A fire on the morning of November 12 2025 destroyed the century-old Donoho Hotel in Red Boiling Springs, Macon County, Tennessee.
Firefighters identified heavy fire on arrival, believed to have started in a second-floor electrical equipment room.
The 1914-built structure, a historic resort landmark, is considered a total loss; no firefighter injuries were reported.
Historic Landmark Engulfed
In the early hours of Tuesday, November 12, crews from the Red Boiling Springs Fire Department responded to heavy smoke and flames at the Donoho Hotel, a storied resort built in 1914 and deeply woven into the history of the Red Boiling Springs mineral-spring community. Upon arrival, firefighters found fire heavily involved along the side of the two-story white-frame building with its signature full-length porches.
Investigators believe the blaze originated in an electrical equipment room on the second floor, and rapidly spread through the aging structure’s wood-frame construction. Chief Randall Bray praised mutual-aid crews for their support under “challenging conditions,” noting the speed of fire spread and structural complexity.
The Impact on the Community
The Donoho Hotel was more than lodging—it was a living relic of the early twentieth-century resort era that drew visitors to Macon County’s famed mineral springs. Its loss is being felt deeply by residents and local businesses alike. Three occupants escaped unharmed, but the building is now deemed a total loss.
Local authorities have launched an investigation into the exact cause of the fire. Meanwhile, the community faces the long path of recovery and decisions about preservation, rebuilding, or reclamation of the site.
Operational Takeaways for Fire-EMS Teams
Aging wooden structures—especially those with historic status—pose heightened risk of rapid fire spread and collapse.
Electrical equipment rooms in older buildings are potential ignition points; proactive inspection and suppression strategies are critical.
Mutual-aid coordination proved essential here: multiple departments responded and worked together under complex conditions.
Community relations matter: Loss of landmark structures affects not just property but cultural identity and public morale.
Due to limited access, St. Paul Fire District crews used canoes and kayaks to get to the house on Edisto Island.
The husband of a South Carolina Circuit Court judge was injured when he jumped out a window to escape a massive fire.
Judge Diane Goodstein was walking her dogs nearby on Edisto Beach when the house caught fire Saturday.
Neighbors with a canoe helped paramedics reach and rescue former South Carolina Sen. Arnold Goodstein. Crews used a rope to pull him from the terrain, The Post and Courier reported.
“Due to the remoteness and layout of the lot, the occupants had to be rescued from the backyard via kayaks and brought to Colleton County EMS where they received medical aid,” St. Paul Fire District officials wrote.
One of the three injured was flown to the Medical University of South Carolina.
Sources said the occupants jumped from an elevated first floor to escape the fire.
Investigators with South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) are investigating.
Goodstein, who has served on the state judicial bench since 1989, had been the victim of previous death threats, The Guardian reported.
She recently issued a temporary injunction on the release of state voter files that the U.S. Justice Department requested.
But, that ruling was overturned by the state supreme court.
Firefighters were battling a blaze at a Chevron refinery in Southern California late on Thursday, company and government officials said, after a massive fireball erupted at the facility.
Firefighters were battling a blaze at a Chevron refinery in Southern California late on Thursday, company and government officials said, after a massive fireball erupted at the facility.
It was not immediately clear what caused the blaze, which was burning in El Segundo, a city in Los Angeles County.
“All refinery personnel and contractors have been accounted for and there are no injuries,” Allison Cook, a Chevron spokesperson, told ABC News.
Gov. Gavin Newsom was briefed on the fire, his office said.
“Our office is coordinating in real time with local and state agencies to protect the surrounding community and ensure public safety,” the office said in a statement.
The sprawling refinery, which is located just south of Los Angeles International Airport, has its own fire department on site, according to its website. Chevron’s firefighters were joined by emergency personnel from El Segundo and Manhattan Beach in responding to the “isolated” fire within the facility, the Chevron spokesperson said.
“No evacuation orders for area residents have been put in place by emergency response agencies monitoring the incident, and no exceedances have been detected by the facilities fence line monitoring system,” the spokesperson said.
