Monday, April 2, 2007

NATIONAL AIRPORT

A cleaning crew at Reagan National Airport found two nonlethal munitions Friday in a trash can of a men's room in the C concourse at the north end of the terminal.

Airport police contacted an explosive ordnance disposal unit, which determined that the devices, known as flash grenades, were designed to produce only noise and smoke, airport spokesman Rob Yingling said. The findings did not disrupt airport operations, Yingling said.

The men's room, near the ticketing concourse, is outside airport security.

The grenades were found about 10:15 a.m. Police removed them from the airport without incident about an hour later, Yingling said. Airport police and FBI officials are investigating how the devices ended up there.

-- Keith L. Alexander

A strange odor, later determined to be hydraulic fumes from an elevator, closed the emergency room of a Rockville hospital for an hour yesterday, a fire official said.

Montgomery County fire units were called to Shady Grove Adventist Hospital at 1 p.m. after a report of an unusual odor, fire spokesman Pete Piringer said. Only the emergency room was affected. It was evacuated briefly and occupants were evaluated while the source of the odor was located. The rest of the hospital remained open.

There were no reports of injury or illness traced to the odor, which proved "very faint," Piringer said.

-- Daniel de Vise

A Montgomery County man who treated victims of facial paralysis for more than 20 years has been charged with 91 criminal counts, including practicing without a license, theft, fourth-degree sex offense and reckless endangerment.

Robert Scott Targan, 68, who worked out of Montgomery Village, was arrested Friday after indictment by a grand jury and was being held at Montgomery County Detention Center on $500,000 bail, police said. He was arrested in February and charged with four of the 91 counts.

Targan operated a group called the Bell's Palsy Research Foundation, police said. Doctors and former patients lauded his methods, which employed electrical muscular stimulation devices on the face and chest to treat an ailment that disproportionately afflicts pregnant women.

Police said Targan has neither a medical degree nor a license to practice physical therapy in Maryland. An attorney for Targan said in February that he made no false claims.

Investigators said Targan's treatment often involved placing electrodes on a patient's chest for prolonged sessions of "electrical stimulation."

Investigators also cited a patient whose credit card was charged for a missed appointment even though she had not given Targan the number and a patient who wrongly believed Targan to be a medical doctor.

-- Daniel de Vise

A 32-year-old woman committed suicide while housed within the mental health unit of the D.C. jail, despite round-the-clock monitoring by clinical staff, a corrections spokeswoman said yesterday.

Alicia Edwards was found dead at 2:50 p.m. Saturday, eight minutes after the last routine inspection of her cell, said Beverly H. Young, spokeswoman for the D.C. Department of Corrections. The manner of death was not released.

Young said Edwards was monitored about four times an hour as an inmate of the mental health unit, where she had been placed after leaving Fairview Halfway House on March 9. She awaited trial on an undisclosed charge.

"Inspections in that area or that unit are done every 15 minutes on staggered times," Young said. "I want to emphasize that she was not on suicide watch."

Corrections staff administered CPR while awaiting the arrival of medical staff, who pronounced Edwards dead.

-- Daniel de Vise