the more interesting local stories making news this week. among them, finding her family. how a local woman left in a dumpster as a newborn is doing some two decades later. and what she wants to tell the person who abandoned her. a new safety sting already catching dozens of drivers in the act. what you need to watch out for to avoid a hefty fine. and young cancer patient gets the royal treatment and inspired one man to make this dream come true. a newborn tossed in a dumpster and left for dead. now 23 years later she's making incredible strides. rachel clark was given the star of adoption award at a ceremony in bethesda. news4's barbara harrison was the emcee at the event. she spoke to rachel about her past and her future, as she prepares to mark another major milestone in her life. >> she could be called prince george's county's flower child. >> reporter: that was breaking news in september, 1989.

a newborn baby girl found in a dumpster behind a flower shop in temple hills. the husband of the shop owner just happened to take out some trash late that wednesday afternoon and heard cries coming from a sealed plastic bag in the dumpster. >> when did they come and pick up this trash? >> thursday mornings early. >> so if you hadn't found the baby -- >> the trash would have been gone in the morning. >> reporter: the famous dumpster. >> yep. >> reporter: how do you feel when you see that? >> it scares me, actually. that's the only time, like, i ever have negative reactions about my birth story is around dumpsters. >> reporter: rachel clark, now 23 years old, was the baby left in a dumpster to die. she says these days she has no anger for those who put her there. >> more questions than anger, and i felt like i couldn't really love myself because they couldn't. and it really hurt that my blood relatives didn't want to love

me. and so they decided to throw me away. i assume that she was young and didn't really have many other options. >> the baby still had the umbilical cord attached but she was in good condition when she was taken to southern maryland hospital. >> it was september 27th, 1989. headlines everywhere, on the tv, in the newspaper. >> reporter: jennifer and dane clark became one of hundreds of families who quickly applied to adopt the baby girl. several weeks later, they got the call they were praying for. >> and as soon as i saw her, i felt like she was flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone. >> and her mother says that's the smartest baby i've ever seen in my life. i said how do you know that's the smartest baby? i fostered 40 babies and that's the smartest baby. >> reporter: their daughter who had been found in the dumpster had survived in dwindling oxygen and emerged unscathed. she grew up to be both talented and a brilliant student.

fast forward 23 years, she's now about to graduate from the university of maryland. >> i'll be getting my degree in family science, and then eventually going to get my master's in marriage and family therapy. >> reporter: rachel is also getting married this summer. and while she's looking forward to a wonderful future, she's still hoping to one day know who left her and why. >> i definitely would want to tell them that i forgive them and that my life has been great without them. >> reporter: barbara harrison, news4, prince george's county. >> and afternoon she gets married, rachel says she's looking forward to having children of her own. well, kidnapping survivor jaycee dugard came to washington to urge people not to give up on missing children. she got the hope award at a ceremony in the district. dugard was abducted from a california bus stop in 1991 at

the age of 11. she was held captive for 18 years in a backyard. in her brief speech, she made a reference to the missing women recently found alive in ohio. >> i want to say what an amazing time to be talking about hope, with everything that's happening. i want to thank my mom for the hope she has always had for me, even when i was far away. >> jaycee's mother says she feels the same relief and joy for the cleveland survivors as she did when jaycee returned home. dozens of drivers are getting tickets today for doing something a lot of people do all the time. they fail to yield to pedestrians in a crosswalk. news4's chris gordon was there as montgomery county police carried out a sting operation to catch drivers in the act. >> reporter: mtgomery county police are cracking down. >> you're being stopped today because when there's a pedestrian in the crosswalk, you have to stop and allow him to cross the street.

