More than 60 people spent New Year’s Eve hundreds of feet in the air after a Ferris wheel broke down in Florida, Florida rescuers said.
Just after 7 p.m. on Dec. 31, Orange County Fire Rescue reported that there was a power failure at “The Wheel” at Icon Park in Orlando, according to a Tweet.
The wheel is 400 feet tall and offers views across Orlando, according to the park’s website.
“As we rotate it down, we’re having to manually open the door, so it takes about 10 to 15 minutes for each pod, for us to get it open and to get people out,” Division Chief Martis Mack told WESH. “We’ve trained hours and hours on this type of rescue, so we were ready for this.”
“All guests in The Wheel have safely disembarked after the attraction lost power on Saturday night,” ICON Park said in a statement, according to Spectrum News.
In March 2022, a 14-year-old boy died at ICON Park in the Free Fall ride after he plummeted more than 400 feet to the ground, McClatchy News previously reported.
An investigation revealed that the Free Fall ride operators did not follow proper procedures on the ride, according to WESH. The ride’s operator was issued a $250,000 fine, the outlet said.
Jan. 2, 2023 EMT John Crow, 36, had worked for Acadian Ambulance since 2019.
By Ben Myers Source The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate (TNS) Distributed byTribune Content Agency, LLC.
Jan. 1—An Acadian Ambulance driver was killed early Sunday morning when the ambulance, which was transporting a patient, rear ended a box truck on Interstate 10 in Slidell, according to Louisiana State Police.
The victim was identified as 36-year-old John Crow of Pascagoula, Miss. The patient and an emergency technician suffered minor injuries and were treated at a hospital. The truck driver was not injured. Authorities do not yet know what caused the ambulance to strike the struck. Intoxication is not suspected to be a factor.
The crash occurred shortly before 1:00 a.m. in the left lane of the westbound interstate, near LA 1090. State Police said 16 vehicles were involved in separate overnight interstate crashes in Slidell amid dense fog.
Crow had worked for Acadian since July 2019, according to the company’s statement. President Justin Back said Crow’s death “hits us all very hard.”
“It is a tremendous tragedy when we lose a crew member in the performance of their duties or otherwise,” Back said.
Jan. 2, 2023 Crews throughout Southern California were busy as floodwaters inundated the area.
By Tony Saavedra Source San Gabriel Valley Tribune, West Covina, Calif. (TNS) Distributed byTribune Content Agency, LLC.
Jan. 1—The New Year of 2023 arrived in a deluge of rain that flooded streets throughout Southern California, stranding motorists, drenching celebrations and causing overnight havoc. And another heavier storm is expected later in the week.
The downpour contributed to a low turnout at Los Angeles’ big New Year’s Eve celebration at Grand Park in Downtown L.A. Organizers expected about 40,000 people to attend, but little more than 6,000 showed up.
The soaking also caused Santa Anita Park to cancel its New Year’s Day racing program on Sunday. But the horses were expected to be back on the track on Monday, and the popular Corgi dog race was delayed until February 19. Track officials said all tickets sold for Sunday will be fully refunded automatically with no further action required by purchasers.
In San Bernardino County, raging floodwaters trapped two adults and a child in a stalled car in Lytle Creek. Several 911 calls alerted the San Bernardino County Fire Department to the stranded vehicle about 2:30 a.m. Sunday at Forest Service Road and South Lytle Creek Road.
A specialized water rescue team was dispatched to save the trapped people, who were uninjured in the ordeal.
Battalion Chief Mike McClintock said the waters were “gnarly.”
“It was a pretty risky situation they had going on,” McClintock said. “The water was rushing pretty fast. For our crews to get at them by foot was pretty risky.”
In Jurupa Valley, firefighters rescued a woman at 3:16 a.m. Sunday who was trapped on an island in the Santa Ana River bottom, surrounded by a 40-foot-wide river that had swelled to waist deep. Cal Fire/Riverside County Fire Department reached the woman in the river near West Market Street at Via Cerro and rescued her in an inflatable raft that was guided back to shore.
