Swimmer Injured in Bleacher Fall

Cal State Bakersfield’s Richard Root, trying to leap into a pool during the team’s championship celebration, suffered a possible broken jaw and elbow when he slipped and fell from a nine-foot bleacher at the Belmont Plaza Olympic Center in Long Beach.

Root, who had finished fifth in the 200-yard backstroke, landed face down onto a six-foot area of cement between the stands and the water. He was taken by paramedics to Long Beach Community Hospital.