CarenBurmeister's blog

Here's a strange and tragic item from Jacksonville Beach City Manager George Forbes' March 13th Current Events newsletter:

A Jacksonville Beach woman was trapped underneath her son after he had committed suicide by hanging. The woman told police that she was trying to bring him down and his body fell on her and pinned her to the floor. Rescue workers helped her out and took her to Baptist Medical Center-Beaches because she had sprained her ankle.

It was an unusual item for the weekly newsletter, which Forbes uses to update people on city business such as police and rescue calls and ongoing work at city facilities.

After concerns that budget cuts would cancel the Mother's Day Pops at the Beach Concert, the Jacksonville Beach City Council voted Monday to restore the free outdoor concert by the Jacksonville Symphony.

The Beaches Fine Arts Series has agreed to help sponsor the cost. The 14th annual Mother's Day concert will take place at the SeaWalk Pavilion in Jacksonville Beach on May 11. For more information, call (904) 247-6268.

Part of the boat ramp on the Intracoastal Waterway at Second Avenue North in Jacksonville Beach will be closed for repairs starting Monday, March 3.

Work on the boating facility, which has two ramps and three floating docks just north of Beach Marine, is expected to take about a month, according to Jacksonville recreation officials. It's being done so that one ramp remains open on weekends. However, both ramps may be periodically closed on the weekdays.

For more information on Jacksonville boat ramps and other recreational facilities, contact the city's Department of Recreation and Community Services at (904) 630-CITY (2489) or www.jaxparks.com.

See Wednesday's Shorelines for the story on flight medic Sgt. Allison Justice's reunion with the Kansas soldiers she helped save in Iraq. Justice, a Jacksonville Beach lifeguard and National Guard medic, spent a year in Iraq and returned home in September. She never thought she would see these guys again. In fact, she wasn't sure some of them would survive the attack outside Scania. The reunion took place Friday in Wichita, Kansas on the one year anniversary of the attack. The story will contain a video link for the reunion.