Engine-04 arrived on scene with smoke showing from a three story twin dwelling with a person trapped on the second floor. Crews removed one person from the second floor, reported fire first and second floors. Command reported multiple lines in service.
EMS transported one victim to the hospital with smoke inhalation and burns.
TUSCALOOSA, Alabama — A woman slipped and impaled her leg on the fence of a friend’s apartment complex in Tuscaloosa Saturday during halftime of the Crimson Tide’s drubbing of the Florida Gators, a city fire marshal confirmed Thursday morning.
According to Outkick the Coverage, the Fox Sports football blog where the accident was first reported, the woman was locked out of her friend’s apartment complex and decided to climb its wrought iron fence to get inside.
The victim, whom the blog identified as University of Alabama alumna ‘Abby,’ apparently slipped and fell so hard onto the bars of the fence that one of them went straight through her leg.
According to the Fox report, the woman’s friends attended to her and propped her up on a barstool until paramedics arrived.
Gene Holcomb, Fire Marshal of the Tuscaloosa Fire and Rescue Service, said Thursday that their agency was called to the apartment complex on 11th Street, only blocks behind Bryant-Denny Stadium, around 4:20 Saturday afternoon.
Holcomb said the responders cut away a portion of the fence and took the victim to DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, where the post was removed from her leg and the injury treated.
Holcomb would only speak to the fire department’s involvement after the accident occurred and didn’t comment on the victim’s identity, motive for climbing the fence or her current condition, but according to the post on OKTC, she’s doing fine now.
MCCANDLESS TOWNSHIP (KDKA) – A three-alarm fire engulfed an apartment building in McCandless, and one man had to be rescued from the flames.
According to officials at the scene, the fire started at the Hickory Hills apartments on Haddon Place Monday afternoon.
“I saw all of this smoke billowing from the top of this building here. So, I ran downstairs and watched as smoke poured from the building, and flames engulfed the bottom balcony,” witness Davina Groover said.
Witnesses also said a man had to be pulled from the first floor apartment.
Mike Ross, who along with several other neighbors, pulled the victim from his burning apartment, said the man initially didn’t want to leave his apartment.
“The apartment was engulfed in flames, where the kitchen was at, they were trying to get Jim out, two other gentlemen trying to get him out. He was holding onto the post and didn’t want to get out for some reason, I don’t know why. I grabbed him around his torso and pulled him out,” said Ross.
The victim was taken to UPMC Passavant for treatment.
Gary Morgan, who lives at the complex, says people have complained to management and police before about the man who was rescued.
“As far as i can tell, the bottom right neighbor, who we’ve complained about several times, lit his kitchen on fire and then this gentleman here came out screaming,” Morgan said.
Police said they couldn’t immediately confirm Morgan’s story.
Ingomar Deputy Fire Chief Bill Sula says while fire damage was confined to the one unit, about 15 other apartments in the building sustained smoke damage.
Tenants of those units are staying at a local hotel, or with friends or relatives, at least for the time being.
McCandless Police, the local fire marshal, and the Allegheny County Fire Marshal are investigating the cause of the fire.
WILKES-BARRE — City fire crews rescued an unconscious man and two cats from apartments above a Pennsylvania Avenue restaurant on Wednesday afternoon, then worked well into the evening to totally extinguish the stubborn blaze.
The man, who was not officially identified, was initially transported to Wilkes-Barre General Hospital with critical injuries, but was soon transferred by helicopter to a burn unit out of the area.
Firefighters were dispatched around 2:25 p.m. to Goodfellas, a restaurant and bar at 316 N. Pennsylvania Ave. that has three second-floor apartments.
Kathryn Pierson, who lives nearby, watched firefighters pull the burn victim from the property. The man appeared to have severe burns and was screaming in pain, she said.
“It’s sad,” she said. “Very disheartening to know someone had to suffer.”
An update on the man’s condition was not available Wednesday night. The man was identified as Kermit Payton, 63, according to his roommates Mark Granick and Robert McLaughlin.
McLaughlin was able to flee the fire, escaping the blaze without having the chance to put on socks and shoes. Granick wasn’t home. The lone occupants of the other two apartments were not home at the time.
