Atlanta 195 articles

A North Georgia hospital will pay $5 million to settle allegations it violated the False Claims Act by engaging in improper financial relationships with referring physicians. Union General Hospital of Blairsville, Georgia, fell under scrutiny when federal authorities detected suspicious activity surrounding the abnormally high quantities of opioid drugs and Xanax being prescribed in connection with the hospital. Investigations by the FBI and other federal agencies led to the arrest of Union General Hospital CEO John Michael Gowder and two physicians — Dr. David Gowder and Dr. James Heaton. The three men now face federal charges of illegally prescribing thousands ... Read More

Wei Chen was an accomplished pilot who in 2011 had flown around the world in a single-engine plane, later writing a book about his experience, “Around The World in 69 Days: What Would You Attempt To Do If You Knew You Could Not Fail?” But on Dec. 21, the founder and CEO of Sunshine Enterprise Inc., took off in a Cessna 560 from Fulton County Airport-Brown Field in Atlanta, bound for Memphis, Tennessee, along with three other people including top-level executives from his company and Wei Chen’s brother and best friend John Chen, when about a mile into the flight ... Read More

A Georgia woman who spent nearly three agonizing months in jail for having a bag of cotton candy that Monroe County sheriff’s deputies mistook for crystal meth is suing the county and a drug kit manufacturer in federal court. On New Year’s Eve in 2016, Monroe County sheriff’s deputies Cody Maples and Allen Henderson stopped Macon resident Dasha Fincher for having car windows that were darkly tinted. The deputies later admitted the windows were legal, according to Macon’s WMAZ Channel 13. But at some point during the traffic stop the deputies noticed a large open plastic bag in Ms. Fincher’s ... Read More

Insurers of the defendants in a negligent security case have paid $3 million to the parents of a teen shot to death and another man critically injured in a January 2016 apartment complex shooting in Decatur, Georgia. Creekside Forest Apartments, its owner Chester Meisels, security provider SMJ Construction Services, and its owner Joe Gonzalez were sued by the parents of 15-year-old Jaylon Henderson and 27-year-old Terrell Sellers, a friend of Jaylon’s older brother. According to the Daily Report, Jaylon and his brother Zerek were visiting Mr. Sellers at the Creekside Forest Apartments on Jan. 6, 2016. Mr. Sellers was a ... Read More

An undetected brain injury turned deadly for a 16-year-old Georgia high school football player who complained of feeling unusual during a Sept. 28 game before he collapsed on the sidelines. Dylan Thomas, a junior at Pike County High School and linebacker on its home team, the Pirates, took a hit during a play in the second quarter against Peach County High School. Some fellow players said Dylan seemed unfazed until into the third quarter when he said he wasn’t feeling right. Head coach Brad Webber told reporters at an Oct. 1 news conference that the game was stopped in the ... Read More

Gravel Ridge Farms, located in Cullman, Alabama, has issued a recall of Large Cage Free Eggs after samples collected during an inspection at the plant identified its shell eggs as linked to 38 cases of Salmonella Enteritidis illnesses. The recall involves both single dozen and 2.5 dozen flats of Gravel Ridge Farms Large Cage Free Eggs with the UPC 7-06970-18444-6 and the Use By Dates ranging from 7/25/18 through 10/3/18. The eggs were distributed between June 25 and Sept. 6, 2018, and were sold primarily in restaurants and retail stores in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. Customers who have purchased these ... Read More

Federal safety investigators are looking into an engine failure that forced a Delta Air Lines jet with 121 Orlando-bound passengers to return to Atlanta shortly after takeoff. The emergency occurred Wednesday, Sept. 5, aboard Delta Flight 1418. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the “uncontained” engine failure in the 27-year-old Boeing 757-200 jet happened at about 18,000 feet. Data from the flight tracking website FlightAware.com shows that Delta 1418 took off shortly after 11 p.m., climbed to 18,000 feet in eight minutes, and then started slowing down. The plane leveled off and began a measured descent back to ... Read More

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said incompetence played a role in the deaths of two construction workers on an I-95 highway project in Miami earlier this year. Abel Orlando Zuniga-Fajardo, 37, and Osman Aldubin Montalvan-Ardon, 33, were crushed to death Feb. 4 when a section of concrete highway barrier collapsed into a trench in the center median where they were working to remove a storm drain system. Miami Fire and Rescue declared both men dead at the scene of the deadly collapse, according to the Miami Herald. OSHA investigators proposed that Archer Western Construction, which employed the ... Read More

Colonial Pipeline is facing more legal trouble in the wake of its deadly 2016 pipeline explosion near Pelham, Alabama, that killed two workers and seriously injured five others. A new lawsuit filed July 9 in a Fulton County, Georgia State Court accuses Colonial Pipeline and a contractor of wrongful death, negligence, and wantonness, among other charges, in connection to the Oct. 31, 2016 explosion, according to the Daily Report. The lawsuit was filed by the widow of one of the workers killed in the blast and another worker who was seriously injured. The plaintiffs allege that a Colonial Pipeline project ... Read More

A tractor-trailer driver “presumably fell asleep” at the wheel before crashing through a sound barrier wall on I-75 in northwest Georgia Monday morning, Cobb County authorities said. The fiery crash occurred in the pre-dawn darkness around 5:30 a.m. between Kennesaw and Acworth, Georgia. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, tractor-trailer driver John Thurston likely fell asleep, causing his vehicle to drift from the northbound lanes of I-75. The tractor-trailer struck a series of concrete and metal barriers near exit 273 before crashing through the barrier wall and into a drainage ditch, where it rolled over. The truck, laden with scrap metal, ... Read More