insideAccidental child poisonings are on the rise. Page 7

drug deaths overtake crashes

LOS ANGELES • Propelled by an increase in prescription narcotic overdoses, drug deaths now outnumber traf-fic fatalities in the United States, a Los Angeles Times analysis of government data has found.

Drugs exceeded motor ve-hicle accidents as a cause of death in 2009, killing at least 37,485 people nation-wide, according to prelimi-nary data from the U.S. Cen-ters for Disease Control and Prevention.

While most major causes of preventable death are declining, drugs are an ex-ception. The death toll has doubled in the last decade, now claiming a life every 14 minutes. By contrast, traffic accidents have been drop-ping for decades because of huge investments in auto safety.

Public health experts have used the comparison to draw attention to the na-tion’s growing prescription drug problem, which they characterize as an epidemic.

Los Angeles Times—

public health

Toll from drugs has doubled in last decade

—

SEE druGS • PAGE 7

$1.50 ❘ Sunday, September 18, 2011 ❘ Informing the Pikes Peak region since 1872 ❘ gazette.com

More than

$50 coupon savings in today’s paper

STAY CONNECTED ON THE GOThe Gazette keeps you informed.

facebook.com/springsgazette On Twitter at @csgazette

in lifePlanking is peakingLie facedown like a board, get photo taken, upload.

Vol. 140 • No. 179Copyright © 2011Freedom ColoradoInformation, Inc.

weather, local 4High 75, Low 48The next couple of days are splashed with sun.

cu imposes its will in a win

Colorado State scored a touchdown on a trick play in the second half, and Colorado coach Jon Embree challenged his team. CU responded with an impressive time-consum-ing drive, sealing the 28-14 win at Sports Authority Field in Denver.

in businessBuying home a fading dreamThe economy has made renting an increasingly popular option.

coloradosprings.com New music director caballe-domeNech kicks off the PhilharmoNic seasoN. a review

in sports

Sunday

Calendar > lIFe 2 pet Corner > In lIFe obItuarIes > a12-13 opInIon > a14-15 movIes > lIFe 2 books > lIFe 5

deal of the day50% OFF - ONLY $15 for $30 Worth of Award Winning Mexican Cuisine and Margaritas at Amanda’s Fonda. Buy today at gazette.com/dealoftheday or call 877-216-4689 6AM-5PM, Sat-Sun 6AM-Noon.

OTERO COUNTY • The cavernous shed on Eric Hanagan’s property in Swink holds the bounty of a recent harvest from the sprawl-ing fields nearby: bins of brilliant yellow and orange squashes; boxes of vine-ripened tomatoes; vats of watermelon; and sacks of green chiles.

Noticeably absent are the musky, orange-tinged melons that are the crown jewel of this agricultural area along the Arkansas Valley. Instead, he’s letting the last of his Rocky Ford cantaloupes languish in the fields.

“Why pick ’em?” he asks rhetori-cally. “I’ll just have to throw them out in a few days.”

In most years, consumers swoon over the supersweet Rocky Ford melons, snapping them up at farmers markets, roadside stands and grocery stores. But this year, a listeria outbreak has put a chill

on the hot commodity, and even though the source of contamina-tion was traced to cantaloupes grown on a farm near the Col-orado-Kansas border two coun-ties away, farmers in and around Rocky Ford say they’ve been hurt by reports that “their” cantaloupes are the culprit.

“It wasn’t us. It wasn’t our prod-uct. It wasn’t our area,” says Chuck Hanagan, Eric’s brother and exec-utive director of the Farm Service Agency office in Rocky Ford.

But when a much-heralded melon and a town share a name,

the bad is bound to come with the good.

Unprotected fameCantaloupe is the most famous

crop in the Otero County town of Rocky Ford. A sign at the edge of town welcomes you to the “Sweet Melon Capital.” Rocky Ford High School students are the Meloneers. National Public Radio did a report a few years ago on the small town with “some of the sweetest canta-loupe in the world.” One publica-

‘LISTERIA HYSTERIA’

“It wasn’t us. It wasn’t our product. It wasn’t our area.”

Many of the Rocky Ford cantaloupes grown by Eric Hanagan will go unharvested. He says that his business has been hurt because of listeria found on melons from Jensen Farms in Holly, nearly 90 miles east of the Hanagan farm.

pHotos by JERILEE bENNEtt, tHE GAZEttE

by barbara cotterbarb.cotter@gazette.com—

Rocky Ford farmers say cantaloupe scare has unfairly ensnared them

—

sEE sCaRE • PagE 5

CaNTalOUPE sCaRE

cHuck HANAGAN — executIve dIRectoR oF the FaRm SeRvIce agency oFFIce In Rocky FoRd

Gordon Butler Jr. has prayed a lot in the past 20 years.

In the late 1980s, he prayed his sister, Pamela Butler, would take a desk job. She became a Colora-do Springs firefighter.

“I wasn’t thrilled with the idea because I want-ed her to be safe,” Butler said.

On Saturday, he bowed his head once more — this time as a firefighter pre-sented the family a flag honoring Pamela Butler’s cancer-shortened life.

With bagpipes, drums and solemn prayers, hun-

dreds of people packed Memorial Park for the an-nual Fallen Fire Fighter memorial service. Butler and 86 other fallen fire-fighters had their names added to the Interna-tional Association of Fire Fighter’s Wall of Honor this year.

“This is how we cope. This is how we mourn,” said Harold Schaitberger, union president, during the service. “We know how to do this all too well, because we do this all too often.”

A procession of motor-cycles and firetrucks rum-bled from Briargate to the park before the service.

As always, the names of each firefighter were read — marked by the sound of

a bell acknowledging the end of their shift — as the crowd stayed silent .

But 10 years after the at-tacks on the World Trade Center in New York, the service carried a slightly different feel, Schaitberg-er said.

Several families from New York decorated the black granite wall with roses and pictures of fire-fighters lost in the 9/11 at-tacks.

Tears welling in her eyes, Patricia Hess looked on in silence.

Her husband, Lt. Robert Hess, spent the first two days after 9/11 at ground zero, combing through the wreckage for his fellow

‘this is how we cope. this is how we mourn.’fallen fire fighter memorial service

by Jakob RodgeRsjakob.rodgers@gazette.com—

—

see memorial • Page 2

Bagpipes, prayers, drums mark deaths

Eighty-seven firefighters were remembered at the annual memorial service Saturday at Memorial Park. Phyllis Cash hands a tissue to her husband, O.P. Cash, after they re-ceived an encased flag in honor of their son, Paul Cash.

JERILEE BENNETT, THE GAZETTE

insideIn West Virginia, a pilot is killed in an air-show crash. Page 7

deadly crash highlights the danger of the sport

RENO, NEv. • It’s like an In-dianapolis 500 in the sky.

Thrill-seeking pilots zoom by at speeds up to 500 mph as spectators “ooh” and “aah” at the sight of jets, vintage planes and high-performance aircraft whiz-zing past with their wingtips nearly touching. Even the sounds are awe-inspiring — the deafening roar of air-planes that are sometimes just a few hundred feet away from spectators.

But the consequences can be deadly.

The air race in Reno where a vintage plane plummeted from the sky and killed at least nine people has drawn scorn over the years as crit-ics assailed the event as a recipe for the kind of disas-

By MARTIN GRIFFITH ANd SCOTT SONNER

The Associated Press—

air races

Supporters say there’s inherent risk in flying

—

sEE cRash • PagE 7