By Wednesday evening, fire crews hadn’t yet had a chance to determine a cause of the fire, as they were still trying to fully extinguish the blaze, explained Wilkes-Barre Fire Chief Jay Delaney.
Early on, the roof of the building collapsed and “pancaked” to the floor below, making it impossible to get to the fire, he said.
“It stuck together like a sandwich. We couldn’t get to the seat of the fire,” Delaney said.
Wilkes-Barre officials were expecting to hire a company Wednesday night to bring in an excavator and tear down a portion of the building, so fire crews could fully extinguish the fire, the chief said.
Michael Simonson, Wilkes-Barre’s assistant director of operations, said it was too early to tell if the building could be saved, but the plan to tear open the building to get to the fire would further comprise the building’s integrity.
Fire inspectors and code enforcement officials are expected to return to the scene today.
Michael Dennis, one of the tenants who was not home, said he was in the process of purchasing the building from its current owner, Robert Jabers.
Dennis said he planned to convert the establishment into the Silver Top Diner, its former name, during the day and Michael’s Lounge — like the one he owns in Kingston — during the night.
“All the hard work we’ve done and the planning” is lost, Dennis lamented.
Dennis said the sale was expected to take place once his liquor license was approved, which was expected to happen the first week of October.
Another tenant, Kelly McAdarra, 29, said she learned of the fire while driving home. Her first — and only — worries were for her cats, Icarus and Colossus. Upon arrival, she learned Wilkes-Barre firefighters rescued the cats and provided them oxygen to save their lives.
One of the cats, Colossus, was taken to a local animal hospital by fire crews, while Icarus is being housed by a friend who she’ll be staying with, she said.
While she lost everything she owns, McAdarra is still OK with how things turned out.
“I’m thankful I’m alive and they’re alive,” she said. “Everything else could be replaced.”
It was another grueling day in the fire business, but three lives were saved, Delaney said.
“Firefighters did a great job in rescuing that person and taking care of those cats,” he said.
jseibel@citizensvoice.com bkalinowski@citizensvoice.com
Firefighters rescued a man and his bulldog from the second-floor window of a fourplex at Aylmer and Wolfe streets Tuesday night after a fire broke out in the apartment.
The man, in his 60s, was taken by paramedics to Peterborough Regional Health Centre by ambulance, where he was treated for smoke inhalation.
Platoon chief Paul Graham said the fire happened when a radio that was sitting on top of a microwave oven shorted out and caught fire.
The fire broke out around 8 p.m. When firefighters arrived, the man was in the window of his second-floor unit. Firefighters climbed a ladder and the man handed his bulldog over to firefighters for rescue before allowing himself to be assisted out of his apartment, Graham said.
One other man had been in the apartment at the time: Graham said he escaped and was treated at the scene for smoke inhalation by paramedics.
Firefighters also removed five dogs and one cat from the building. The cat was given oxygen on the scene and taken to a veterinarian at the Jackson Creek Pet Services.
Graham said the fire was contained to the one second-floor apartment. He estimated that the damage at about $50,000.
Other occupants of the four apartments in the brick building – located on the southeast corner of Aylmer and Wolfe streets – escaped unharmed, despite the fact there were no smoke detectors in any of the apartments, Graham said.
About a dozen people, seven dogs and three cats were milling around the scene Tuesday night.
Tyler Koke, 23, lives in the building and got out safely with his large Labrador-husky mix Lua and his 20-year-old cat.
Koke, a history student at Trent University, said he’s only been living in the building about a month.
He said that if he couldn’t stay the night, he would drive to his parents’ home in Port Hope.
Josh Millner, 24, arrived home from his work shift at Harvey’s on Lansdowne St. to find firetrucks surrounding his building.
He lives on the second floor in the apartment next to the one that caught fire. He says firefighters escorted him in to retrieve his dog, Jazz, a Jack Russell, pug and chihuahua mix.
He said that when he arrived home he was “kind of petrified”.
“If it had been my apartment on fire, my dog would have been dead,” he said.
Platoon chief Graham said some tenants would be allowed to return to stay overnight in their apartments Tuesday. The Peterborough City-County Disaster Trust Fund was called in to provide accommodation for those not allowed back in their apartments.
