairs

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Posted on 3rd March 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Toyota is far from off the hook for its deadly accelerator problems, which has resulted in accidents that have killed dozens of people. Now, federal officials are weighing whether to make all trucks and cars made in the U.S. have brakes that can override gas pedals. http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/03/feds-weigh-requiring-brake-devices-on-cars-to-prevent-runaway-acceleration/1

That’s what Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said to Congress on Tuesday.

Right now Washington officials are pinning 52 deaths on Toyota vehicles that suddenly accelerated and crashed. The auto makers has issued 10 million recall notices.

But that’s not what’s most scary now. There are reports that Toyota’s vehicle recall and repairs may not be working. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has received at least seven complaints from people who claim their Toyotas have still suddenly accelerated after having their gas pedals fixed and floor mats replaced by dealerships.

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

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The Toyota Debacle, With The Los Angeles Times Counting At Least 56 Dead from Sudden-Acceleration Accidents

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Posted on 1st March 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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The story of Toyota’s deadly failure to remedy the acceleration problems with its cars had endless twists last week, when Congress held hearings on the matter.

This week, the media is offering up an analysis of what Toyota did and didn’t do, with U.S. lawmakers accusing the automaker of withholding information and other drama. For example, Time magazine did a lively review of the hearings.
http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1968086,00.html#

It’s hard to keep track of it all.

But what often gets neglected in the headlines about the Washington hearings and the official apologies by Toyota management is that people, a lot of people, died terrifying deaths because of these faulty brakes.

But these week, we got some of the heart-breaking stories of those who died when their cars accelerated, speeding out of their control.

First, the Los Angeles Times did lot of legwork and found that at least 56 people have died in accidents related to the sudden acceleration of their Toyota vehicles.
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/28/business/la-fi-toyota-deaths-mainbar28-2010feb28

That piece offers an overview of some of the circumstances and details of these crashes, which may have been avoided if Toyota had acted sooner. The common theme seems to be the terror and helplessness the victims felt before their cars sped out of control and they were killed.

The second story offers a capsule account of each of the 56 deaths, with the person’s name, date of their fatal accident and the circumstances.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/la-fiw-toyota-deaths-list28-2010feb28,0,3224161,print.story

It humanizes these people. It reminds us of when The New York Times wrote profiles of each victim of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. It put a face on those innocents.

The National Highway Safety Board has actually bought the Lexus ES 350 that was owned by hearing witnesses Rhonda and Eddie Smith of Tennessee. They described how their Lexus accelerated on a highway for six long minutes until Rhonda got control of the vehicle again.
http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2010/02/feds-to-study-lexus-that-almost-killed-tenneessee-woman/1

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

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Toyota’s President, And The Car Maker, Come Under Even More Fire, Including a Criminal Probe

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Posted on 23rd February 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Toyota Motor Corp. president Aldo Toyoda will be on the hot seat Wednesday as he answers Congress’s questions about the recall of cars plagued by potentially deadly acceleration issues. Toyoda seems to be trying to make up for the ill-conceived and defensive approach he and the auto maker have taken in this public-relations debacle. But it may be too late, in many respects.

The Wall Street Journal Tuesday has a Page One story, headlined “Support Wavers At Toyota for Chief,” about how the company’s rank-and-file employees and management think Toyoda dropped the ball in his handling of the recalls.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703494404575081102279562036.html#mod=todays_us_nonsub_page_one

There are complaints about his lack of leadership during the company’s worst crisis in history. Even more shocking, some Toyota managers complained that they were not keep p to date about what the company’s actions relating to the recalls, and times first hearing about what was going on after reading it in the media.

Inside the same issue of The Journal, Toyoda had written an Op-Ed piece that really doesn’t do a very convincing job of explaining away Toyota’s too-slow handling of the brakes’ malfunction that has affected its Camry, Lexus and Prius lines.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704454304575081644051321722.html

Perhaps careful not to admit culpability, in light of the lawsuits Toyota faces from families of those killed when their cars suddenly accelerated, Toyoda’s piece was not very passionate, heart-felt or eloquent. You can read it and decide for yourself.