L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said she’d been briefed on the fire. She also said she’d spoken with Holly J. Mitchell, the supervisor who represents El Segundo.
“LAFD stands at the ready to assist with any mutual aid request. There is no known impact to LAX at this time,” Bass said on social media. “We will continue to monitor this situation.”
A 3-hour shelter-in-place order was issued for areas within the Tree Section of Manhattan Beach, according to Alert SouthBay. “Bring all people and pets indoors,” the alert said. In an earlier social media post, the alert system said, “There is NO PUBLIC threat at this time and NO evacuation orders in place at this time.”
The fire department in nearby Torrance, California, issued an alert, saying it was aware of the fire, but there was “no impact” to the city.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
ABC News‘ Naomi Vanderlip contributed to this report.
Review shows extreme hoarding caused one fatal floor collapse and fueled seven fatal fires, underscoring risks as firefighters struggle through debris-filled homes
By Christine Dempsey. The Hour
GLASTONBURY, Conn. — The discovery of a Glastonbury woman’s remains under a mountain of trash in her own home, seven months after she was reported missing, shocked Connecticut and made national headlines. But 73-year-old Mary Notarangelo wasn’t the first state resident to be found dead in a pile of her own garbage, and she may not be the last.
While deaths from hoarding are rare, a CT Insider review of media and police reports from the last 11 years shows it directly led to at least one death and was a factor in more than a half-dozen others, most involving fires.
Perhaps the most unusual case was the 2014 death of a 66-year-old Cheshire woman who fell to the basement when her floor collapsed under the weight of waist-high debris. Beverly Mitchell died of traumatic asphyxia after suffocating on her own belongings, medical examiners said. Unlike Mitchell’s, the cause of Notarangelo’s death could not be determined.
Hoarding played a major, if less direct, role in other deaths, adding fuel to fires from which it was difficult to escape. They include:
The 2014 death of a 43-year-old Bridgeport mother in a fire that seriously injured her young daughter and the girl’s father. The mayor attributed the fire to hoarding;
The 2017 deaths of two people in separate fires in Norwalk, both of which involved hoarding, officials said;
The 2022 death of a grandmother in East Windsor; firefighters said they were hampered by high winds and hoarding;
The 2023 death of a 22-year-old Hebron man after hoarded items kept him from getting out of his house during a fire;
Last year’s death of a Stamford man, 67, whose body was found amid clutter after the fire was out, firefighters said;
In August, the death of a 75-year-old woman two weeks after she escaped a fire despite clutter that kept crews from going into her burning Killingly house.
Hoarding is a mental health condition in which people have trouble parting with items — including things that have no value — to the point where their homes no longer have enough living space and are dangerous. It is believed to affect between 2-6% of the U.S. population, according to the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services. There’s treatment, but no cure, and the problems it creates are not easily resolved.
“It certainly is not a new phenomenon,” said David Tolin, a national expert and director of the Anxiety Disorders Center at the Institute of Living in Hartford. Still, the American Psychiatric Association didn’t label it as a disorder until 2013, said Tolin, who regularly appeared on “Hoarder,” a reality television show that revealed the struggles of people with the disorder.
Firefighters are often the first to encounter someone with the disorder, which creates a perfect storm of conditions for starting fires and keeping them going: Piled up newspapers, boxes and clothes near heaters or electrical wires can spark and then fuel a blaze so it burns hotter and spreads faster, said New Haven Assistant Fire Chief Dan Coughlin. The clutter also blocks crews trying to put out the fire, sometimes injuring firefighters, he said.
“You’re trying to get down narrow paths, carved out through debris,” Coughlin said.
Crawling on hands and knees
That is what happened on May 8, when five people, three of them New Haven firefighters, were injured in a Salem Street fire in which hoarding played a role, Coughlin said. They rescued a couple who crawled on their hands and knees to escape falling rubble from hoarding; the firefighters’ injuries were minor, and the two residents were expected to recover, he said.
Coughlin estimates as many as half of the city’s fires involve some degree of hoarding.