>> reporter: warning, that pedestrian in the bright yellow t-shirt could be a cop. >> and when the drivers don't yield to him in the crosswalk, the officers are going to pull them over and issue an $80 citation for failing to yield to a pedestrian in a crosswalk. >> reporter: police are conducting this safety program in rockville because of the alarming increase in pedestrian deaths. in february, there was a fatal hit-and-run on connecticut avenue. marlon ally was returning from work in the district and hit by a car while crossing the street. police are still looking for the driver. so the traffic division is randomly staging stings like this one. there were about a half a dozen montgomery county police officers working this sting. at one point, so many cars were stopped for violations that an officer said it's like shooting fish in a barrel. it's kind of scary. mary anna crosses daily to catch her bus. >> it's at the bottom of the hill. and usually the cars are at a very high speed, so that's why sometimes they are not stopping

all the time. >> the problem is, especially on this side, is that there's three lanes of traffic. if one or two of the lanes stop and the third doesn't, you may be very surprised. >> and in danger? >> and in danger. >> reporter: there's also a warning for pedestrians. a fence has been built along busy randolph road to discourage jaywalkers from crossing in the middle of the block causing accidents. police say use the crosswalks and make sure drivers see you. chris gordon, news4. >> always harear about that crosswalk. well, is the grass greener on the other side? if so, there are dozens of lawn care services that can fix that. we weed out the ones that can cost you hundreds of dollars extra. a local judge survives a stroke. the move he made that could have saved his life. and using an impressive

check this out. a georgia senator accomplished something links that is rare, even for the best of golfers. republican saxby chambliss was playing a round with the president at andrews air force base. as we teed off the 11th hole, he hit a hole in one! chambliss says the president took the ball out of the hole and signed the flag for him. the senator jokingly tried to use the accomplishment as a bargaining chip saying, hey, republicans should now get whatever they want on entitlement reform. sorry, doesn't work that way. off the golf course, it can be time consuming and expensive to take care of your own green, and we are, of course, talking about lawn care. so if you're not careful, you could be spending hundreds of dollars more than what you need to. liz crenshaw shows us what you need to watch out for. >> it is kind of hard with busy, hectic lifestyles and children and running them around trying to keep up with everything. >> reporter: kathy birch is

talking about keeping up with yard work. she has no time to maintain her lawn. >> i'm ashamed to say that things have been going downhill, so the weeds are really coming back. >> reporter: birch says she was not happy with the lawn care company she once had, so she decided to be part of a survey. with washington consumers checkbook, an independent nonprofit, which collects information and reports back to its subscribers, the best prices and best rated services. birch had 17 companies come out to her home to give her a quote. >> they were going to weed control, fertilization, insect control, grub control. satisfieding, aeration, monitoring for diseases. the main thing i needed done was to have the weeds brought back under control. >> reporter: but there was a big difference in price. the bids she received included seeding, pesticide treatments and ranged in price from $335 to

$928 for a one-year contract. that's a difference of nearly $600. >> we strongly recommend that people get competitive prices. >> reporter: robert krugoff says it surveyed 133 lawn care services. 39 companies were rated superior overall by at least 80% of their customers, including working on this lawn in falls church, virginia. but 19 companies did not receive such favorable ratings from even half of the customers it surveyed. common complaints, poor work results, customer service problems and overcharges. >> i think it's very important to say exactly what your expectations are, because there's a lot of variation in what these firms will tell you. it's worth it to have several out, see which ones make sense, which ones give you advice you can believe in. >> reporter: he says get written proposals from several companies. ask for a written guarantee that

the firm will refund your money if you're not satisfied with its services. and remember, the higher number of treatments does not necessarily mean better results. >> it's in part what they do on those treatments. >> actually the company that i liked very much was the low bidder. they did everything that i needed and handled everything that i needed. >> reporter: liz crenshaw, news4. >> shop around, as we always say. you can see the washington consumers checkbook lawn care ratings on our website, nbcwashington.com. just search lawn care. a d.c. judge has a new outlook on life. still ahead, the crucial minutes that helped him survive a medical emergency at work. and a local engineering challenge centered on one potato chip.

in news4 your health, every

year nearly 700,000 people suffer strokes in the u.s. in fact it's the third leading cause of death in this country. a prominent d.c. judge who had a stroke at the courthouse survived. he talked to news4's doreen gentzler as he shared his story for the first time. >> i just thought it's one of those mornings where you had a lot to do, you don't eat. i thought i need to eat, or it's just one of those days that was stressful. >> reporter: every day can be stressful when you're the chief judge at d.c. superior court. for judge lee satterfield, headaches are nothing new. but on november 28th, 2011, what he thought was his body's reaction to a difficult day turned out to be something much more serious. >> the only symptom i had at the time was a severe headache. at least that's what i thought, but i was having the other ones that people recognized. >> he had weakness on the left side of his body, he had inability to see on the left side, his speech was slurred. >> reporter: all those symptoms, hallmark signs of a stroke.

