Windsor Terrace resident Lauren Hill says she used her Blackberry to record what she found on her stoop around 3 a.m. Thursday — a man in a firefighter’s uniform passed out cold, snoring and shoeless.
“His head was leaning towards the door so the key was right above him so I did attempt to open the door and see if I can get in but that was to no avail. I was really having difficulty opening the door. He really needed to be out of the way,” Hill said.
She tells NY1 she tried to nudge him several times but then feared he might awaken in an angry state. “I called 911 and I was like ‘I have to go to the bathroom and someone is blocking my door I can’t get in,’” Hill said.
“It probably looks really bad on the officer in uniform but it was Saint Patty’s Day so I hope he had a good time,” said building tenant Martin Andrew.
THE WYOMING, MICHIGAN, FIREFIGHTERS WERE busy working most of the night at an apartment fire in the Grand Rapids suburban community. The fire got up into the attic area and burned off most of the top story and caused significant damage to the rest of the residences in the 32-unit building.
WOOD-TV / Humes
The units that were still on the scene later this morning had to lay out the supply lines again when a 3rd-floor unit rekindled, but it was handled ok. Nobody was injured in the blaze, but there were some anxious moments when a physically-handicapped woman was unaccounted for, but she was later located outside.
WOOD-TV Ch. 8 has this updated video report on both incidents:
They come in three’s, don’t they? Just four days after the passing of noted actor Peter Graves (Firegeezer HERE), we learned that iconic actor Fess Parker died yesterday at age 85. You could call it the second death of Davy Crockett because his portrayal of the King of the Wild Frontier not only placed him on the top of the tv popularity scale in the 1950’s and 60’s, but it made his mark for a successful life.
Fess Parker, 1955 (Getty Images)
Born Fess Elsha Parker, Jr. in Texas, he grew to be a rangey and athletic 6-ft, 5-inches tall and eventually made his way to Hollywood where he was told he could do well in Western movies. Following a series of small parts in several Westerns, he landed the role of Davy Crockett in a series of short stories that were broadcast on Walt Disney’s weekly television show. The character who fought all sorts of evil in the 19th-century frontier while all the time wearing a coonskin cap became an overnight sensation catching everyone by surprise, including Walt Disney himself.
Suddenly every kid in America was running to the local dime store to buy a coonskin cap and the theme song for the episodes was released on a record where it shot to the top of the charts. It is said that during that phase the going price for raccoon pelts went from 18 cents a pound to $8 lb. The five stories that he filmed for Disney were re-packaged into two feature-length movies and recycled through the theaters where millions more were spent watching his exploits.
He later starred in a regular tv series playing the role of Daniel Boone for more than 160 episodes. Sensing that his star would soon be fading, he took his fortune and built an award-winning winery and seaside resort in Santa Barbara, California, where he and his wife of 50 years have resided since. If you wish to read more on Fess Parker’s career, just plug his name into any search engine today and you will get plenty of links.
Now let’s mosey on over to the apparatus and get the equipment checked out. I’ll slip on back to the Bunn-o-Matic and fire up some coffee.
WHEN AN EARLY, SILENT-MOVIE WAS PRODUCED IN 1909 of the Mark Twain classic novel The Prince and the Pauper, it was produced by none other than Tomas Edison. The story was condensed so that it could be told on a two-reeler (roughly 20 – 22 minutes). As part of the production, Mr. Edison wanted to have some footage of Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens) to introduce the movie. So he went to Twain’s home in Redding, Connecticut, and shot this brief film himself.
It is believed to be the only film ever made of Mark Twain, and certainly the only one that survived.
The pixilation and much of the light variations are a result of the digitalizing compression when the film was converted to the .flv formatting of the YouTube. Still, when you consider the superior quality of motion picture films today, it is hard to believe that this film was made just 100 years ago.
* STATter911 has a report and the video of a house fire in New Jersey where everybody escaped…..except for the 30 pets HERE.
* In January Firegeezer reported (HERE and scroll down) on a retired Virginia State Trooper who was caught embezzling over $100,000 from the VFD where he served as treasurer. He was back in court Monday where more charges were added to his indictments. VA Fire News has the update on this story HERE.
* Mike Legeros of the Raleigh/Wake Firefighting Blog frequently has a delightful posting about something historical. This week he shares a photo of an 1890’s horse-drawn hose wagon, complete with horse. CLICK HERE and enjoy it.
* Joe at ReportOnConditions has a nice report on a special family ritual held annually to honor a family member who died young HERE.
THE END IS NEAR FOR THE FOUR MEN who staged the daring armed robbery at a major poker tournament in Berlin on March 6. Our most unusual story so far this month was our REPORT HERE of the brazen daylight robbery that was caught on surveillance tapes, part of which we showed you here (click on the above link).
They attempted to snatch $1.3 million, but a brave security guard tackled one of the robbers and recovered most of the loot, leaving them with barely over $300,000 for themselves.
It was disclosed yesterday by the German police that 21-yr.-old man turned himself in on Tuesday and after intensive questioning he admitted participating in the heist. He then gave the authorities the names of the other three men, a 19-year-old German, a 20-year-old from Turkey and another 20-year-old of unknown nationality.
Late last night (Wednesday) a 2nd man was taken into custody “without resistance” after presenting himself to two policemen working in a Metro station. “In my opinion, the robbery on the poker championship in the Hyatt can be considered largely solved,” a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office said this morning.
The remaining two fugitives have been entered into Interpol’s files because the police think it is probable that they have fled the country and they have issued international arrest warrants for them.
For more information, read related stories HERE and HERE.
This video report from RTL News includes some surveillance video that was not in our earlier coverage:
A LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, METRO AMBULANCE was involved in a collision around 11 pm Wednesday night that sent four people including the medics to the hospital and injured a fifth person.
Police say that the ambulance was carrying a patient to the hospital with its lights and siren on, but they have not yet determined how the accident occurred.
A KIAWAH ISLAND, SOUTH CAROLINA, GOLF CLUB is without a clubhouse this morning following a fire on Wednesday that destroyed the structure.
WCDB-TV
St. John’s FD firefighters were first called to the 36,000-sq.-ft. building at 3 am for a fire that started near a sauna. The building’s sprinkler system contained the fire and the FD extinguished it quickly. The Charleston Post and Courier continues the story:
After extinguishing that fire, firefighters went through the building with heat-sensing devices and found no heat signatures anywhere, (Fire Chief Karl) Ristow said. “We felt certain that we had it out,” he said.
One of the pipes feeding the sprinkler system was damaged by the first fire, so firefighters had to leave the sprinkler system off until it could be inspected, Ristow said.
At about 8 a.m., firefighters were called back to the clubhouse, and fire was coming through the roof, he said.
The clubhouse was built 14 years ago at a cost of $6.5 million and is a total loss. The Kawah Island River Course management has already declared that they will rebuild the facility.
Earlier this week, on Monday we carried a report (HERE) on two separate multi-vehicle pileups in Germany. While looking over all the photographs that were available from those crash scenes, I noticed that in both instances the fire departments had set up tents like you usually see for firefighter decon. and triage shelters. That seems like such a good idea to me.
I was impressed that these two incidents were a couple of hundred miles apart, therefore it might be a wide-spread practice in the country. At least in those departments that cover the freeways which are famous for their news-making wrecks. The weather was definitely a factor in these incidents because you had literally hundreds of other motorists caught in the traffic backup for hours at a time, stranded in the middle of nowhere with very cold temperatures. The Red Cross and the police saw to it that there were hot beverages and snacks available inside the shelters to provide relief for the stranded travelers.
While on the surface it looks like an excessive expense and effort to do that, I would argue that it is like preventive medicine in that they are preventing potential exposure emergencies, etc., from occurring and then complicating the ongoing emergency. Off-hand, I don’t know of anybody in the U.S. who does this as a matter of routine. This type of event is rare here and unlikely to involve the same fire/rescue deparments repeatedly. But it is a good item to file away in your mind’s data-bank as something to consider when you have your own incident to handle. First thing you do is review what units (usually haz-mat squads) carry triage shelters. What do you think? Do any of our readers already practice this added response to remote incidents?
