FIREFIGHTERS IN NEWBURGH, NEW YORK, were dispatched on a public service call Friday night that turned out to be a little different from the norm.

They were sent to the St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital and asked to bring “tools to cut off a ring.”  The fire engine has the standard ring cutter that is used to snip wedding bands that have become too tight to be slipped off, so they were prepared, they thought.  When they arrived at the hospital, they learned that it would take more than your standard ring cutter because the ring in question was an inch long, and inch in diameter and made of quarter-inch thick steel.

The 73-year-old man who was in distress wasn’t wearing it on a finger, either.  Nor a toe.  Instead it was locked onto another appendage that is usually not adorned with jewelry.  The spokesman at the hospital said that it was apparently being used as “an erotic aid” but didn’t elaborate.  So Firegeezer won’t elaborate, either.

The firefighters had a “wizzer saw” with them that is powered by air bottles, so choosing that as a solution, one of them became a surgeon-for-a-day and went (carefully) to work.  Ninety minutes and five air bottles later, the job was done.

The Newburgh Times Herald-Record has the FULL STORY with all the details of the operation.

LOS ANGELES COUNTY FIREFIGHTERS FACED A TRUE rescue problem Saturday morning.  As they arrived at a 2-story rooming house in the Florence area they found almost every 2nd-floor window occupied by trapped residents.

KCBS image

A fire had started in a makeshift laundry room and had traveled up the walls, filling the entire building with smoke and a spreading fire.  The single-room-occupancy hotel was built in 1923 and was equipped with communal bathrooms.  In one of those, a closet was converted into a laundry room and a clothes dryer was not vented at all, allowing the lint buildup behind it to catch on fire.

The blazing room on the first floor had effectively blocked both exits to the upper story, thereby presenting the arriving firefighters with the rescue challenge.  It was immediately all-hands to the ladders and soon at least 15 people were taken from the building.  The fire was handled easily, being brought under control in about 20 minutes.

The building had a pull-box fire alarm, but the owner had shut it off because the children were constantly pulling it.  The individual units had smoke detectors, but the batteries in all of them had been removed by the occupants.

The Los Angeles Times has the STORY.
KCBS Ch. 2 has a good video report HERE.

FIREFIGHTERS ARE PLENTY FAMILIAR with high-rise apartment trash chutes.  Hardly a month goes by that you don’t get a sprinkler head going off in one of them caused by a small fire somewhere in the chute.

But Vancouver, Washington, firefighters found a different kind of obstruction Sunday in the trash chute of the Smith Tower apartments.

A 74-yr.-old man found that the narrow trash chute was obstructed by a cardboard box on the 10th-floor and leaned in to try and push it free.  As he was pushing, he slipped into the chute and became part of the obstruction.  His wife, who was with him, grabbed his ankles in a futile attempt to keep him from going in.  Unable to get him out, she called (who else?) the fire department.

KATU-TV Portland has the rest of the story in this video report:

SATURDAY NIGHT IN BERLIN, GERMANY, a 27-yr.-old burglar broke into an office building with no good intentions in mind.

After picking out his four favorite laptop computers to take home with him, he decided to take the easy way out with his load and got on the elevator.  But his luck turned as the elevator got stuck during the descent.  Having no recourse, he sent the emergency help signal for the stuck elevator and the local fire brigade came by to give him a hand.

After successfully freeing the man, the feuerwehrmanns tied the time - shortly after midnight - to the stack of laptops in the corner of the elevator and called the police.  Confronted with the uplifting evidence, he confessed to the crime and spent the rest of Saturday night in a place not of his choosing.

The Berlin Morgenpost has the STORY.

Neighbors Make Daring Rescue

A HOUSE IN PORTLAND, OREGON, SLID 300 FEET DOWN A HILL Wednesday morning, eventually crashing into two other homes at the base of the hill.

Portland Oregonian photo

Several neighbors on Burlingame Place in SW Portland were alerted this morning when they heard a loud crunching sound outside.  Looking out their windows they saw one of their neighbor’s house slowly tip over and start to slide down the hillside that the home’s foundations were built on.

The entire section of ground had given way and the house rolled over on its side and slipped downhill about 20 feet.  The lady living in the house had managed to scramble out onto the side of the house and two neighbors grabbed an extension ladder and lowered it down to her.  It was just long enough for her to reach the last rung and she held on while they pulled her to safety.  Less than two minutes later the house continued its descent and went all the way to the bottom of the 45-degree slope.

One of the rescuers interviewed by KGW-TV told:

“She said she heard some creaks and groans in the house and was able to come out front, but, of course, the whole hillside gave way so she wasn’t even able to make it to the street,” he said. “(Kathy) was just scrambling to stay on top of the house … as we were able to get the ladder down to her. 

