'Suicidal fall' killed girl, 10, examiner finds

The Honolulu Medical Examiner's Office determined that a 10-year-old girl who fell from a Makiki building died Monday of “;multiple internal injuries due to a suicidal fall from a height.”;

The girl fell four or five floors from an exterior stairway of the 11-story Crown Thurston condominium.

The incident was reported at 7:30 a.m., when someone saw the girl lying on the lawn in a recreation area, police said. She was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead at 8:11 a.m.

The Medical Examiner conducted an autopsy yesterday to determine the cause of death.

Some Molokai residents asked to cut water use

Residents in Hoolehua on Molokai are being asked to cut water use in half while the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands recharges the water reservoir and completes repairs at its Kalae wells, the department said in a news release.

Both wells at Kalae are being fixed. The repair work includes the main pump, which is being replaced sometime this week. The installation of the new pump is expected to take two weeks. While the repairs are being done, a temporary emergency waterline is being installed from the Molokai Ranch water system to recharge the water reservoir servicing the Hoolehua area.

Earlier this year the department's wells supplied water to the County of Maui system when county repairs were being done. Two weeks ago the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands' second pump at Kalae broke down, and the county system began supplying water to the department's system.

Convicted doctor has license revoked

The state Board of Medical Examiners has revoked the license of Honolulu physician Dr. Barry N. Odegaard.

State officials said Monday that the action came Sept. 11, about three months after Odegaard was found guilty of distributing controlled substances outside his medical practice.

Federal prosecutors say Odegaard illegally distributed Oxycontin in 2004. A jury found in five instances that he prescribed the painkiller for no legitimate medical reason.

The jury's decision concluded a six-day trial before U.S. District Judge David Ezra. Odegaard was acquitted on eight of 13 counts.

Grant aids health care on 4 Pacific atolls

The U.S. government is continuing to address the medical needs of residents of four Pacific atolls injured by the nuclear weapons testing program carried out in the Marshall Islands between 1946 and 1958.

The Department of the Interior's Insular Assistant Secretary Tony Babauta has signed a technical assistance grant of nearly $1 million to continue primary health care for members of the Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap and Utrik communities.

Babauta said yesterday in a Washington news release that among other things, the grant will fund a full-time physician to work in a dispensary in each of the four atoll communities.