But that may be the least of Toyota’s woes. News broke Tuesday that a federal grand jury and the Securities and Exchange Commission had subpoenaed company documents, kicking off a criminal probe of the car maker’s attempts to deal with fatal problems with accelerator pedals, brakes and floor mats.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704454304575081363213478420.html?KEYWORDS=toyota+and+subpoena

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

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Toyota, After Saving $100 million by Limiting Prior Camry Recall, May Have Been Penny-Wise and Pound Foolish

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Posted on 22nd February 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Toyota, once reputed to be one of America’s most trusted auto brands, keeps digging itself deeper in trouble as more revelations come out about its bungling of its car recall. Hollywood couldn’t have scripted a bigger debacle for an auto maker. The debacle has taken many lives. Hopefully, those killed or injured during the sudden acceleration of their Camrys will ultimately get justice in courts. But if Toyota and other corporations don’t learn from these mistakes, they will just keep happening.

In the latest twist in the convoluted Toyota story, The New York Times wrote Monday that the Japanese auto maker figured it could save $100 million by getting lawmakers to agree to a limited recall for the 2007 Camry and Lexus ES cars.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/business/22toyota.html?hp

That recall was for the same issue that has plagued Toyotas now, namely accelerator pedals getting stuck and cars racing out of control.

The information about the limited recall, part of a presentation, was part of the documents subpoenaed by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, according to The Times.

So far Toyota has recalled more than 8 million cars globally about the issue of accelerators getting stuck. The company has also stopped making and selling the vehicles with suspected accelerator problems.

The $100 million is savings figure was part of a confidential presentation that the president of Toyota’s North American operations, Yoshimi Inaba, made to his staff in Washington.

The car maker said it had gotten several favorable federal rulings regarding a 2007 recall of the Camry and Lexus ES 350 sedans for faulty accelerator pedals. Toyota boasted that by negotiating an equipment recall with the finding of a defect, the company saved $100 million. It also said it had delayed the imposition of federal safety rules impacting other models, saving it millions.

As it turns out, that $100 million savings may not have been such a bargain for Toyota.

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

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DEA weighs new limits on drug eyed in Jackson case

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Posted on 15th July 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Sometimes, you just have to wonder. How did a drug like propofol, slip by the radar screen of the DEA? Are they too busy prosecuting the use of marijuana, fighting off Mexican bandits, or was this just a Bush administration decision to look the other way?

Attorney Gordon Johnson
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Date: 7/15/2009 4:45 PM

DEVLIN BARRETT,Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities are considering making the potent anesthetic propofol — one of the drugs found in Michael Jackson’s home — a controlled substance, which would put new limits on its distribution.

The Drug Enforcement Administration was petitioned two years ago to make propofol a scheduled drug under the Controlled Substances Act. That designation is used to impose restrictions on distributing and prescribing certain drugs prone to abuse and addiction.

DEA spokesman Rusty Payne confirmed Wednesday that the agency is considering adding propofol to the list of controlled substances. The brand-name version of propofol is called Diprivan. A nurse who provided nutritional therapy for Jackson, Cherilynn Lee, has said he asked her for Diprivan to treat insomnia. Propofol is not recommended for such use and Lee said she refused the star’s request.

Until Jackson’s death, the main concern about propofol was its potential for abuse by medical staff, because it is usually administered intravenously in hospitals to patients who need to be unconscious for surgery or other procedures.

The Food and Drug Administration has received an increasing number of reports about fatalities linked to propofol in recent years: 43 in 2008 and 35 in 2007, up from an average of 22 per year over the decade before that, according to FDA data. The increase may be due to increasing use of propofol over older barbiturates.

A central question in the Jackson investigation is who provided that drug and other prescription medications found at his rented Beverly Hills mansion. Investigators are talking to doctors who treated Jackson.

Adding a drug to the federal list of controlled substances is a lengthy process. As part of its review, the DEA asks for a recommendation from officials at the Department of Health and Human Services. HHS experts can stop a drug from being added to the list if they recommend against doing so. Congress can also add specific drugs to the list through legislation.

The federal list of controlled substances is divided into five categories, ranging from some of the most potent, like heroin, to much milder products, like cough medicine with codeine.

Propofol is the country’s most widely used drug to induce general anesthesia, and also is used for other types of health provider-based sedation, said Dr. Stephen Parker, anesthesia chairman at Washington Hospital Center in the nation’s capital.