“We go to about 100-110 fires a year in New Haven, and about half of those involve hoarding,” he said. “It’s very common.”
Mike Thurz, chief of the Glastonbury Fire Department, said, “You’re probably going to find hoarding in every town.” He usually refers to the problem as “unkempt conditions” out of sensitivity for those involved.
Long before his department helped search for Notarangelo, Thurz had to climb a cluttered stairway to help a man having a heart attack on the second floor of his house.
“I was throwing things down the stairs to get to him,” he said. “He was having a medical emergency, and there was so much clutter, it was hard to safely get him to the ambulance.” Like the New Haven couple, the man survived, he said.
The fact that no one died that day at the Glastonbury scene or on May 8 in New Haven is a win for the two departments.
Hebron Fire Marshal Chris Bray wasn’t so lucky in 2023 — his first year in the Hebron job — when a resident died in a fire, likely because the man couldn’t escape the flames due to hoarding. There easily could have been more lives lost that night, he said.
Bray had been working with the family, a mother and her two grown sons, to make their Hope Valley Road house safer. He explained that the residents needed to stop blocking at least two exits, he said. Easier said than done.
One door was clear, but it was too difficult to immediately free up a second, so the family said they would use a first-floor bathroom window in the event of a fire. Bray made them show him how, having family members demonstrate, one at a time, how each was able to climb onto the vanity to get to the window, he said.
“They had to climb up on the toilet, and onto the counter,” Bray said, then “they had to remove the screen.”
“So they were able to demonstrate that they were able to get out that window. It was unorthodox, but it’s the best I could do without making things worse,” Bray said.
As it turned out, that’s how the fire victim’s brother escaped the night of the fire.
“I don’t have a single doubt in my mind that that saved this individual,” Bray said.
‘It’s a very delicate situation’
The patience Bray and his staff showed in working out a compromise is important when helping people with hoarding disorders, experts say.
It’s very common for someone with the disorder to resist attempts to make them safe. They are often emotionally attached to the items that are piling up in their homes.
“We want to be respectful,” Bray said. “It’s a very delicate situation.”
State Rep. Christopher Rosario, D- Bridgeport, said he was working as the director of the city’s anti-blight program when a local woman was struggling with a serious hoarding problem. Staff members were getting resistance, but things began to improve “the moment we started backing off with people showing up in uniforms, and bringing in mental health counselors,” he said.
“Once we started digging into the deep roots of what was going on, we saw changes,” Rosario said.
The changes didn’t happen quickly, though.
“It took a year and a half,” he said.
Elaine Daignault, director of human services in Westport, said a gentler, patient approach is the way to go.
“I think the biggest thing is for us to do it in a non-punitive, compassionate and humane way,” she said.
Daignault works with the neighboring towns of Weston and Wilton to help people who have excessive clutter through the Safe Homes Task Force. Task forces like Safe Homes exist around the state, although many are informal groups of town or city workers who respond to clutter once it becomes a public health and safety matter. In addition to fire and police departments, the local building, health and human services agencies usually get involved, as well as an outside mental health organization.
But if it’s hard to launch a quiet, multi-faceted effort to help people who hoard, it’s even harder to spot them in the first place.
“A lot of times, we don’t know what’s going on in somebody’s home,” Daignault said.
In the Hebron case, the Hope Valley Road home was already on first responders’ radar because of a large number of 911 calls — including false reports of fires — coming from the house and complaints from neighbors, town officials said.
And in the Cheshire case, there were complaints of smells coming from the woman’s house. The town worked with her to clean up her property and she did, but the behavior resumed, the health director said; town workers hadn’t worked with her in the year before her death. The house was eventually demolished.
In Vernon, neighbors’ complaints about odors in May of 2023 and, later, rats, led to a court process and declaration that a house on Warren Avenue was unfit for human occupancy. The resident left, and the town hired a private contractor to clean her house, which was boarded up.