Firefighters said the woman refused medical treatment. No further information was available.
In Tustin, the Orange County Fire Authority rescued five people from two vehicles on the flooded Fourth Street offramp from the Costa Mesa (55) Freeway at 11:53 p.m. Saturday. Authorities said one adult was sitting on top of a vehicle and four adults were sitting inside a second vehicle. No one was injured.
A downed tree almost fell onto a house in Beverly Hills and blocked Coldwater Canyon Drive, near Cielo Drive for several hours. Police said the tree fell at about 9:30 p.m. Saturday and was cleared from the roadway by 7 a.m. Sunday.
Also in Los Angeles, the Universal Studios Boulevard onramp to the southbound Hollywood (101) Freeway was closed due to flooding but reopened late Sunday morning, the California Highway Patrol reported.
Thick mud oozing onto the roadway forced the closure of State Route 138 between the Los Angeles-San Bernardino County Line ( 263rd St.) and State Route 18. Traffic was being diverted Sunday.
In West Covina, two people were pulled by emergency workers from a car that got stuck in three to four inches of water under Interstate 10 on Saturday.
The rains prompted a voluntary evacuation alert in Orange County on Saturday for the burn area in Silverado and Williams canyons. The alert was lifted at 7 a.m. Sunday.
While the storm cleared for New Year’s Day, more strong rain is expected this week, according to David Sweet at the National Weather Service.
Two low-pressure fronts are heading toward Southern California, the later expected to bring extreme winds, heavy storms and flooding, Sweet said.
The first storm will likely bring light rain by Monday night or Tuesday. The second front arrives Wednesday night or Thursday, bringing two to four inches of rain to the lower areas and eight to ten inches in the mountains, Sweet said. That storm is forecast to generate winds of up to 50 mph.
Firefighters were battling this fire when they heard one of their engines was involved in a crash.
“We know accidents happen no matter how careful you are. This is the call we were working when we heard across the radio one of our apparatus’s had struck a tree. We can’t explain the gut wrenching feeling that hits you! Not knowing how bad your fire family could be hurt, but still having a job to do for the people we serve. We are as always so proud of our crew. We were able to divert some units to the wreck, and still able to save this family’s home that was right next to the shop that was on fire. We are truly blessed to have such a amazing crew and special thanks to our neighboring departments who came to assist us,” BFPA officials wrote.
Evansville firefighters will likely be on the scene of a massive warehouse fire for several days, hitting hot spots.
The warehouse fire started Saturday and quickly spread several blocks, WTHR reported.
Every firefighter who was off-duty was called back as the blaze went to four alarms.
Videos of the fire showed the warehouse’s walls collapsing, and scenes of transformers and powerlines catching fire concerned all in the near vicinity, according to WFIE-TV.
“Obviously a very large fire,” EFD Division Chief Mike Larson said. “We’re going to be here for a while.”
“When we get to a fire that’s this massive, our flow rates of water far exceed any type of capability of a residential or city water supply,” he explained.
One person was killed and another is in critical condition after a boat fire in a marina on the Ohio River.
Bellevue-Dayton Fire Chief Chris Atkins said while crews were enroute to the Manhattan Harbor marina, they were advised someone may be on the boat or in the water, WLWT reported.
The chief said firefighters found a houseboat and a cabin cruiser burning.
Firefighters rescued one person from the water. The victim was transported to a hospital with critical burns.
Later, another person was found dead on one of the burning boats.
Dec. 30—More than half of the divers on Hall County’s Marine Rescue Team resigned earlier this month after the fire department announced that it would replace them with a $100,000 underwater drone for search and rescue missions, according to information from the fire department and open records obtained by The Times.
Kimberlie Ledsinger, spokeswoman for Hall County Fire Rescue, confirmed that 15 of 23 divers resigned from the Marine Rescue Team. The team has since added positions and members and now has five openings left, she said.
“Effective immediately I am resigning from the dive team,” Clint Carey, dive supervisor, wrote in a Dec. 2 email to fire department administrators. “I do not agree with the direction it is heading.”
The reason for the change, officials said, is that diving in the water to save people is almost always futile. Commissioner Shelly Echols cited fire department data showing that not a single drowning victim had been saved in the past five years. The drone is safer, quicker and cheaper in the long run, officials said. Plus, Echols said, the county still has a dive team in the Sheriff’s Office’s Underwater Search and Rescue Team.
The county has spent more than $141,000 over the last five years on the Marine Rescue Team, according to open records, the vast majority of which was used to buy and maintain diving equipment.
Many divers aren’t happy about being replaced by a robot.
Shortly after the announcement on Dec. 1, divers began emailing their resignations, according to open records.
Alton Lee, Jacob Trites, Cody Long and Jonathan Barton also resigned.
“I cannot get behind the new mission and direction for the Marine Rescue team,” firefighter Jacob Trites wrote in an email. “I have been active on the team for a number of years and I personally know that diving has made a difference in some individuals lives (sic) and gave them a chance to live another day.”
With the underwater drone, he added, “I will not be able to go home at night knowing that I gave that victim every chance they had to see another day.”
Likewise, Carey wrote that the underwater drone performed poorly during a demonstration. It took the drone more than 30 minutes to do what he could have done in 5 minutes, he wrote, and that was with “the best operator in the country running it.”
That operator was Waylon Price, the sales manager for Oceanbotics, who spoke to The Times about the demonstration.
“I’d stepped away to use the restroom and make a phone call, and when I returned they had hidden a mannequin in the water, and they wanted to see what it would look like from start to finish — from opening the box, putting it together, deploying it, putting it out and finding the mannequin,” Price said.
He said it took about 20 minutes from start to finish.
He wouldn’t say whether the drone is meant to serve as a viable replacement for a human dive team. “What I can say is I consider it a valuable tool for any dive team, with or without divers,” he said.
The drone is expected to arrive in January, and Marine Rescue staff will receive training so they can operate it in time for Memorial Day. Price said the drone requires minimal training. An Xbox-like controller is used to operate it.
The fire department will also be purchasing a $650,000 fire boat that will act like an ambulance on the water with a powerful firehose.
When the changes were announced, the public messaging from officials was scattered.
Commissioner Shelly Echols said the Marine Rescue Team would no longer attempt to rescue drowning victims and would instead focus solely on recovery. Fire Chief Chris Armstrong, however, said that was not the case. They would still try to rescue drowning victims — they would just use a robot to do it instead.
Open records show why the public messaging may have been bungled.
In a Nov. 30 email to county administrators, Armstrong wrote, “I want to be careful of straying too far from important details. While I do believe we can spin this in a positive manner, we should not shy aways from some negative details that were key decision points of the ( Board of Commissioners) to approve this change.”
To put a positive spin on the messaging, he recommended they avoid saying the Marine Rescue Team’s mission was changing. Instead, he wrote, they should say that the team is expanding its operations.
“If we use the term ‘Expand’ services rather than change of Mission, it could be construed that we are adding the (remotely operated vehicle) to existing services rather than using (it) to replace the dive rescue services. Which is truly a change in service or mission approved by the BOC,” Armstrong wrote.
Additionally, the press release was initially edited to reflect Armstrong’s suggestions but the edits didn’t appear in the final release.
The original title, ” Hall County’s Marine Rescue team Mission Change,” was edited by former Hall County spokeswoman Katie Crumley to say, ” Hall County’s Marine Rescue Team expanding capabilities.”
But the final press release kept the original title. The expansion language didn’t make it into the final paragraph either, which still read, “the mission of our Marine Rescue Team will be changing slightly.”
Armstrong was on vacation and not available for an interview.