Hospitals and doctors’ offices must follow specific monitoring requirements for different levels of controlled substances, to track how much is bought and used, and who uses it.

Changing propofol to a controlled substance would require “accounting for every cc of the drug that was used,” Parker said, referring to the way the doses are measured. A teaspoon is about 5 cc’s.

“It would put up barriers for us to easily use the drug,” he said. “It’s a lot of bureaucracy and expense, frankly.”

For at least two years, the American Society of Anesthesiologists has had a committee looking into whether propofol should be made a controlled substance, but this has not been a high priority because abuse of propofol is “much, much less common” than of painkillers such as OxyContin, said Dr. David Zvara, anesthesia chairman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“It’s the drug you get when they say count back from 100 and you only make it to 97,” Zvara said. “It quickly and reliably puts people under — usually, very safely.”

At his university, it is used for about four out of every five procedures and is favored over older drugs like Pentothal and other barbiturates.

However, propofol depresses breathing and the heart rate and lowers blood pressure — risks that must be constantly monitored.

When it is abused, it’s usually by people seeking sleep, but even that is misguided, Zvara said.

___

Associated Press Medical Writers Lauran Neergaard in Washington and Marilynn Marchione in Milwaukee and AP writer Justin Pritchard in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
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Scrub tech causes major hepatitis scare in Colo.

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Posted on 13th July 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Drug addicts and dirty needles. It is the stuff of disturbing stories of pathetic street addicts.. But when that happens inside of a hospital? What a catastrophe. Talk about a dangerous drug – Hepatitis C.

Attorney Gordon Johnson
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Date: 7/11/2009 1:26 PM

P. SOLOMON BANDA,Associated Press Writer

DENVER (AP) — Kimberly Spencer’s 9-year-old son went to Audubon Ambulatory Surgery Center last month for what was supposed to be a routine surgery. The rambunctious child stuck a BB in his ear and doctors had to operate to remove it.

What happened next shocked the family. They were notified that their son is one of 6,000 patients who may have been exposed to hepatitis C by a painkiller-addicted technician who had the disease and allegedly passed on dirty syringes to patients.

The technician has been jailed, thousands of rattled patients have been getting hepatitis C tests, and two medical facilities where she worked have been bombarded with questions about how they let it happen. Ten cases of hepatitis C have been linked to Rose Medical Center, where Kristen Diane Parker worked until April.

“It was originally a humorous child story we could write about in his baby book and now it’s just gone south a little bit,” Spencer said Friday as she awaited results of her son’s blood test. “We’re very optimistic, we think it’s going to be just fine. It’s still unnerving.”

During a police interview videotaped June 30 that was played in court Thursday, the 26-year-old Parker told a detective that she kept dirty saline-filled syringes in her pocket and watched for opportunities when doctors and nurses left the room. She then allegedly stole syringes filled with Fentanyl from operating carts and replaced them with the used syringes.

“I didn’t want to make it obvious to everyone that I was using,” the 26-year-old Parker told the detective in the interview, saying she stole between 15 and 20 syringes of Fentanyl. “I knew my limit.”

Health officials are conducting tests to determine if the 10 hepatitis C cases are definitively linked to Parker. Many people with hepatitis C don’t know they are infected because they don’t develop symptoms until years later.

Parker said she used between 100 to 250 micrograms of the drug each time, roughly enough medication for a 500-pound person, according to medical malpractice attorney Dr. Eric Steiner, a former cardiac anesthesiologist.

Thousands of former surgery patients have contacted Denver’s Rose Medical Center and Audubon Ambulatory Surgery Center in Colorado Springs for free blood tests being offered by both facilities. More than 1,900 former Rose patients have been tested, said hospital spokeswoman Leslie Teegarden.

An Audubon spokesman did not return messages Friday, but state health officials said those at that facility, including Spencer’s son, will be tested again in about seven weeks because it takes that long for the disease to show up in the bloodstream. Hepatitis C is a treatable but incurable blood-borne disease that can cause serious liver problems.

Despite a hopeful attitude for Spencer, mundane every day occurrences have taken on disproportionate significance, such as Thursday when her son fell off his bike and skinned his knee.