‘Packed to the brim’
The deadly situation in Mary Notarangelo’s Glastonbury house was harder to spot. Despite floor-to-ceiling piles inside and unclaimed food deliveries outside, the house’s deplorable condition went undetected because the house is set back off the road, far from neighbors and shielded by trees. Mail piled up in her mailbox, however, and an acquaintance who occasionally helped her around the house eventually reported her missing. Conditions in the house were so bad that neither police nor firefighters could conduct a thorough search for her without first hiring an excavator. There was a seven-month delay in doing that while police tried to make sure she wasn’t on an extended trip.
Even at homes closer to the road, looks can be deceiving. Rosario said a staff member of a U.S. Congressperson from Connecticut ended up having a serious problem with clutter, something that shocked those who knew the person.
“The outside looked immaculate,” Rosario said. “It wasn’t until the neighbors started complaining of a stench…That house was packed to the brim.”
On the other hand, a house in Hebron that was the subject of a complaint because the resident’s belongings had spilled out onto the porch didn’t pass the test, Bray said. An inspection showed dangerous hoarding was not taking place. He used a measuring scale that Tolin helped create to make the determination. Called the Clutter Image Rating Scale, it has pictures of three different types of rooms, the kitchen, living room and bedroom. Each room is photographed nine times, with each picture portraying a progressively worse level of hoarding. At the ninth level, kitchen counters, tables, beds and dressers are no longer visible, having been completely covered with clothes, bags, boxes and garbage; anyone at Level 4 or higher needs help, according to the International OCD Foundation.
The scale, which is used nationally, allows the user to remove personal opinion from the decision-making process, Bray said.
“That allows us to look at it objectively,” he said.
2,000 pairs of shoes and missing cats
It’s not known exactly why some people compulsively save things, including things like trash that are not valuable.
Like many mental health problems, it is likely due to several factors, such as genetics and difficult life experiences, Hartford HealthCare says. Mary Notarangelo, who was a retired Bridgeport police detective, mentioned in her podcasts that she had a difficult childhood.
Two women with serious clutter in their homes had different reasons for their piles, according to a 2011 story by Hearst Connecticut Media Group. A 74-year-old Bridgeport woman said she liked to help people by storing things for them and collecting items to give to her church, “but now I can hardly move around in here, and my landlord wants to throw me out.”
Another woman, an 80-year-old from Milford, talked about the trauma she endured — such as domestic violence and a murdered son. She had more than 2,000 pairs of shoes and cats that she couldn’t always find amid the piles of dishes, books, coats and knick-knacks.
“I have two televisions in here somewhere, but I can’t find them,” she said.
And she alluded to a fire hazard: Her kitchen was so crowded, “I can turn the stove on with my butt, just going past it.”
The second woman was far from the only state resident thought to be hoarding animals. Animal hoarding also is a serious problem in Connecticut, with animal cruelty charges recently filed against three people accused of hoarding 18 cats and a dog in Cheshire and three more who had moved out of an Old Saybrook home, leaving knee-deep trash and more than 100 animal carcasses, police said.
Tolin said people with hoarding disorder are not able to separate what’s important versus what is not. Brain scans of those with the disorder show markedly higher levels of brain activity when faced with a decision about throwing something out than the scans of people who are not diagnosed with the disorder, he said.
When diagnosed people are asked to consider tossing something, Tolin said, “that section of the brain starts screaming.”
Although there is no cure for hoarding disorder, it can be treated. The Institute of Living holds classes with 8-12 people in each, Tolin said. Sessions last 4-5 months, and group members are expected to practice sorting and parting with possessions.
Cognitive behavioral therapy, a type of psychotherapy that aims to address negative thoughts and behaviors, is effective for hoarding disorders, Tolin said. Done in group sessions, the therapy allows patients to “make more efficient and value-oriented decisions about their possessions,” he said.
“People see dramatic improvement in their quality of life,” Tolin said of his patients. But there are no guarantees.
“We can reliably make people better,” he said, “but we can’t make them completely well.”
How to respond to signs of hoarding disorder
People who want to help those with hoarding disorder are likely to encounter resistance, experts say. Those with the disorder often feel anxious when they have to make a decision about throwing things out.
The Connecticut Hoarding Working Group, formed in 2014 to provide resources that help resolve problems around hoarding, suggests that those working with people with the disorder:
Wait to enter the home until it’s safe;
Treat the occupants with respect and create trust by building a rapport with them;
Refrain from appearing shocked or showing negative facial expressions when engaging;
Allow them to play an active role in the process, refrain from taking over and cleaning up without their input;
Let them decide which possessions to get rid of and how;
Realize that people place a value on their belongings, and give them time to initiate change;
Take small steps in several sessions so as not to overwhelm them;
And follow up with them.
Hartford HealthCare suggests that visitors also show empathy and let them know treatment is available.
“Clients have often voiced to us that they would have sought treatment earlier if they had known it was available, that hoarding was a legitimate mental health issue and that there was an effective treatment,” it says on its website about hoarding disorder.
In short, anyone who thinks they know someone who may be suffering from the disorder shouldn’t ignore it, said Thurz, the Glastonbury fire chief.
“Don’t turn a blind eye,” he said. “If you see something, say something.”
“There’s more Mary Notarangelos out there.”
For help with hoarding, contact:
The International OCD Foundation has a locator at helpforhoarding.org that you can use to find help in your area:
“It’s not something that we do every day,” Cedar Rapids Firefighter Weston Platz said, explaining the importance of training.
Emily Andersen The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
CEDAR RAPIDS — Working in and around trenches — or any hole that is deeper than it is wide — can be an almost daily occurrence if you work in construction, according to Weston Platz, a Cedar Rapids firefighter who used to work for a construction company.
Every once in a while, though, something will go wrong and a worker may find themselves stuck in the bottom of a trench, buried under fallen dirt or other material. At that point, the everyday situation becomes a high-risk rescue.
That is why the Cedar Rapids Fire Department on Wednesday completed a trench rescue operation drill. The goal was to make sure firefighters are prepared to face what could be a highly dangerous situation.
“It’s not something that we do every day,” Platz said. “So, not getting our hands on the tools every single day and not seeing this type of stuff every day, and with it being such a dangerous situation, we really need to go through these scenarios so that when it does happen, we’re ready and prepared to go down in there and do the work.”
The training Wednesday involved rescuing a plastic dummy from the bottom of a trench. It took the team of about a dozen firefighters about an hour to complete, but a real trench rescue scenario likely would last four to eight hours and involve a lot more first responders, Cedar Rapids Fire Capt. Andrew Engelken said. Those responders would include emergency medical teams and firefighters called in from other agencies for support.
“It’s a very labor-intensive, resource-intensive operation. Normally, if this was a real call, we’d have probably twice as many people. They’d be doing a lot of things simultaneously,” Engelken said. “But here it still is a learning environment. So, they’re talking with some of the younger, newer guys as to what they’re doing, but we’re going through the same progressions as if this was an actual event.”
The dummy the team rescued for the training hadn’t been covered in dirt, so it wasn’t too difficult to reach at the bottom of the trench once the proper equipment was set up to keep the firefighters safe. In a real trench rescue situation, Engelken said a lot more time likely would be spent digging the victim out, sometimes one bucket of dirt at a time.
The last time the department responded to a real trench rescue scenario in Cedar Rapids was in May 2023, when a trench collapsed on a man repairing utility lines to a business in the 600 block of First Avenue SW. The man was successfully rescued and sent to the hospital with injuries to his lower extremities.
That was the only time Engelken has seen the training used within Cedar Rapids, but the fire department has been called to help with similar trench rescues in nearby jurisdictions.
“The nice thing is that we team up with Marion, Iowa City, other agencies that train on this as well, just because it’s such a labor- and resource-intensive operation,” Engelken said. “This is not a very common thing. This is a high-risk, low-frequency thing that we do. So, that’s where the training is of the utmost importance. We just don’t do it very often, so we’re not exposed to it on a regular basis.”
Trenches are used to do work on septic lines, water lines or any other utility that goes in the ground, Platz said. Usually, they’re safe. Construction companies following best practices have multiple safety features in place to prevent a trench from caving in and to protect workers from significant harm if it does.
Police say the gunman fired from a boat into the crowd at American Fish Company in Southport in an attack they called a “highly premeditated”
Credit: Associated Press
SOUTHPORT, N.C. — A mass shooting that shattered the evening tranquility of a picturesque, seaside town in North Carolina was a “highly premeditated” attack that left three people dead and five injured, police said Sunday. The suspect who allegedly carried out the attack on a waterfront bar was in custody.
Nigel Edge, 40, of Oak Island is accused of opening fire Saturday night from a boat into a crowd gathered at the American Fish Company in Southport, a historic port town about 30 miles (48 kilometers) south of Wilmington, Police Chief Todd Coring said.
At a press conference Sunday, Coring said the location was “targeted,” but he did not elaborate.
Authorities said Edge piloted a small boat close to shore, which was lined with bars and restaurants, stopped briefly and fired. He then sped away.
Roughly half an hour after the shooting, a U.S. Coast Guard crew spotted a person matching the suspect’s description pulling a boat from the water at a public ramp on Oak Island. The person was detained and turned over to Southport police for questioning, officials said.
Edge is charged with three counts of first-degree murder, five counts of attempted first-degree murder and five counts of assault with a deadly weapon. He could face additional charges, Coring said.
The weapon used was an assault rifle, although Coring didn’t specify what kind.
“We understand this suspect identifies as a combat veteran. He self-identifies. Injured in the line of duty is what he’s saying, he suffers from PTSD,” Coring said, referring to post-traumatic stress disorder.
Edge is scheduled to make his first court appearance on Monday, District Attorney Jon David said. He is being held without bond.
Among the five people hospitalized with injuries, at least one “is now clinging for their life,” David said. Some of the victims were vacationers from out of town.
Oak Island Police Chief Charlie Morris said the suspect was known to police as someone “who frequently hung out on our pier,” and that he had filed lawsuits against the town and police department over the last few years. He did not elaborate.
The district attorney said Edge had had “minor contacts” with police in the past “but nothing significant in his past which would give us any indication that he was capable of such horror.”
It was not immediately known whether Edge has an attorney to speak on his behalf. No attorney was listed on court documents. A call to Legal Aid services in Brunswick County went unanswered Sunday.
Investigators from multiple agencies — including the State Bureau of Investigation and the Coast Guard — remained on the water and at the scene Sunday collecting evidence and interviewing witnesses.
Officials did not immediately release the names of the victims.
The fire that spread to a lithium battery storage area continues to burn, Boulder City officials confirmed.
Credit: Brett Clarkson. Las Vegas Review-Journal. (TNS)
A fire that broke out at a solar facility in Boulder City on Tuesday night was expected to burn for the next four to six hours, police said in a Tuesday night update.
In a post on Instagram, the Boulder City Police Department said in a 9:20 p.m. update that Boulder City firefighters were continuing to battle the blaze.
The fire at the Townsite Solar Facility was reported south of Interstate 11 near U.S. 95 at about 7 p.m., police said in the post.
“For your safety and the safety of our firefighters, we ask that you avoid the area until further notice,” the post said.
Officials expect to find more victims once they can enter the fire-damaged remains of the Latter-day Saints church in Grand Blanc.
Credit: Beth LeBlanc and Carol Thompson – The Detroit News
The lone suspect in a mass shooting and devastating fire at a Michigan church during a Sunday service is a former U.S. Marine who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Thomas Jacob Sanford, a 40-year-old Burton man who allegedly opened fire on a Mormon church service and set fire to the place of worship, served in the Marines from June 2004 through June 2008, according to records provided by the U.S. Marines.
He was deployed to Iraq from August 2007 through March 2008 and had the rank of sergeant, according to the records. His military occupational specialty was organizational automotive mechanic and vehicle recovery operator.
Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye named Sanford as the lone gunman who shot 10 at the church and intentionally set fire to the structure. Renye said Sanford drove a vehicle into the church, exited the vehicle and shot several rounds. He is also believed to have intentionally set fire to the building.