* * * * *
At our Lineup on February 21 (HERE) we mentioned the cellphone providers upcoming move to their 4G networks, while most of us are still placing calls at 2G speeds. There have been a couple of announcements this week that I wish to pass along, keeping in mind that I don’t have a firm grasp on this phone-tech stuff, I only repeat it.
The Wall Street Journal filed a report yesterday saying that Sprint will be the first network to offer a 4G phone and they will introduce it next week. All of the major carriers are building out their networks now, but they have generally been operating on having them functional and commonly available early next year. This surprise announcement may just force the others to accelerate their schedules. I still don’t know what’s so important about having a phone that sends data 10X faster than it does now, but I suppose there are a few people who are really keen about downloading movies while they are stuck in an airport waiting lounge.
Seriously though, I think it has more to do with the phone companies being able to handle the increased traffic load that is building up on the current networks. Much like a congested 4-lane highway being widened to 10 lanes suddenly and giving instant relief to the traffic problem. Anyway, Digital Trends has a concise explanation of what’s going on and just what the devil 4G is (HERE), if you would like to learn more.
All right, we’d better get back to our 1G check-sheets and get this equipment checked out. I’m going over to the 2G Bunn-o-Matic and get some more coffee going. See you in the day room in a little while.
WHEN THE CREW WORKING THE NEWS ROOM AT OMAHA, NEBRASKA, Channel 3 heard a child’s voice coming over their emergency radio scanner, they took notice.
“Rescue squad number 21 on [sic] route to Immanuel code 2,” the young voice said, apparently coming from an ambulance. Curious, a camera crew went to station 21 and discovered what happened.
A reporter from the station who seems to be a little more worked up over it than she needs to be, tries her best to make it into a scandal, but it has a harmless ending. Watch the video report:
A BROTHEL IN BASEL, SWITZERLAND, that caters to the gay and transsexual community caught on fire early Monday morning, driving one of the customers out onto the 4th-floor window ledge where he waited for the arrival of the fire brigade. Unfortunately for Memeth J., a photographer for Blick newspaper got there before the firefighters did.
Now everybody in Switzerland knows what his butt looks like, but he tells Blick, “I hope nobody sees my face and that nobody in my family recognizes my (butt). They don’t know that I am gay.”
The entire “salon” was burned out and Memeth was hospitalized briefly for minor burns here and there.
AN AUSTRALIAN COMMUTER TRAIN WAS FORCED TO STOP and evacuate approximately 50 passengers early Wednesday morning when the undercarriage of one of the coaches started burning.
The METRO regional commuter line in Victoria, Australia, is an electric line and a late-night train’s pantograph (the device that rides under the electric wire and carries the current down to the train’s motor) snagged the transmission line, pulling it down where it became tangled between two coaches. The sudden short-circuit sent a power surge through the motors and started a fire underneath the car.
This photo taken on a stranded passenger’s cellphone
shows smoke pouring from the affected railcar.
(HWT Image library)
The train came to a halt and the passengers were safely evacuated without any encouragement needed.
THE FRENCH RAILROAD SNCF ran a regularly scheduled in-house disaster drill Tuesday simulating a major incident with one of their ultra-high-speed TGV trains.
Part of the practice exercise involves the public relations department who are responsible for dissemination of the public information. Unfortunately, the faux press release was posted on their website instead of the training page and panicked relatives all over the country were greeted with:
An explosion of unknown origin occurred at 8am today aboard TGV1234, close to Macon.“The first estimates of the fire service say 102 people died and another 380 were injured. All the victims were evacuated to hospitals in Macon.
“Due to the dramatic events today on TGV1234, our site will only be publishing essential information. Thank you for your understanding.
It didn’t take long for the word to get back to HQ and the notice was quickly removed. “On March 16th, just before 12.00, an error appeared on the sncf.com site relaying information about an accident. This never took place,” the company said, adding that an investigation would seek to find out what had gone wrong as they were busily calming down distraught relatives who had been checking on their loved-one’s arrival schedules.
This tv news video shows the renegade web posting. Our friends in Quebec will also enjoy the report:
A RAILROAD TRESTLE LEADING TO THE BRUNSWICK, GEORGIA, port facility caught on fire late Monday afternoon and trapped a train carrying a load of brand-new Mercedes Benz automobiles and another 30 cars filled with grain. The autos were being transported from the M-B factory in Vance, Alabama, to the intermodal shipping facility in Brunswick to be exported overseas.
The wood trestle crosses a marsh and is the only rail link to the port. The fire spread up onto the train and destroyed two railcars filled with 16 M-B autos that were worth at least $50,000 each. The bulk of the fire damage was to the train with about $800,000 loss from the autos. The train had been stopped on the trestle while some switching activity was taking place and when the fire started encroaching on the railcars, the switchmen were able to separate the grain cars from the car carriers and tow them off of the trestle.
Firefighters had to hand-lay supply lines down the trestle to reach the fire, but they were able to prevent it from spreading beyond the two involved cars to the rest of the auto loads. The fire that started around 2:30 pm was out by 4:00. Repair work is continuing non-stop on the trestle and they expect to be able to resume rail traffic by late this afternoon (Wednesday).
The Jacksonville (Florida) Times-Union has the latest REPORT.
It was just last month, on February 20, that we were talking on the Morning Lineup (HERE) about how some jurisdictions are abusing their mutual aid agreements by shutting down fire companies and reducing manpower, then relying on the mutual aid departments to pick up the slack on fire calls. One of the examples that we pointed out was the city of Milwaukee which is doing that very thing, bringing in neighboring departments to cover for the MFD’s failure to provide adequate resources of their own.
A more bizarre stunt came just a few days before that when the looney mayor of North Providence, Rhode Island, arbitrarily eliminated the position of Fire Chief. He has delegated the shift battalian chiefs to run the department on a rotation based on their shift work, and if a major fire occurs the city will rely on a fire chief from another jurisdiction coming on over to run the show. (see Firegeezer report HERE.) We predicted on the 20th, “…it shows how far some desparate politicians are willing to go in order to avoid taking proper fiscal responsibility for their own municipalities. This is just the sort of thing that can destroy the entire mutual aid concept, setting fire and rescue service back 50 years.”
Well, it took less than a month for our prediction to come true. On Monday, March 15, the Daytona Beach, Florida, Fire Chief Gary Hughes said that he is no longer going to send city fire units into Volusia County to respond to fires. Daytona Beach and Volusia County have/had a “nearest unit” mutual aid pact, but the city is accusing the county of doing just what we said before, closing stations and reducing the manpower on units below the recommended safe minimum. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported yesterday:
County officials have “taken their responses dangerously backwards,” the chief said.
Hughes said Daytona Beach firefighters are at risk when they don’t have enough help on a scene outside city limits, and Daytona Beach residents are in jeopardy when their firefighters are tied up on a call outside the city.
In a Feb. 23 letter to the county, Hughes said he’ll send his units “only after all available county resources have been exhausted and only if we have the resources to send.” He added in the letter that “… we will not commit resources to any incident if there are not sufficient personnel on scene to allow for firefighter safety and especially if there is not a formal command structure in place.”
It is obvious that the city is fed up with the growing burden on them to cover for the county’s lack of providing the basic fire protection themselves and shifting the expense to the city’s good will. Read the full article HERE to get the complete story and the county’s response.
WOFL-TV Ch. 35 Orlando interviewed Chief Hughes and filed this video report:
I will reiterate that this is not typical because most municipalities have been judicious and methodical in their compensating for the economic downturn. But there are some places like North Providence, Milwaukee, and Volusia County who think nothing of using their neighbors as stooges to make up for their own failings. Watch out for something like this happening around you and let us know if you see any other municipalities trying this stunt.
We’d better handle our own responsibility here and get this equipment checked out. I’m going to get the coffee started (and it won’t come out green).
TWO MEMBERS OF THE CATTARAUGUS FIRE DEPARTMENT near Buffalo, New York, have been arrested and charged with stealing $30,000 to $80,000 from the department.
John Finnegan, 52, the treasurer of the VFD, and Edward Holtz, 39, a member of the department, were in charge of operating the Bell Jar Ticket Game, a fund-raising device. Holtz pleaded guilty to 3rd-degree grand larceny, but Finnegan was scheduled to be brought back to court today or another hearing.
A MAUMEE (OHIO) EMS AMBULANCE WAS INVOLVED in a collision early Tuesday morning that sent four people to the hospital including the patient that was being taken there anyway.
The accident occurred around 3:30 am when the ambulance and an automobile traveling on cross streets crashed in an intersection. The driver of the car was seriously injured, but the ambulance personnel and their patient suffered only minor injuries. The details of how and why the accident happened are still under investigation.
WTOL-TV Ch. 11 Toledo has this early video report:
A POPULAR FAMILY-OWNED RESTAURANT IN CAHOKIA, ILLINOIS, was totally destroyed Monday afternoon by a fire of unknown origin. Stingers Restaurant and Pizzeria was not only a local favorite, but they also catered to the area police and firefighters who patronized the business loyally.
Fox2 / Nelson
The restaurant is closed on Mondays, but the owners and a couple of employees had been there earlier preparing an order of carry-outs for the local Meals-on-Wheels program. Nobody was in the business at 2:30 when the fire broke out, however. The incident brought units from 12 neighboring fire departments with over 70 firefighters. The Cahokia VFD attempted to attack it from the interior, but the fire was too advanced to remain inside.
Fox2
The entire roof collapsed into the building and everything was burned. There is no indication of anything suspicious, but the Illinois State Fire Marshal’s office is investigating the cause. KPLR-TV filed this video report:
IN PENNSYLVANIA, AS IN MOST OTHER STATES, the Home Builders Association has launched a vile disinformation campaign against the implementation of the 2009 International Residential Code that went into effect on January 1. The revised code requires all newly constructed townhomes in Pennsylvania, built after Jan. 1, 2010, and all newly constructed one- and two-family homes built after Jan. 1, 2011, to contain a residential fire sprinkler system.
The Pennsylvania HBA has not only started spreading downright lies about the Code, but they also filed a lawsuit against the state in an attempt to block the adoption of the revised code. As part of the lawsuit, they asked for an injunction to halt implementation of the code until the lawsuit was settled, a process that could take years.
On Wednesday March 10 Commonwealth Court Judge Johnny Butler denied the injunction, saying that it does nothing to address the underlying issue they are citing.
The builders’ lawsuit will continue forward, though. It (the suit) claims that changes written by an outside code commission and adopted Dec. 31 by the state is an unconstitutional delegation of lawmaking authority. Judge Butler, in denying the injunction, reminded the builders that the 2006 Code that they are petitioning to go back to were produced by the same process that they are now saying is unconstitutional.
While the lawsuit is still standing, Firegeezer believes that the judge’s point is a strong one and may complicate the HBA’s suit. For now, the new code is still in effect, a small win for the public’s safety.
As part of the war of competing press releases, the National Fire Sprinkler Association published an op-ed in the Scranton Times Tribune HERE that contains some good points that you could add to your own arsenal of facts when the inevitable blizzard of disinformation from the builders and developers in your area begins.
Longtime readers might recall a story that we posted in September 2008 about a photo promotion staged by Guinness Book of Records that month. It was a publicity event held in London to promote the upcoming release of the 2009 edition of their popular tome. The feature of the event was the appearance of the World’s Smallest Man alongside the woman who has the World’s Longest Legs. I’m sure you’ll remember the story as soon as you view this photograph from the event:
Firegeezer wrote at the time:
THE 2009 EDITION OF THE GUINNESS BOOK OF RECORDS is scheduled to be released soon. As a means to promote the release, the publishers held a publicity stunt in London’s Trafalgar Square Tuesday where they displayed the world’s smallest man, He Pingping from Outer Mongolia, along with a Russian woman who holds the record for having the longest legs of any other woman in the world.
He Pingping stands 2 ft.-5 inches tall, just barely half the length of Svetlana Pankratova’s legs which have been measured at 4 ft.-4 inches in length.
Back home, Pingping operates a restaurant with his sister and Pankratova, well ….. the 6′-4″ lady stands around a lot.