The FDNY will ring in 2023 by appointing its first Black EMS chief to lead New York City’s emergency medical technicians and paramedics, the Daily News has learned.
Deputy Assistant Chief of EMS Operations Michael Fields will take over the top spot effective Jan. 1, FDNY officials confirmed Friday. He is replacing retiring EMS Chief Lillian Bonsignore, the first woman and openly gay leader of the city Emergency Medical Service.
“I feel great about the opportunity to serve New York City in this way,” Fields, 50, told the Daily News. “And coming in after Chief Bonsignore, those will be some incredibly big shoes to fill.”
Fields, a Brooklyn native, joined EMS two years before its merger with the FDNY in 1996. He started his career in EMS communications before becoming a medic and servicing people in Bedford Stuyvesant — in the community where he was raised.
“Seeing people you grew up with in bad situations and being able to assist them, that’s something I find a great deal of pleasure in,” he said. “I like to give back to the community.”
His career took him from Brooklyn to the Bronx, then to FDNY headquarters, where he worked toward recruiting new members. He met his wife, EMS Lieutenant Nikola Combs-Fields, while climbing the department ladder.
Their son, Michael Fields Jr., a Bronx EMT, joined FDNY EMS during the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. Having his son among the agency’s rank-and-file helps keep him grounded, the chief said.
“I believe in the boots on the ground,” he said. “Before I make a decision from the top, I’m going to want to see how it will impact my co-workers on the bottom, because they’re the ones that will have to carry it out.”
Among Fields’ goals as the city’s newest EMS chief will be improving response times and FDNY diversity.
But none is more personal than improving the physical safety his first responders, a need that was driven home with the death of EMS Lt. Alison Russo in September.
Russo, who was posthumously promoted to captain, was fatally stabbed by a deranged man while on duty outside her Astoria, Queens EMS station.
She was the second member of FDNY EMS killed in the line of duty in five years. In 2017, Bronx EMT Yadira Arroyo was fatally mowed down by a career criminal who stole her ambulance.
“My number one priority is making sure that the people that work for me are safe,” said Fields, a father of four.
Even after 28 years in EMS, Fields humbly admits that there is still a lot that he needs to learn.
“The first thing I’m going to do is find out what I don’t know,” he said.
TAMPA — A Bucs season rife with subpar moments produced its most surreal and ironic one Friday afternoon.
Standing before a bank of cameras inside a plush studio, the quarterback, who hasn’t taken a meaningful snap in nearly a year found himself recounting how fate forced him into the most critical hurry-up drill of his life.
Blaine Gabbert, a portrait of anonymity the last three seasons as Tom Brady’s backup, suddenly was commanding the national stage and being dubbed a “citizen hero.”
“I just thought I was doing the right thing at the right time,” Gabbert told reporters.
Roughly 20 hours earlier, Gabbert, 33, and his two younger brothers were Jet Skiing off Davis Islands, checking out the sailboats at the nearby yacht club, when he gazed westward and spotted what “almost looked like a crew boat in the water that had broken up in about four pieces.”
“And I vaguely recall seeing like, two yellow life jackets,” Gabbert said. “So I was like, ‘All right, we’ve got to go check this out.’ It looked like they were in duress.”
All of them — 28-year-old Hunter Hupp, his 62-year-old father, 59-year-old mother and the 33-year-old pilot — had evacuated the craft by the time the Gabberts (occupying two Jet Skis) arrived.
Slathered in engine oil, shivering, and clutching life jackets not yet fully inflated, the family of three was pulled onto the Jet Skis by the brothers and taken ashore. Gabbert returned to retrieve the pilot and called 911.
“I have the four people on my Jet Skis right now,” Gabbert is heard saying of himself and his brothers in a recording of the 911 call released by the Tampa Police Department Friday afternoon.
“You have them safe?” the 911 dispatcher asked. Gabbert said he and his brothers had them all.
“Is anybody hurt?” Gabbert could be heard asking those with him a few moments later. Someone in the background of the call replies, “No.”
Gabbert provided additional details during Friday’s news conference at AdventHealth Training Center.
“I got two on my Jet Ski, my brothers got one. The pilot was still in the water, and that’s when you guys pulled up,” he said, nodding at two members of the Tampa Police Department’s marine unit who also were in attendance.
“And I dragged (the pilot) a little bit towards the boat and he got on. Luckily enough, we were probably 250 meters from the beach, so we got him to the beach.”
Police released audio of four other 911 calls regarding the incident. In those calls — made by people on the shore — some said they could see life vests a few hundred yards offshore.
“Nobody has come up yet,” another person told the dispatchers, as others noted they could see boats “speeding” over toward the crash scene.
After the rescue, Hupp said the helicopter tour — a Christmas gift — was wrapping up and they were planning to land at the airport when he heard a popping sound in the rotor above his head. Tampa Police Department Lt. Daniel College said the helicopter had an engine failure.
“I am pretty astonished that I am standing here to talk to you,” Hupp said in an interview at the airport Thursday.
As the helicopter hit the water and began to sink, Hupp said he was caught under seatbelts and cords. He said he struggled to get out as his parents and the pilot escaped and made their way to the surface.
Finally, Hupp freed himself and got back to the surface, where he met his rescuers.
The effort prompted Maj. David Arthur of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office to deem Gabbert a “citizen hero.” Tampa Police Department interim chief Lee Bercaw named him an honorary member of the marine patrol unit.
Coach Todd Bowles lauded Gabbert’s selflessness. And naturally, teammates — namely center Ryan Jensen and tight end Cameron Brate — ribbed him mercilessly over his newfound fame.
“I like to say I’m a pretty good swimmer, but that’s the extent of it,” he said.
After encountering the stranded passengers, his initial instincts were to instruct them how to pull the rip cord to inflate the life jackets, then get them out of the frigid waters of Hillsborough Bay.
Upon loading his two passengers — including Hupp’s mother — aboard his Jet Ski, he said he accelerated quickly so the craft wouldn’t capsize.
“And I was like, ‘Ma’am, you have to hold on or you’re going to get flown off again,’” he said.
“Any time you can find a guy to drop everything and go help somebody else that he doesn’t even know without even thinking about it, and take their life into their own hands and helping somebody else save their lives, that says a lot about the guy,” Bowles said. “And Blaine did that.”
Still, Gabbert tried downplaying his role in the rescue, telling reporters that “you guys would do the exact same thing that I did. I just happened to be in that situation.”
On this surreal week, any hope of obscurity must wait until Sunday, when that other Bucs quarterback again assumes the national spotlight.
“Great job, sir,” Arthur told Gabbert.
“I honestly wanted to stay anonymous,” Gabbert said. “I just thought I was doing the right thing at the right time. I’m not much of a guy to be in the limelight. I just kind of want to stay under the radar.”
An elderly man was killed in a nursing home blaze in Hickory Hill.
Memphis firefighters said 47 residents were able to escape. Two were taken to the hospital but are expected to be OK.
Myron Williams, a resident, described the blaze to a WREG reporter: “Like a tinder box. Once it started from the back, it circled the building in the back and came through the middle and ended up front.”
Firefighters said while the cause is still under investigation, it appears the blaze started in a lower unit on the south side of the building.
On its Facebook page, Memphis fire officials wrote: “Automatic alarm quickly turned into a working fire. This fire spread throughout what appeared to be 3-4 wings of the building, as initial efforts were concentrated on rescuing the residents. Firefighting efforts included elevated aerial ladder streams from Trucks 20, 15, 17, and 27, along with Rescue 2. Additionally, handlines and ground monitors were used by Engines 52, 35, 25, 41, 55 and 29. This was a major firefighting operation…:
Firefighters said there were other working incidents during this operation.
