Aurora Name Game & FedEx

Aurora, again?

The Rambo-style shooting at a FedEx facility in Kennesaw, Georgia, Cobb County, made news on April 29, 2014, leaving one dead and six injured.

That called forth this summary from correspondent Robert Sullivan:

March 21st, a FedEx triple tractor trailer seemingly loses control and crashes. Killing 2 people.
7 days later, March 28th a FedEx employee in Nevada, is fatally shot making deliveries.
13 days later, April 10th a FedEx tractor trailer seemingly loses control and crashes into a bus full of high school seniors, killing 10 people.
19 days later, April 29th 19 year old package handler at FedEx arms himself "like Rambo" and shoots 6 people. Injuring 2 critically.

39 days, 13 deaths, one company, FedEx.

The Christian Science Monitor also noted, when the California bus was hit by the FedEx truck, that...

In mid-February, a FedEx truck making a pick up in Sweetwater, Texas, caught fire. Later that month, a FedEx tractor trailer caught fire and was totally destroyed along I-81 near Roanoke, Virginia. In March, a FedEx truck fire shut down a portion of I-80 near Park City, Utah.

Now comes another one for the FedEx file from RS:

On Wednesday morning, April 30, 2014, two Oklahomans were identified as those killed in a traffic accident that involved a FedEx semi-trailer truck (pictured at top) a mile west of Greensburg.

Aurora Diane Balch, 35, and Donald Anthony Barrs, 27, both of Weatherford, Oklahoma, were killed in an accident shortly after 3:30 a.m. at the intersection of U.S. 54 and U.S. 183 in Kiowa County, according to a Kansas Highway Patrol report.

Balch was driving a 2006 Chrysler north on U.S. 183 when she failed to yield the right of way at the intersection. There is a sign at that location that requires U.S. 183 traffic to stop.

The westbound semi struck the Chrysler on the passenger side, where Barrs was sitting. The impact sent both vehicles in a ditch north of U.S. 54.

The semi was operated by FedEx, a highway patrol dispatcher said. The FedEx driver, Anibal Ruiz-Figueroa, 58, of Stratford, Texas, had "possible injuries."

Please note that the driver killed was yet another Aurora. I have written extensively about the moniker Aurora, see, for example, another 2014 incident and from 2012, "Understanding Aurora." The Aurora twilight name game has been on many of our minds since The Dark Knight Rises killings at Aurora, Colorado.

Kiowa County was named after the group of individuals who used the name as a self-referencing term Ka'igwu, meaning "Principal People." Another explanation of their name "Kiowa" originated after their migration through what the Kiowa refer to as "The Mountains of the Kiowa" (Kaui-kope) in the present eastern edge of Glacier National Park, Montana. In Oklahoma, in 1892, the Jerome Commission began enrolling the Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches to prepare for the opening of their reservation to settlement by whites. Kiowa County was formed in 1907. The name shows up, in good twilight lexilinking fashion, via Kiowa Gordon, an actor in three of The Twilight Saga movies.

The City of Aurora, Colorado, is in Arapahoe County, and the suspect, James Holmes, was held in the Arapahoe County detention center.

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FedEx trucks and planes are involved in several relatively 

underpublicized crashes, of course.

This FedEx semi truck caught fire after a crash August 29, 2012, in Aurora, Indiana. The crash occurred just after 11 a.m. in front of the Taco Bell on U.S. 50. The Taco Bell was briefly evacuated while crews put out the semi truck fire. (This is not the first time we've seen this combination of names. See "La Belle Aurore: Casablanca & Looper.")

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On Tuesday, May 6, 2014, a FedEx employee riding a golf cart in the FedEx facility at Shawnee, Kansas, died when he fell off the cart.

Tuesday's accident is the third fatal incident at this same FedEx Ground sorting facility since March 2013. Links to previous reports can be found below.

March 23, 2013 - Tractor trailer kills FedEx security guard in Shawnee
Nov. 20, 2013 - FedEx employee killed after being pinned between loading dock and trailer

Norfolk Helicopter Crashes

Last weekend, as I reported here, several aircraft mishaps occurred. Now comes news of two more that does not allow us to ignore their synchromystic overlaps.

On Tuesday, January 7, 2014, a US Navy helicopter crashed (pictured above) in Cley Next the Sea, in Norfolk, United Kingdom, during a training mission. The helicopter was identified as a US Air Force HH-60G Pave Hawk, which are modified versions of the more famous Black Hawks. They are combat helicopters used for search-and-rescue missions. To train, the pilots fly low and fast, usually just hundreds of feet from the ground.

The deceased Airmen were identified as Capt. Sean M. Ruane, Capt. Christopher S. Stover, Tech. Sgt. Dale E. Mathews and Staff Sgt. Afton M. Ponce.

Then on Wednesday, January 8, the U.S. Navy confirmed the crash of another helicopter (like the one above), that went down 18 nautical miles (33km) east of Norfolk, Virginia. The cause of the crash is not yet known.

In that crash, two people died after their MH-53E Sea Dragon went down. Two other crew remain hospitalized. On Thursday, the Coast Guard called off the search to find the missing fifth crew member.

The two crew members who died in the crash have been identified as 25-year-old Petty Officer Brian Andrew Collins of Truckee, California and 29-year-old Lt. J. Wesley Van Dorn of Greensboro, North Carolina. The missing man was identified as 39-year-old Lt. Sean Christopher Snyder from Santee, California.

The downed helicopter was assigned to Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron 14 (HM-14), the commander of Naval Air Force Atlantic said in a statement.

Norfolk, Virginia, is an important hub for the US military, and is home to Naval Station Norfolk, the largest naval complex in the world.

Speaking of the Norfolk, Virginia crash, the BBC News noted, "In a bizarre coincidence, the incident came a day after another US military helicopter crashed in the county of Norfolk, England."

The name "Norfolk" derives from terms which meant "the northern people." This name is referenced to the Scandinavian invaders, i.e. Norse-folk; another is that the name literally meant "folk from the north" and was used to differentiate between them and the "folk from the south," as was possibly true in the case of people living in the counties we now know as Norfolk and Suffolk.

Norfolk is first mentioned in Anglo-Saxon wills dating from 1043–5 and later as Norðfolc in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (written in 1075) and as Nordfolc in the Domesday Book.

Sources, 1, 2, 3.

h/t Mark Edmondson.

(N.D.: I was born in Norfolk, Virginia, which was one of the reasons I was picked to be a coauthor of Weird Virginia, by the editors of that series.)