BIDDEFORD (WGME) — Eight people are hospitalized in an early morning fire in Biddeford, two of them were found unconscious on the top floor.
The Biddeford Fire Chief tells CBS 13 the call came in around 3:45 a.m for a fire at an apartment building at 35 Main Street.
When crews got there, they rescued eight people from inside, some of them were rescued from windows on the second floor. Two people on the top floor were found unconscious and had to be revived with CPR. First responders carried them out of the building. Those two people are now at Maine Medical Center. The other six are at Southern Maine Medical Center in Biddeford.
The Fire Marshal is now on scene, and the Red Cross is assisting as well. No word yet on a cause of the fire.
CBS 13 has a crew on the scene, and we will have much more information as it becomes available.
PALMER, TN (WRCB) – A caver was rescued in a nearly 10-hour rescue effort overnight, that involved rescue squads from several cities and counties.
The Chattanooga Hamilton County Rescue Cave/Cliff team assisted with the rescue, which took place inside Sausage Cave in Savage Gulf State Natural Area, according to Wendy Tipton, Public Information Officer for the Chattanooga Hamilton County Rescue Service.
The caver, described as a 59-year old man from Viola, TN, was working across a canyon inside the cave when he fell about 10 feet, injuring his ribs and pelvis.
“Our caver fell at two o’clock in the afternoon, they didn’t initiate a 911 call until 4:30 because they were that far out in the wilderness,” said Brad Tipton, Captain of the Cave/Cliff Technical Unity, Hamilton County Rescue Team.
The emergency call prompted a 10-hour cave rescue deep inside the Savage Gulf State natural area.
“For a couple hours we probably did nothing more than drill and break rock,” Tipton said.
Once the rescue team reached the 59-year-old caver it would still be hours before he saw a doctor.
The man broke several ribs and fractured his pelvic bone in the 10 foot fall, but his experience underground prepared him for what was to come.
“He knew what he was going to have to deal with, he knew there would be pain,” Tipton said, “He knew there would be some very uncomfortable situations and he fought through it.”
Tipton calls it a “highly technical rescue” with lots of rock fall, tight corners and cold temperatures.
“You’re going down a series of vertical drops,” he said, “You’re doing a horizontal cave passage that could be anywhere from 30 feet wide constricted down to 19 inches.”
Tipton said the greatest tool in a cave rescue is the flexible stretcher. It keeps the patient secure while giving up any extra space. Rescue crews need to be in constant communication when navigating underground.”You have to be very clear and concise about what you want,” Tipton said, “Because inches could mean the difference between life and death sometimes.”
What makes the rescue even more incredible is all of the responders in the Hamilton County Cave/Cliff Rescue Team are volunteers. Tipton said they all have separate full-time jobs, but respond to rescue calls when a caver is in trouble.
More than 30 rescuers in all assisted with the rescue, with agencies from Coalmont and Altamont Fire Departments, Beersheba Springs Rescue Squad, Walker County Cave/Cliff Rescue, Grundy County Rescue, and the Tennessee State Park Service taking part.
Once outside the cave, the man was transported to a nearby hospital for examination and treatment.
http://www.wsmv.com/story/26516833/caver-rescue-in-10-hour-ordeal-overnight#.VBgmuImwWJV.facebook
11:25 AM: Seattle firefighters are at another “heavy rescue” call, this time in the 4800 block of West Marginal Way (map). SFD says it involves “man who has his arm trapped in cement mixer,” and they’ve extricated the patient. We hear from Cathy that traffic is getting by both ways; the emergency equipment is on the southbound side, so take care if you’ll be using W. Marginal in that area any time soon.
12:06 PM: Our crew reports that a 34-year-old man got his arm stuck in a cement-mixer auger; SFD used heavy-rescue tools to free him, over the course of about 15 minutes, and he was taken to Harborview Medical Center. SFD units have now left the scene; we got a quick briefing there from spokesperson Kyle Moore, and will add video when it’s uploaded. the video is above.
http://westseattleblog.com/2014/09/heavy-rescue-for-industrial-injury-on-west-marginal-way/
FIREFIGHTER RESCUES 
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