This video report from AP was included in the story:
This morning we are passing along to you the sad news that He Pingping died Saturday in Rome after a 2-week hospitalization. He was only 21 years old, but had suffered from heart complications and having been born with a rare ailment, primordial dwarfism that caused his diminutive stature. BBC News reports:
Pingping was in the Italian capital to take part in the filming of a television programme called The Record Show. According to the TV production company Europroduzione, he had already filmed two episodes of the programme when he complained of feeling unwell.”He started to feel slightly ill and we decided to take him to hospital. He entered hospital two weeks ago and had all kinds of tests, being a very special person he had to go though all sorts of tests. He went into intensive care three days after he was admitted,” said Marco Fernandez de Araoz, communications director for Europroduzione.
Craig Glenday, Guinness World Records editor-in-chief and the man who measured Pingping in Inner Mongolia to confirm his status as the world’s smallest man, issued this statement:
”From the moment I laid on eyes on him I knew he was someone special – he had such a cheeky smile and mischievous personality, you couldn’t help but be charmed by him. He brightened up the lives of everyone he met, and was an inspiration to anyone considered different or unusual.”
In closing, we’ll add this brief video clip from the London appearance where the videographer caught He Pingping violating Rule #1: “Don’t look up”
Ok, look back down here now and let’s get this equipment checked out. I’m going to get some more coffee started (it doesn’t really stunt your growth).
Justin Schorr, akaThe Happy Medic, has his. In fact, he never leaves home without it.
And you probably want one for home and another for work so that you can start every day with that perfect cup of coffee by drinking it from your very own GeezerCup.
The cost is reasonable and delivery is fast via priority mail. Just CLICK HERE to place your credit card order safely and securely. While you’re at it, go ahead and order one for whoever fills out your annual evaluation report, too. It can’t hurt and it might help.
A SANDY SPRINGS, GEORGIA, HOME BURNED TO THE GROUND early Monday morning. The 6,800 sq. ft. mansion was undergoing a major renovation and the family, which had lived there for at least 20 years, was staying elsewhere during the work.
WSB-TV
The fire was discovered by a police cruiser after it broke through the roof shortly before 3 am. When the FD arrived it faced an access challenge because the house had a “several hundred” foot-long driveway and was built against a steep hillside in the rear. The first-arriving officer described it as “almost a fireball” as the stores of paints and flooring materials were feeding the fire.
The home is a total loss and investigators are waiting to get into the rubble to try and find the cause. Currently, arson is not suspected.
A YOUNG MAN DRIVING A CAR WITH TWO OTHER passengers in Kansas City, Missouri, somehow didn’t see Big Red at 3:30 Sunday morning. Police say that he was fiddling with his GPS receiver while driving and breezed through a red light and smashed into the side of Engine 8 that was returning to quarters after a call.
The fire engine wasn’t too badly damaged, but the car…….
It was just last month, on February 20, that we were talking on the Morning Lineup (
A Small Win for the Fire/Rescue Service
CommentsIN PENNSYLVANIA, AS IN MOST OTHER STATES, the Home Builders Association has launched a vile disinformation campaign against the implementation of the 2009 International Residential Code that went into effect on January 1. The revised code requires all newly constructed townhomes in Pennsylvania, built after Jan. 1, 2010, and all newly constructed one- and two-family homes built after Jan. 1, 2011, to contain a residential fire sprinkler system.
The Pennsylvania HBA has not only started spreading downright lies about the Code, but they also filed a lawsuit against the state in an attempt to block the adoption of the revised code. As part of the lawsuit, they asked for an injunction to halt implementation of the code until the lawsuit was settled, a process that could take years.
On Wednesday March 10 Commonwealth Court Judge Johnny Butler denied the injunction, saying that it does nothing to address the underlying issue they are citing.
The builders’ lawsuit will continue forward, though. It (the suit) claims that changes written by an outside code commission and adopted Dec. 31 by the state is an unconstitutional delegation of lawmaking authority. Judge Butler, in denying the injunction, reminded the builders that the 2006 Code that they are petitioning to go back to were produced by the same process that they are now saying is unconstitutional.
While the lawsuit is still standing, Firegeezer believes that the judge’s point is a strong one and may complicate the HBA’s suit. For now, the new code is still in effect, a small win for the public’s safety.
As part of the war of competing press releases, the National Fire Sprinkler Association published an op-ed in the Scranton Times Tribune HERE that contains some good points that you could add to your own arsenal of facts when the inevitable blizzard of disinformation from the builders and developers in your area begins.