Michigan State Police Special Lt. Kim Vetter said rumors about Sanford’s motive are purely “speculation.” Vetter said it may take some time to determine his actual motive.
Four of the 10 people in the church have died, and police said earlier Sunday that they expect to find additional fatalities in the rubble of the church.
Two police officers, arriving within 30 seconds of the first call for help at 10:25 a.m., engaged in gunfire with Sanford in the parking lot and shot and killed him within minutes, Renye said.
Little has been released about Sanford. Police are expected to provide another update at 8 p.m. Sunday.
Michigan State Police could be seen at Sanford’s home Sunday afternoon, approaching with the department’s bomb squad.
The Clarkston News reported that Sanford served a stint in Okinawa, Japan, before serving in Iraq. Sanford’s uncle also served in the Marines, while his grandfather served in the Navy during World War II, according to the newspaper.
Randy Thronson, a 71-year-old Burton man who lives a few doors down from Sanford, said it’s usually a quiet area with nothing but fender benders drawing the police to Atherton Road.Thronson said Sanford was a good neighbor who plowed Thronson’s and others’ driveways for free. Thronson served in the military for 25 years and said Sanford also was a veteran.“It’s really sad,” Thronson said. “He might have just snapped.”
He was a “Marine on the move,” the Clarkston News reported about Sanford in 2007, saying in the article that Sanford followed an uncle who was a Marine and a grandfather who served in the Navy in WWII.
“Now the 22-year-old Atlas native is faced with an even grater challenge,” the article said. The wrecker driver who helped with recovery of damaged vehicles “will join his Marine combat battalion and serve in Fallujah, Iraq,” it said.
He told the newspaper ‘I’m excited to go. I’m looking forward to seeing the culture and the people of Iraq. I’ll return with the real news of the situation.”
Thronson said Sanford lived there with his wife, at least one kid, and maybe his mother.
Mike Pate, 44, lives near Sanford. He saw the bomb squad as he drove by and stopped to watch them work.Pate grew up in Burton and described it as a nice and quiet area.“(It’s) surreal, having stuff happen this close to us,” he said. “When you see stuff on the news, it seems so far away.”
Advanced Technology and Swift Coordination Lead to Successful Search Operation
March 14, 2025 – Plainville, MA – A missing 86-year-old Massachusetts man was located in just 17 minutes Thursday night after emergency teams deployed drones to scan miles of wooded terrain.
The man, who had last been seen around 7 p.m., was reported missing at approximately 8:20 p.m. Given his age, the dropping temperatures—hovering around 36 degrees—and the time he had been unaccounted for, authorities swiftly mobilized a search operation.
Cutting-Edge Search Effort Yields Quick Results
Recognizing the urgency of the situation, the Plainville Police Department requested assistance from the Metropolitan Law Enforcement Council (METRO-LEC)—a regional mutual aid network consisting of 46 cities and towns in southeastern Massachusetts. Within 40 minutes, METRO-LEC dispatched specialized teams, including a drone unit, K-9 team, tactical bicycle unit, investigative services, and a dedicated search-and-rescue team.
Three drones were launched to conduct a grid search spanning over two miles of dense terrain near the power lines in Plainville. At precisely 9:47 p.m.—only 17 minutes after the drone deployment—the missing man was located in a wooded area.
Emergency Response and Medical Evaluation
Once the drones pinpointed his location, search-and-rescue personnel and paramedics from the Plainville Fire Department quickly reached the man and conducted a medical assessment. He was then transported to Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro, where he was reported to be in stable condition.
Authorities Praise Swift Response and Technology
Chief James Floyd commended the collaboration and advanced resources that led to the rapid rescue.
“Tonight’s successful rescue is a testament to the power of collaboration, advanced technology, and the unwavering dedication of our law enforcement and emergency response teams,” Floyd stated. “The ability to deploy specialized units so quickly made all the difference in reuniting this individual with his loved ones. We sincerely thank the public for their support and commend all personnel involved for a job well done.”
The case highlights the growing role of drones and specialized emergency units in search-and-rescue missions, demonstrating how technology can be a lifesaving tool in critical situations.