“A simple little scrape to me is, ‘Oh my gosh,’ we need to take care of that, wash our hands, bandage him up. It makes you think twice, for everybody; the children he’s playing with, the children I have at home. At the same time I don’t want to overreact for him. He’s nine.

“It’s probably going to be like this for six more weeks until we know for sure.”

Parker’s case could end up being the first in Colorado where a patient got an infection from a health care worker who was tampering with drugs, said Dr. Ned Calonge, chief medical officer for the state health department.

Nationwide, there were four documented cases of nurses and doctors infecting patients with hepatitis C between 1992 and 2003, according to the latest information from Centers for Disease Control. A 1992 case cited in the CDC study involved a surgical technician who was using anesthesia medications.

Parker gave several reasons for using Fentanyl, which is a narcotic 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine: to deal with a custody battle with her ex-husband over her 2-year-old son; six-hour stretches of being on her feet; and back pain from the physical requirements of moving patients around the operating rooms.

She also said she had a problem with painkillers in the past and she may have gotten hepatitis C when she used heroin last summer while living in New Jersey.

“She’s going to take responsibility,” Parker’s attorney Gregory Graf said. He had argued that Parker should be released on bail because her cooperation with investigators proves she was not a flight risk.

A key point that could lead to more serious charges is whether she knew she was infected with hepatitis C.

She tested positive for the disease before starting her job at Rose in October, but she didn’t follow up when told about it because she didn’t have health insurance or money for a doctor and she got distracted with her new job.

She also said hospital officials didn’t make it clear she tested positive. A federal magistrate judge disagreed and declared her a danger to the community and ordered her held without bond, saying her actions showed significant disregard for the safety of others. Her next hearing is Oct. 6.

Those infected with hepatitis C are not barred from working in health services, so long as standard precautions are taken, according to the CDC.

“She knew she had hepatitis C, she’s a health care worker and she understands how this disease is spread,” said Pat Criscito, 56, an author and freelance writer from Monument south of Denver. She underwent back and hand surgery at Rose last fall and spent a sleepless night worrying about hepatitis C while she waited for her test results. Criscito said a positive result would have been meant certain death because years of arthritis treatment have severely weakened her immune system.

“If I was going to die, she deserves life in prison. I can’t understand how somebody can do that to another human being,” Criscito said, who tested negative and is waiting the results of a second test.

Hospital and state health officials aren’t sure how many people were injected with Parker’s dirty needles or with saline solution contaminated when Parker allegedly dipped her dirty needles to fill bogus syringes to cover her tracks.

Denver police launched a drug investigation in April and the state health department began its investigation June 1 after former Rose surgery patients began testing positive for hepatitis C. Parker was arrested June 30 on state drug charges, but Denver police turned the case over to federal agents when they discovered the tampering.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

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Drug war, economy weigh on Mexico midterm election

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Posted on 5th July 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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What to do about Mexico? It is a land that I love, a place I once thought I would have a retirement home, a place with wonderful people and the most amazing scenery. My little slice of Mexico is 800 miles away from any of this strife, yet between swine flu and drug wars, I am reluctant to return. I miss my slice of heaven, yet the future there seems so tenuous, I may never get closer again than looking at these pictures.

Attorney Gordon Johnson
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Date: 7/5/2009 2:40 AM

MARK STEVENSON,Associated Press Writer

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Drug violence, an economic downturn and recent cases of political malfeasance weigh heavily on Mexico’s midterm congressional elections Sunday, a vote that could decide the future of President Felipe Calderon’s anti-crime and economic policies.

Calderon’s National Action Party, PAN, hopes its nationwide crackdown on drug cartels will win it a bigger share of the 500-seat lower house of Congress, where it currently holds 206 spots. But polls suggest the gains will go to the former longtime ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, PRI, which now has 106 seats.

The PAN ran a bruising campaign in which it practically accused the PRI of tolerating drug trafficking. That angered PRI members, and if the party and its allies win enough seats to form a majority, it could block Calderon’s efforts to reform police forces and give more police powers to 45,000 soldiers deployed to fight well-armed drug gangs.

The vote for 565 mayors and six governorships — including the northern border states of Nuevo Leon and Sonora — is also seen as a referendum on an economy that shrank 8.2 percent in the first quarter and is expected to contract 5.5 percent for the year as a whole.

The economic crisis has been compounded by a drop in money sent home by Mexicans working abroad and by a decrease in oil income from the slump in world petroleum prices. Those are Mexico’s two biggest sources of foreign currency.

Many activists and intellectuals have urged voters to annul their vote or deface their ballot in protest against the largely government-funded political parties that have done little to break Mexico out of the doldrums. But many more Mexicans — perhaps as many as 70 percent of the 77.5 million registered voters — are likely to simply stay away from the polls.

The PRI appears likely to win most statehouse races. One of the PAN’s biggest hopes lies in Sonora, where the PRI state government’s image suffered after a fire at an ill-equipped, government-approved day-care center killed 48 children in June.

A wave of arrests of public servants and police for drug-related corruption and a string of highly publicized kidnappings and extortions have added to the disenchantment with politicians.

The leftist Democratic Revolution Party, whose candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador barely lost the 2006 presidential race to Calderon, currently has 126 seats in Congress but has suffered serious internal splits and is expected to drop precipitously after some of its more militant members turned to the smaller Labor Party.

The PRI ruled Mexico for more than seven decades until it lost the presidency in the 2000. While it was long held together by the all-powerful figure of the president, the party has become more fractious and dominated by state leaders and regional interests since losing national power.

Angry over the mudslinging campaign and already looking to regain the presidency in 2012, the PRI could become a spoiler for any future reform proposals. Its extensive party machine and broad national presence would give it an edge in the event of a small turnout or a large number of protest votes.

“To the extent people nullify their ballots, institutions will be weakened and the PRI’s network of control will go into action, and they will win a majority,” warned the conservative, PAN-aligned civic group Better Society, Better Government.

The null-vote movement wants reforms such as reducing the generous government funding for parties, making recalls of elected officials easier and allowing write-in votes or independent candidates.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

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Floods trap 300 teens at school in southern China

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Posted on 5th July 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 7/5/2009 10:05 AM

GILLIAN WONG,Associated Press Writer

BEIJING (AP) — Floods blocked roads in southern China, leaving some 300 teenagers stranded at a school with limited supplies of food and water, an official said Sunday, after days of heavy rain killed at least 15 people.

About 550,000 people have fled their homes in southern China after heavy rains toppled houses, flooded roads and damaged a dam, news reports said.

Flood waters blocked the entrances to the Hemu Town Middle School in the Guangxi region and rendered nearby roads impassable, according to an official of Rongshui county where the school is. She would only give her surname, Lu.

CCTV said Sunday that floodwaters along a major commercial thoroughfare elsewhere in Rongshui were more than eight feet (2.5 meters) deep. The report said it was the highest water level the county has seen in a decade.

Flood control officials used boats to deliver food, mineral water and other supplies to the school on Saturday, including pumps to lower the water level, Lu said.

She said she did not know how long the children, aged from 13 to 15 years, had been stuck in the building.

By Friday, 80 percent of the county was inundated, causing the Rongjiang river to overflow its banks and forcing the relocation of more than 70,000 people, Lu said.

Heavy rains have battered the region since Wednesday, forcing about 290,000 people in Guangxi to relocate, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The rains began to subside in parts of Guangxi on Sunday, but river levels remained high, the report said.

CCTV showed flooded Rongshui streets, where the signboards of restaurants and shops were all that could be seen above the water. Mattresses, household items and other debris drifted in the water, passing residents on wooden rowboats as people peered out from second-floor balconies and windows.

The county government estimated the damage at 210 million yuan ($31 million), Xinhua said.

The rain also destroyed a 44-foot (13-meter) section of a dike near the base of the Kama Reservoir in Guangxi, Xinhua said.

About 15,000 people who lived downstream from the dam were moved to safety and were now living in more than 1,000 tents, the national flood control office said in a statement Saturday.

In Hunan province, floods have killed eight people and forced 140,000 to relocate. Five people have died in southeastern Fujian province, two others were missing, and 22,000 people have been evacuated, Xinhua said Saturday.

Another two people died and three were missing in Jiangxi province. Another 100,000 people were forced from their homes.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Attorney Gordon Johnson
Chair Traumatic Brain Injury Litigation Group, American Association of Justice
g@gordonjohnson.com :: 800-992-9447 :: Attorney Gordon S. Johnson, Jr.

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