“We laid on the edge of the earth next to the house. (Kathy) was on top of the house but it was giving way. She crawled off it and we were able to get the ladder down to her and pull her up out of the hole there. Then, a couple of minutes later, the whole house gave way down the hill,” 

The house ripped out the gas pipe and water line leaving both leaking openly and adding to the area endangerment.  Geologists brought in to inspect the earth say that it’s the area underneath the street that is unstable and the threat still exists for further landslides.  The two houses on either side of the runaway have both been condemned already.

The Portland Oregonian has the STORY.
KING-TV Seattle has some good raw video from its helicopter:

THE DRIVER OF THE CHARTER BUS THAT CRASHED NEAR Sacramento, California, on Sunday night (See Firegeezer story HERE) has been arrested.

AP / Pedroncelli photo

Quinton Watts, 52, of Stockton was arrrested by the California Highway Patrol as he lay in his hospital bed Monday.  He is primarily being charged with DUI, but other charges are pending as well.  It has been discovered that Watts has a lengthy criminal driving record including speeding and other violations that caused his driving license to be suspended for two years.  He just got he license restored this past January.

He also has a long history of alcohol and drug abuse and has been jailed several times on drug charges.  He recently has been unable to get a job as a truck driver, so he was trying this job with the Cobb’s Bus Service of Modesto, California.  After a brief training period watching the bus owner drive, this was Watts’ first trip.

Chaney Mae Watts, the driver’s mother, and her husband told their son they were uncomfortable with him driving a vehicle that carried people instead of cargo.  “He wasn’t the best driver,” she said. “He knew we didn’t want him to drive.”

Quinton Watts
(Calif. Dept. of Corrections photo)

Cobb’s is also suspect in this case.  The bus was carrying illegal Texas license plates and the vehicle serial numbers weren’t matching up, either.  The owner, Daniel Cobb, was one of the fatalities in the crash.  Colusia County District Attorney John Poyner said Monday it will be at least two to three months before the full accident reports are available and any criminal charges are made.

Cobb’s Bus Service registered with the California secretary of state’s office in September 2006, but its registration is listed as invalid because of a bounced check.

Note:  The death toll has been adjusted to 8 fatalities, down from the original estimate of 10 killed.

The Associated Press has a good updated REPORT.

California News Network has a video report:

A CHARTER BUS CARRYING A FULL LOAD OF PASSENGERS to a casino rolled over into a ditch Sunday night north of Sacramento, California.

Associated Press / Yeater photo

Currently it has been announced that at least 10 people have died and 30 to 38 more have been hospitalized with injuries, most of them critical.  Eight hospitals have been receiving crash victims and exact numbers are still sketchy.

The bus was traveling along a 2-lane roadway that is commonly used as a shortcut from Interstate Hwy. 5 to the casino in Colusa when it drifted off of the roadway.  According to California Highway Patrol spokesman Patrick Landreth, the driver “overcorrected” and swerved back. The bus rolled over, ejecting about a dozen of its passengers before it landed right side up in a (water-filled) ditch.

“The roof was collapsed down, the windows were broken out, and the bus was not only rolled over onto its side, it rolled completely over,” Landreth said. “It was facing the opposite direction and it was on its wheels.”

More than a dozen fire companies and nine medical helicopters responded to the accident.  FF’s spent most of the night thoroughly searching the entire area with infra-red detectors for any more victims.

Sacramento Bee / Costas photo

CHP spokesman Robert Kays said the bus had a Texas license plate that was “not valid.” He said other registration serial numbers also came up invalid.  “There are still several pieces of this puzzle that’s [sic] missing,” Kays said. “We will find out who owns the bus.”  The bus was over twenty years old and had been sold out of the Greyhound fleet over two years ago, but it still has the Greyhound paint scheme largely intact on it.

The Sacramento Bee has a recent REPORT.

The Associated Press has a brief, early video report:

AN UNUSUAL CHAIN OF EVENTS ENDED UP WITH TULSA, OKLAHOMA, firefighters plucking two people from a flaming pickup truck in a gas station Saturday.

KOTV image

Shortly before 2 pm two pickups collided at an intersection in west Tulsa after one of them ran a red light.  One of the trucks careened into the Sinclair station’s building.  The other truck also veered into the property knocking off a gas pump and striking a third vehicle. 

The collision with the pump started a fire that spread to the third truck and into the building where the manager was alertly shutting off the power to the pumps and then leading the customers inside to the rear exit and safety.

The FD was on the scene quickly where they found a 68-yr.-old man and a 67-yr.-old woman, James and Frances Crow, injured inside one of the trucks and surrounded by the fire.  They immediately got a hose line between them and pulled to two seriously injured passengers out before going on to extinguish the fire.

While the FD lauded the station operator for acting quickly in shutting off the pumps, the Crow’s daughter says the real heroes were the firefighters, who walked through flames to help pull her dad, who was unconscious out of the truck.

KOTV Ch. 6 has the full STORY.

KOKI Ch. 23 has this video report: