(Mapleton, Iowa) – The 13-year-old male operator of an ATV from Mt. Sterling, KY, was critically injured Friday night, when the four-wheeler went out of control and rolled several times, ejecting the teen. The accident happened at around 8:30-p.m. on a private farm access road at18288 Redwood Avenue, near Mapleton, in Monona County. The Iowa State Patrol reports the unidentified juvenile was on a 2003 Honda TRX450E.

The victim suffered life-threatening injuries and was flown from the scene by MercyOne Air Med, to the UNMC, in Omaha.

(Radio Iowa) – The new nationwide 9-8-8 mental health helpline goes live tomorrow (Saturday) as some questions remain about the sustainability of the plan. The idea is to give you an easy number to remember when you need immediate mental health support from a trained counselor or local crisis intervention services. Mental health advocates and law enforcement leaders have pushed for the number. Black Hawk County Sheriff Tony Thompson says it can take people directly to the source of help without having to go through law enforcement.

“It helps divert a significant portion of the people that otherwise might end up in the criminal justice system for no other reason than the fact that they are mentally ill,” Thompson says. But rolling out the service is proving to be complicated. The federal legislation left 9-8-8 up to states to implement with federal funding. But it also allows states to impose a new tax on phone lines to fund call centers and even crisis services. Many states, including Iowa, use this kind of tax to help fund 9-1-1 services, but Iowa has not introduced any legislation to fund 988.

Marissa Eyanson with the Iowa Department of Human Services says the state is relying on federal funding to see what real-time demand for it will look like after it launches. “We’re accounting for what we know today to be additional funding available from the federal level. But we’re also looking to detect what that means going forward. Because there’s an ongoing conversation at the federal level for how the effort will be supported. It is a nationwide effort, and it’s important,” Eyanson. Eyanson says it’s unlikely that D-H-S will have enough data available to review in time to come up with a legislative plan by the next session.

Organizations contracted by the state to set up the statewide 9-8-8 call centers have concerns about this — including Community C-E-O Sarah Nelson in Iowa City. “We’re building a massive infrastructure to do this and without knowing if there’s sustainable funding moving forward,” Nelson says. Emily Blomme at is C-E-O of Foundation 2 Crisis Services in Cedar Rapids. She says it’s been challenging to recruit the extra crisis counselors they need with the funding she has. “It’s really hard to say, Hi, you need to have a bachelor’s degree and two years of experience, and I’m going to pay you 17 dollars an hour,” according to Bloome.

Both organizations currently run call centers for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. But Blomme says estimates provided by the national lifeline projects calls to jump significantly under 9-8-8. And so far she’s hired less than half the additional staff she would like to have in place by the launch date. Eyanson of D-H-S says the agency has worked with Vibrant to review that estimate and provide its two contractors with enough funding for the first two years.

“What we’ve told them is that we think we’re sufficiently funded to start, but if their experience tells us otherwise, we will shift and that is a, that’s a promise that we’ll make real,” Eyanson says. If you need help you can 9-8-8 starting tomorrow (July 16th).

(reporting by Natalie Krebs, Iowa Public Radio)

(UPDATED) (Radio Iowa) – Nearly a dozen Iowa nursing homes have closed in the past seven months for financial reasons. Iowa Health Care Association president and C-E-O Brent Willet says like any industry, nursing homes face rising operating costs — but cannot raise daily and monthly rates because those are set by the government for Medicare and Medicaid patients.

“Medical supplies are up 35%. Certainly wage pressures are significantly higher than that. Long-term care facilities just don’t have the option that the rest of the economy does, which is either limiting our hours, (but) can’t shut down; we can’t raise our prices because those prices are controlled by the federal and the state government,” Willet says, “and so we are incurring ongoing and devastating financial losses which has unfortunately has begun to result in the closure of nursing homes.”

Willet says it means families and patients seeking long term care have fewer options. At least 45 percent of Iowa nursing homes are limiting or freezing admissions due to a lack of staff according to a recent survey by Willet’s organization.  “I was speaking with an administration the other day in the north central part of the state and I asked him: ‘Why are you still doing this?’ There’s an easier way to make a living,'” Willet says. “…He looked me in the eye and said: ‘I’m doing this because I don’t want my kids to see me as a quitter, because this is the hardest time I can imagine.'”

Willets made his comments during taping of “Iowa Press” which airs tonight (Friday) on Iowa P-B-S.

(Radio Iowa) – Local and state officials are investigating the events which led to the suicide of a man involved in a standoff in Le Mars.

Le Mars Police Chief Kevin Vande Vegte says several shots were fired in a home in southeast LeMars at around 9:30-p.m., Thursday, just as officers knocked on the door to serve a search warrant. One of those shots went into a neighbor’s home and lodged in a bedroom headboard.

The officers backed-off and set up a security perimeter, and made several, failed attempts to contact the suspect. The incident came to a head at around three o’clock this (Friday) morning, when the emergency response team entered the residence and found the man — who was not identified — dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

DES MOINES, Iowa — A Des Moines woman who initially pleaded “not guilty” in connection with a hit-and-run accident last April, that resulted in the death of a teenager, has changed her plea. On Wednesday, 38-year-old Terra Flipping entered into court a written plea of “Guilty” to “Knowingly leaving the scene of an accident resulting in death” – a Class C Felony.

Police said Flipping was driving an SUV in the 1600 block of East University Avenue when she hit 14-year-old Ema Cardenas. Authorities initially said another vehicle made it unavoidable for Flipping to see the teenager crossing the street in time.