Francisco Palma dangled upside down, his right leg caught and mangled in the teeth of ditch-digging equipment resembling a giant chain saw. Only his head and shoulders touched the ground.
A trencher caught the pants leg of the 46-year-old construction worker last week. It flipped him over and nearly severed his leg. - PUB DATE: 2/9/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Dallas Morning News
In a memo sent to her staff, Austin Fire's first female chief, Rhoda Kerr, has announced she will soon leave the department to take on a role in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Kerr told the Austin Fire Department staff Wednesday that she plans to retire July 1 to start her "new adventure as the new Fire Chief in Fort Lauderdale. - PUB DATE: 2/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: KVUE-TV ABC Austin
A memo released Wednesday shows that two Kokomo firefighters engaged in a physical altercation last month over a city contract proposal that was rejected by the local fire union.
The fight, which led to both firefighters receiving written reprimands, came just one day after a rally at City Hall attended by roughly 200 people in support of the Professional Firefighters of Kokomo Local 396. - PUB DATE: 2/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Kokomo Tribune
The memory of Hannah Lassette Ahlers and the other Las Vegas concertgoers killed during the largest mass shooting in modern U.S. history is being kept alive, one act of kindness at a time.
About a month after the Oct. 1 shooting on the Las Vegas Strip, firefighter Tommy Maher decided he wanted to honor each of the 58 victims by performing random acts of kindness in their name. - PUB DATE: 2/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Bradenton Herald
A veteran of the D.C. Fire and EMS Department says the city's training academy is leaving new firefighters woefully underprepared. Some rookies leave having never used a fire hydrant, a recently retired deputy fire chief with decades on the job wrote in an internal memo obtained by News4.
The nine-page memo says the recruits are rushed through a training program. - PUB DATE: 2/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: NBC Washington
The Chicago Fire Department Wednesday marked the 50th anniversary of an explosion that killed four firefighters in the Back of the Yards neighborhood responding to a fire in a sausage factory.
On Feb. 7, 1968, more than 300 firefighters were called to the Mickelberry Food Products Company at 50th and Halsted. - PUB DATE: 2/8/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: CBS Chicago
Upset over the way the city rolled out civil service rules last fall, the union representing Arlington firefighters has now turned to the courts.
In a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Tarrant County, the Arlington Professional Firefighters sued the city and named Fire Chief Don Crowson, city human resources director Kari Jo Zika and members of the city's Civil Service Commission as defendants. - PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Fort Worth Star-Telegram
A toddler died from injuries suffered while touring a Scottsdale Fire Department station this past weekend, city officials confirmed Tuesday.
The boy, just under 2 years old, was fatally injured Saturday by apparatus bay doors at the Scottsdale Fire Station at 1901 N. Miller Road, the city's communications office said. - PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Arizona Republic, AZCentral.com & KPNX-TV NBC 12 Phoenix
The Cranston Fire Department is monitoring the health of 20 firefighters and first responders experiencing exposure symptoms after battling a chemical fire at ProSys Finishing Technologies last week.
Crews from across the state responded to the company on Elmwood Avenue last Monday when a report of a fire turned into a hazmat incident, sending 12 firefighters and two first responders to the hospital. - PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WPRI-TV Providence 12
Every 24-hour shift for firefighter-paramedic Nicole Morris gets harder for her to endure.
She's not sick or hurt. She's pregnant.
And according to the contract negotiated in 2016 between the International Association of Firefighters Local 2201 and the Indian River County Emergency Services District, she can't be assigned to light duty. - PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: TCPalm.com
A Central firefighter became trapped when an overhang roof collapsed while crews were working a house fire Monday afternoon. But civilians on scene helped rescue him, according to a Facebook post from the Central Fire Department.
Crews were dispatched around 2:40 p.m. to the 12100 block of Lancewood Drive for a building on fire behind a home. - PUB DATE: 2/7/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Advocate
San Francisco has reached a $250,000 tentative settlement in a lawsuit alleging a firefighter was wrongly blamed for the death of a teenage passenger in the Asiana Airlines crash.
The lawsuit claimed firefighter Elyse Duckett became a “sacrificial lamb” for the San Francisco Fire Department after 16-year-old Ye Meng Yuan died as first responders scrambled to rescue passengers and douse flames July 6, 2013. - PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Francisco Examiner
A Louisville man who served eight years for arson claims investigators manipulated him into making a false confession by providing him beer during the interrogation and threatening his girlfriend with prosecution.
U.B. Thomas III was convicted of setting four apartment house fires in 2011, but a judge tossed out the conviction in March. - PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Louisville Courier-Journal
The proposed acquisition of a quint truck faced stiff opposition from firefighters, while Mayor Bob O’Dekirk said the city needs to do something about “obscene” amounts of overtime spent in the department.
Firefighters at a City Council workshop meeting Monday said putting a quint, a dual-purpose truck, in downtown Station 1 would threaten public safety in the older section of the city. - PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: The Herald-News
Mary Marchone never imagined giving nearly 50 years to the fire service when she was hired as an office assistant for Montgomery County, MD, Fire Rescue in 1969.
But over the course of nearly 50 years, that office assistant educated herself on fire safety and prevention and eventually became one of the most well regarded training specialists in the country. - PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Firehouse
There’s no white cross on the side of GA 109 symbolizing a lost life. That’s what matters to Rick Rickerson.
It all happened so quickly.
A vehicle flips over and over on a desolate stretch of a Pike County highway.
A woman is trapped.
She’s not breathing.
Rickerson witnesses the horrific accident and his instincts automatically kick in. - PUB DATE: 2/6/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WUSA-TV 9 DC
Ronald Svec, a former city firefighter who was diagnosed with a 9/11-related cancer six months after he retired, has died, officials and relatives said Saturday.
The 63-year-old FDNY vet died Friday at the Jersey Shore University Medical Center after a more than 9-year battle with lung and spine cancer, said his wife of 34 years, Sharon Svec. - PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: New York Daily News
Long before he became San Diego's fire chief, Brian Fennessy would wear his crusty, soot-covered helmet like a badge, proof he worked at one of the city's busiest fire stations. He thought it gave him credibility and earned him the respect of peers.
Now he knows his dirty gear harbored the toxins and carcinogens that haunt the scene of a fire -- and that they might well revisit him in the future as cancer. - PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: San Diego Union-Tribune
VIDEO - A North Lauderdale Fire Rescue truck was involved in a serious crash Friday afternoon in Lauderhill, authorities said.
The crash was reported shortly after 3 p.m. in the area of Northwest 16th Street and State Road 7.
Authorities said the firetruck was transporting a high-priority pediatric patient to the hospital when the crash occurred. - PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WPLG-TV ABC Local10.com - Miami & Fort Lauderdale
VIDEO - A family in Massachusetts nearly lost their house after their dog inadvertently turned on the kitchen stove while trying to grab some leftover pancakes. The incident was captured by the family's security cameras, and the footage was submitted to the Southwick Fire Department which shared the video on Facebook. - PUB DATE: 2/5/2018 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WCVB-TV ABC 5 Boston
