IN PASSING

Local officials detected the West Nile virus in a dead
Carpinteria pigeon last Thursday; mosquitoes infected with the
virus were discovered at the Devereux lagoon earlier this month.
The disease is generally found in humans a few weeks after being
detected in birds, but most of those infected never become ill.
Twenty-eight Californians died of the disease last year.

Just before 5 a.m. Sunday morning, Santa Barbara local Dolores
Cardenas, 30, was struck and killed by a Union Pacific freight
train on a dark stretch of track between Las Positas Road and the
Junipero footbridge. According to the train’s engineer, Cardenas
moved off the tracks when the warning horns sounded, but remained
close enough to be struck by the locomotive. Though toxicology
tests are pending, authorities note that three unopened beer cans
were found at the scene.

Despite the efforts of an off-duty paramedic and a local doctor
to revive him, Santa Barbara resident Glen Zumbrun died two
weekends ago while swimming in the waters off Butterfly Beach.
Shortly after 3 p.m., Zumbrun, 56, washed up unconscious on the
popular party beach in what authorities are calling an “accidental
drowning.”