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Ohio cheerleading coach 7th Indiana State Fair death

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An Ohio cheerleading coach died Monday from head injuries she sustained during a stage collapse at the Indiana State Fair.

Meagan Toothman, 24, was confirmed as the seventh person to die from the Aug. 13 stage collapse, according to a statement from the Marion County coroner's office released Monday night by the Indiana State Police.

She had been scheduled to undergo the organ donation surgery Monday afternoon, but the statement didn't say if that had happened. Calls by The Associated Press to the coroner's office and police were not immediately returned.

Toothman's family said earlier in a Web journal that organ donation surgery "will provide gifts of sight, health, and life to dozens who are in need." Doctors put Toothman into a coma Aug.15 to try to ease the bruising and swelling on her brain.

"Late last night it became apparent that our Meagan was no longer with us," the family wrote Monday. "The decision was made to allow to her to be at peace."

Authorities erroneously reported that she had died late Sunday, but Marion County coroner's office spokeswoman Marchele Hall said Toothman remained in a coma at the time.

Toothman was the head cheerleading coach at Turpin High School in Cincinnati.

"The outpouring of love and hope ... was an inspiration to all of us to keep her fighting," her family said. "We hope that she will continue to touch more lives in the same way through her passing."

Strong winds toppled a stage onto a crowd of fans as they waited for country band Sugarland to perform. Three fans and a security guard died at the scene, while a fourth fan and a stagehand later died of their injuries. Some four dozen people were hurt, many seriously.

It was not known Monday how many of those injured in the stage collapse remained hospitalized. State police stopped providing updates on the injured last week and hospitals have not provided reports on the condition of those injured.

Roeland Polet, whose wife and two daughters had attended the concert with Toothman, told The Associated Press that Toothman's death would be yet another tragedy for their family.

His wife, Jill Polet, and their older daughter, Jaymie Polet, were both injured in the collapse and remain hospitalized but their younger daughter, Jordan, escaped injury.

"It's horrible. It is devastating for my family. For my daughter, she was like a big sister. They were extremely close," Polet said of his daughter Jaymie and Toothman.

He said both Jill and Jaymie, who are in separate hospitals in Indianapolis, are "in very rough shape." He said it's unclear when they will be released and both suffered multiple fractures.

Jaymie had been a cheerleader at Turpin High School and had planned to try out for cheerleader at Indiana University, where she's enrolled for this fall. Polet said IU officials came to the hospital Sunday with T-shirts and banners for her.

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  1. As a St. Vincent employee of over 20 years, I am saddened and disheartened by this announcement. Unfortunately, as the healthcare "industry" continues on this political and corporate path, all that St. Vincent Hospital has stood for spiritually for its employees and this community is being sucked dry. I know it truly has no choice. It is not just Obamacare or just competition or just any single thing. This trend started long before I was even born when the government became involved in healthcare and it became an "industry." I grieve for those who will lose their jobs, one of whom may be me, but I also grieve for this hospital which I have served for over 20 years. May God give us and it the grace to withstand the future of healthcare.

  2. Why do people constantly harp on this issue and act ignorant about what a city population measures? A city's population is the city's population. There is no argument or debate about it. If you want to measure the density of a city--measure it. If you want to measure the size of a metropolitan area, then measure the metropolitan population. City boundaries cover different sized areas--and they always have (though the disparity has probably increased since about 1900 or so when more cities began annexing their surrounding communities). For example, San Francisco only covers 49 square miles while Houston cover nearly 600 square miles. No one argues about the population rankings of either city even though they clearly cover extremely different sized areas. Indianapolis is the 13 largest city by population in the U.S. That is a fact. While the population of a metropolitan area may give you a better sense of how large a community is, as noted, even metro areas can vary widely in the size of geographic area they cover--so that is not a perfect comparison either.

  3. If Whole Foods went in, I doubt the Nora one would stay open, and with all those customers coming to Broad Ripple traffic would be horrible, and forget about a run to the grocery on weekend nights. I think concern over the number of apartments is misplaced, but the 400 space parking garage has me concerned - someone needs to ask the developer just how much traffic they think this development is going to generate. I am not against more neighborhood residents, but heavy commercial traffic going in and out at that location sounds like a mess.

  4. I thought everyone was innocent until guilt was proven. Seems people have already convicted Reggie in the press. My nephew was a good kid and is a good man, more to this story im sure

  5. Going by the Marion County population only is of little use. 13th largest? No Way! To judge the real size of a metro area, the easy way is to look at the Arbitron rating list. Indianapolis hovers around 40th largest in the nation--sometimes more, sometimes less. Advertisers want to know exactly how large the population is before they buy radio advertising. Arbitron figured it out long ago. Indianapolis is estimated at 1,427,500. The real #13 is Seattle-Tacoma with a metro population of 3,470,400. So, the population of just Marion County is completely irrelevant to anything useful as far as metro area planning.

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