but the 54-year-old father of two say he was in denial that day. he didn't believe he was in any danger. >> and that's what i said. i'm just going to go in there and lie down on the sofa and check with me in a little bit. >> reporter: his courthouse colleagues called 911, and he was taken to george washington university hospital. neurologist dr. kathleen burger says ct scans identified a blocked artery that was cutting off blood to his brain, causing a stroke. >> so luckily he came immediately after his symptoms started, and we were within a perfect time window where we were able to treat him. >> reporter: the e.r. team gave judge satterfield a clot-busting drug that day that helped his symptoms. he also needed a procedure to remove the blood clot. burger says he was lucky he made it to the hospital when he did. treatment guidelines say these drugs called tpa should be given within four and a half hours of the start of a stroke. >> and even if they are left with a bit of a disability, it will be much less with the therapy than if they were to have no therapy. >> reporter: if you had just

come in and worked by yourself in your office and nobody was necessarily checking on you, this could have had a much different outcome. >> i would not have come out as well as i did, either a worse outcome or at least one where my quality of life would have been changed dramatically. >> reporter: judge satterfid is grateful to everyone who helped him survive that day, and he says he now has a new perspective on life. >> i adopted this slogan, more smiling, less complaining. and said that's what we're going to do this year. >> reporter: doreen gentzler, news4. >> more smiling, i like that. of course prevention is really key when it comes to fighting stroke. that means maintaining a healthy blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol level and not smoking. chips, they're not always part of a healthy diet, but they're definitely part of a lesson to get teens excited about science. welcome to the pringle's challenge. the pringle chip challenge. students from our our lady of

victory in d.c. visited the students at elizabeth seaton high school in maryland and they were challenged to design packaging that would get a single chip through the mail in one piece. >> so for us it's about asking our girls to think about engineering science and design opportunities. so as they're thinking about going to high school, going to a high school and perhaps further on in college then pursuing a science or an engineering career, as often we find our girls don't always think that way. so to be able to give them this opportunity was invaluable for us. >> well, so what. none of the chips got through the mail in one piece but the students say it was a great learning experience and they can't wait to do it all over again next year. it was a day fit for royalty. the special surprise a young cancer patient got and the people who helped make it happen. ♪

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here's a look at the two newest additions to the national

zoo. meet kurt and nicole, they're baby indian bear cubs and they were born back in december and just made their public debut at the bear exhibit. they are listed on the vulnerable species list. there's an estimated mere 2,000 left in their natural habitat. boy, it looks like they can be pretty fast at times. now to a big surprise for an 8-year-old battling cancer. she was given the royal treatment and got to be princess for a day. erika gonzalez was among the hundreds of people who gathered in chantilly, virginia, to see the fairy tale unfold. >> reporter: if you could be anything for a day, what would you be? for 8-year-old tara stakener, fighting inoperable brain cancer, there can only be one thing. >> she's a little embarrassed because she lost her hair. >> reporter: the chantilly girl wants to be a princess. >> are you surprised? >> yeah. >> reporter: with a horse-drawn carriage and a couple hundred

subjects praising her name. >> tara, tara. >> i had no idea. >> it's all about community. >> one little girl brings a heart -- opens up our hearts. >> reporter: meet the prince charming who made it all happen. tattoo tom as he's called lost his daughter to cancer and now heads a foundation, making things like this possible for children with cancer. >> i believe my daughter gave her life and paid the ultimate price to put me in a position to make me the man i am today so i could touch the lives of these children. >> reporter: tara's treatment will last 70 weeks and she's only through week eight, but today's event is sure to breathe new life into that little fighting body of hers. tara's mom says her daughter's prognosis is good. >> she's my hero and if she can do it, we all can do it. >> reporter: today princesses unite. knights in shining armor come to the rescue, and for just a few

minutes, princess tara forgets there's pain, forgets the word "cancer" and believes in fairy tales. in chantilly, erika gonzalez, news4. >> and the weather was great. well, that's all for "news4 this week." i'm veronica johnson. thanks for joining us. until next time, you know how it goes, be safe, be kind, be happy. ( telephone rings )

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