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This Week
Tempe seeks buried lines on portions of trolley route
PAGE 4
Sunday, April 23, 2017
COVER STORY
Tall car, small child led to Heap tragedy BY JIM WALSH Tribune Staff Writer
COMMUNITY ........ 12
EAST VALLEY
Biggs, Sinema exchange views of D.C. politics
T
odd Heap ranks as one of Mesa’s most acclaimed athletes, starring at Mountain View High School and Arizona State University before he became a two-time Pro Bowl tight end with the Baltimore Ravens and Arizona Cardinals. But while Heap achieved many accolades on the football field, one terrible moment on the afternoon of April 14, when he accidentally
Sympathy pours in for Heaps after accident ... Page 20 ran over and killed his 3-year-old daughter in his Las Sendas driveway, has plunged Heap to depths of heartbreak that few can fathom. Although it is of no consolation at such a tragic moment, Heap is far from the only parent to accidentally run down a child. Little Holly Heap’s death is yet another example of a type of accident that happens too frequently from visibility issues created by the dangerous
combination of small children and tall pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles. Janette E. Fennell, founder and president of KidsandCars.org, said at least 42 children were killed in a similar manner in 2016, a type of collision known as a “front over.” Since the mid-1990s, more than 800 children have died in such accidents. She said most vehicles have a front “blind zone” of six to eight feet, with the problem See
HEAP on page 8
BUSINESS...................16 Indoor playground turns exercise into play for kids
SPORTS ......................19 Queen Creek having stellar baseball season
DINING ..................... 23 Gilbert bloggers are Valley’s only nominees for James Beard awards
BUSINESS........................16 OPINION.........................18 SPORTS............................19 FAITH................................21 CLASSIFIED.................... 27
High cost of proms (Kimberly Carrillo/Tribune Staff Photographer)
KimDani Bermudez and Paulina Nakagome, seniors at Arizona College Prep, pick out free prom dresses at the Cinderella Affair. The two are among many students around the East Valley coming to grips with the growing cost of high school proms. Story, Page 13.
Nurses seek site to care for drug-addicted newborns BY SRIANTHI PERERA Tribune Staff Writer
A
s a neonatal nurse practitioner in a large medical center in the East Valley, Tara Sundem has seen too many babies having tremors, seizures, stiff limbs, difficulty sleeping and vomiting. These are the tiniest victims of the drug-
abuse epidemic sweeping the country. Their symptoms indicate neonatal abstinence syndrome – infants are in withdrawal from drugs, such as opioids, that were used by the mother during pregnancy. In July 2015, the Arizona Department of Health Services said the rate of the syndrome has increased by 235 percent from 2008 and 27 percent since 2013.
“I always thought the downtown or the west side is associated with drug use. But it’s happening here, too,” said Sundem, a Gilbert resident. On any given week, there are more than a dozen babies in withdrawal in East Valley hospitals. See
NEONATAL on page 11