This week’s watchwords Dave
Walkout
Tee time
Tom Hanks tonight, Bill Murray Tuesday and Letterman’s final Top Ten list on his final “Late Show” Wednesday (11:35 p.m. on CBS). Expect surprises as the former weatherman wraps up 33 years of innovative TV talk show hosting.
Teachers in the Everett school district will walk off the job Friday. The one-day strike is to protest the Legislature’s school funding and lack of action on the voter-approved mandate for smaller classes.
The annual Snohomish County Amateur Golf Championship begins its threeday run Saturday. The final round is scheduled for May 25 at Legion Memorial Golf Course in Everett.
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Some cases elude police Several hit-and-run fatalities in the county remain unsolved, frustrating detectives and the families left behind. By Eric Stevick Herald Writer
EVERETT — On average, a pedestrian is killed by a car or truck every two hours in the
United States. In a fifth of those cases, the driver keeps going. Some are caught; others not. The latter cases haunt families and frustrate detectives.
Between 2008 and 2012 in Washington state, there were 22 hit-and-run fatalities without a suspect, according to a state Traffic Safety Commission report. In Snohomish County, several hit-and-run fatality cases remain unsolved. In Everett, collision
investigation detectives continue to look for answers after an early morning crash killed James Martin Mahood, 53, near Union Slough on Highway 529 on Feb. 22. Detectives believe he was hit by a dark gray, early 2000s See CASES, Page A2
On a slow path to recovery
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STANWOOD — For weeks in the hospital, Tommy Sidick couldn’t open his eyes or move his hands. He remembers hearing his 13-year-old son’s voice, reading him a letter. “I love you.” “I want you to get better.” Sidick, 34, came home earlier this month from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. The Stanwood High School graduate was gravely injured
March 26 while logging near Lake Goodwin. He almost didn’t make it. Now the single father is staying with his folks near Kayak Point, alongside his son, Ethan. He is recovering from a cracked skull, a collapsed lung and a broken neck. He still wears a neck brace, and under his shirt are puckered pink scars from his injuries and surgeries. He’s been taking walks with his German shorthaired pointers and he naps a lot, waiting for his body to heal. He’s been thinking.
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Business . . . . .A8 Classified . . . . B4
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He knows he was distracted at work that day and didn’t watch the tree he was felling, though he’d felled thousands before. A branch 10 inches thick smacked his head. In logging, that’s called a “widowmaker.” Sidick’s safety helmet shattered into three pieces. He was lying in the dirt, breathing sawdust. A friend who was working with him called 911. Sidick remembers trying to stand up. “You’re bloody,” he was told. “You need to stay down.” He woke up briefly in the medical helicopter before
Toothy grin Oh, the shark tweets: A great white shark that has been tagged and is being tracked by marine scientists has 44,000 followers on Twitter. @MaryLee has been “answering” questions, including what she does for Shark Week. “Swim. Eat. Tweet. Etc. Exhausting,” the Dear Abby. . . . B3 Horoscope . . . B8
Herald Writer
See PATH, Page A2
See LAKE, Page A2
shark tweeted (Page A2). OK. So it’s not exactly biting humor, but it beats the fat jokes that the seals keep taunting the whales with. Channel-surfing the vast cultural wasteland: Several shows have their seasonending episodes tonight, including “2 Broke Girls” and “Stalker” (The Clicker,
Lottery . . . . . .A2 Obituaries. . . .A6
By Kari Bray
passing out again. He didn’t fully regain consciousness for weeks. He pointed to the bare patches in his hair where the doctors drilled into his skull to relieve the pressure from his swelling brain. He wonders if the accident was God telling him to slow down in life, to spend more time with Ethan and focus less on making money, he said. He hasn’t touched the proceeds from an online fundraiser. People have donated
Tommy Sidick Jr. talks with his son Ethan, 13, on Wednesday at home after Ethan was recently released from the hospital.
Herald Writer
Despite treatments, Lake Ketchum remains one of Snohomish County’s most polluted.
LAKE KETCHUM — Snohomish County is two treatments in to a long-term water quality project here, and officials estimate that phosphorus levels — the key to controlling toxic algae blooms — are about a tenth of what they once were. Yet the lake remains one of the most polluted in the county. It’s moved from the No. 1 spot to fourth out of 40 lakes monitored by the county’s Surface Water Management program. Even with treatments, the lake will not be as clear as others around the county because there is too much pollution. The county had been studying Lake Ketchum for about two decades before they started treating the water in 2014. Contractors release aluminum sulfate, or alum, into the water to bond with the phosphorus, trapping the element before it can nourish the algae. Lake Ketchum is a quiet, 25-acre lake just north of Stanwood. It’s surrounded by houses, with a small parking area and boat dock for public access. “It has been the most polluted lake in Snohomish County, and mainly polluted by phosphorus, which feeds algae,” said Gene Williams, a senior planner with the program. “In recent years, the algae blooms in the late summer and fall on Lake Ketchum have been toxic to the point that people couldn’t use it.” Though most algae show up as harmless but unappealing clusters in the water, some varieties are poisonous to animals. In the summer, when feeder creeks run low, the weather is calm and the water is still, the bottom of the lake has very little oxygen. Phosphorus gets released from sediment there and algae thrive. When those algae die, they sink to the bottom of the lake and pile up until the phosphorus is recycled back into the system. It’s a cycle that upped phosphorus levels in Lake Ketchum until they were about 13 times greater than regional water quality standards recommend, according to the county. A phosphorus concentration of 25 micrograms per liter of water
Tommy Sidick spent weeks in the hospital after an accident while logging
By Rikki King
Seeking a cure for toxic lake
Opinion. . . . . .A9 Short Takes . . . B4
GENNA MARTIN/THE HERALD
Page B4). Mary Lee, the great white, who apparently is a fan of both programs, tweeted her hopes that the TV shows’ casts would be enjoying some time on the beach soon, especially in deeper water. Fly me to the moon: George Clooney joined the Sports . . . . . . . C1 Your Photos . . B1
astronauts who survived the ill-fated Apollo 13 moon mission for the mission’s 45th anniversary. The dinner was held in a room designed to mimic the moon’s surface (Page B4). NASA, of course, had to deny that it was the same room used to fake the other moon missions.
—Jon Bauer, Herald staff
Mixed 70/53, C4
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