CHICAGO - One of two Homewood firefighters critically injured Tuesday night in a ferocious house fire that claimed the life of an elderly man has died, authorities said this morning. The firefighter was identified by the Cook County medical examiner's office as 28-year-old Brian Carey of Evergreen Park. The Homewood homeowner killed in the blaze was identified as Wendell Elias, 84. ...

TULSA - A paramedic had to be taken to the hospital herself after being hit by a Jeep while responding to an accident near 51st and Harvard. It happened early Friday morning. It started with an accident in the intersection in which the driver of a car t-boned a minivan. While investigators were attempting to move the car and minivan out ...

NEW YORK - A 9/11 hero-turned-tax-cheat pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing more than $1.3 million in business taxes from the government. Ex-firefighter Thomas Casatelli, who runs The Kettle Black in Bay Ridge, admitted to swindling the city and state out of five years worth of taxes by filing false returns and paying most of his employees off-the-books. He will serve 90 ...

SEATTLE - The father who was killed in a New Year's morning blaze was training to become a firefighter and had recently passed his initial firefighting tests, says the manager of the apartments where he died. David Thompson, 32, who was killed in the apartment fire along with his four sons, also worked as a maintenance assistant at the apartment complex ...

KING COUNTY, WA - A King County judge said Friday that the "mental picture" she envisioned of a Seattle firefighter awarded $12.75 million for injuries he suffered in an on-duty fall didn't square with secretly shot video later showing him chopping wood and performing other activities. But Superior Court Judge Susan Craighead also sharply questioned a request by attorneys for the ...

PERTH AMBOY -- Exploding ammunition in a burning central New Jersey home hindered firefighters Monday. Authorities said firefighters couldn't battle the flames inside the two-story home Monday until they were certain all the ammo had cooled down. Firefighters initially directed water from the outside through a second floor window. A man who lived in the home with his mother was treated ...

SPRING HILL, FL — Spring Hill Fire Rescue Chief Mike Rampino said Thursday that he's looking into allegations that on-duty firefighters attended parties where alcohol was served earlier this year and that intoxicated women were allowed on fire station property. The allegations were made at Wednesday's district fire board meeting by Ridge Manor resident Rob Rogoski, who presented commissioners with about ...

VANDENBERG, CA - At 6 p.m. on Friday, June 25, the five-day search for Sean Daniel Fleming was suspended, according to officials in a press release. On Saturday, June 19, Fleming — a 32 year-old Vandenberg firefighter from Lompoc — parked his vehicle at Gaviota State Beach and took his kayak out into the ocean to fish. When Fleming failed to ...

SELDEN, N.Y. — A Long Island firefighter says he had a bad feeling as he rushed to a house fire. It claimed the life of a visitor — his brother. Selden volunteer Richie Zdenek tells Newsday that he knew when he saw the fire address Sunday that his brother was often at that house. Before he left home, he checked his ...

BROWNSVILLE, TN. - A medical helicopter crashed in stormy weather over western Tennessee early Thursday, killing its crew of three, around the same time another helicopter company had declined to go on a flight in the area because of the weather conditions. No patients were on board the helicopter operated by Hospital Wing when it crashed in a field about 55 ...

D.C. police have opened a criminal investigation into the death of a 2-year-old girl who was not immediately taken to the hospital by emergency responders. The investigation will be handled by the homicide division's special victims unit, which looks into the death of any child younger than 13. Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said investigators would "determine if there's any potential ...

ANCHORAGE - Police on Wednesday identified the man killed in an apparently accidental shooting Tuesday as a 26-year-old Anchorage firefighter. Police say Elliott Taylor and a friend had just returned from shooting and were cleaning their weapons Tuesday evening when the friend's handgun fired a round that went through his hand and hit Taylor in the lower abdomen. Neighbor Kurt Spencer ...

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. (AP) - Police say they have identified at least two people suspected of jumping out of a van and beat two visiting Canadian firefighters outside an upstate New York bar. Police in Saratoga Springs say the two firefighters from Ontario were talking to two women in a minivan stopped at a downtown intersection outside an Irish pub early ...

ROCKVILLE, Md.-- Four firefighters were rushed to the hospital after a roof collapsed on their heads while they were cleaning up after a fire on Wilmart Street in Rockville Wednesday night. The fire broke out on the 1700 block of Wilmart Street at around 7:25 p.m., according to Montgomery County Fire spokesperson Beth Anne Nesselt. "Three of the four firefighters will ...

BANGKOK (AP) - A 603-pound (274-kilogram) woman believed to be the heaviest in Thailand left her apartment for the first time in three years Thursday with the help of Bangkok city hall and a forklift. Neighbors of 40-year-old Umnuayporn Tongprapai contacted the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority when they learned she needed medical attention to remove a tumor in her right leg. Bangkok's ...

PORTLAND - A Portland police officer accidentally used pepper spray instead of a fire extinguisher on a man who lit himself on fire downtown near a fur store Wednesday. Portland Police Bureau Chief Rosie Sizer said the officer was at a stoplight at Southwest 12th Avenue and Yamhill Street when she saw a man in flames. When the officer went to ...

WAYNE COUNTY, TX - Susan Marie Bates told state police she wanted to get boyfriend Timothy Wood's attention when she wrapped herself in a Dallas Cowboys fleece and set the blanket ablaze. The fire was the third that Ms. Bates is accused of setting Saturday afternoon at the rented home she and Mr. Wood shared in Wayne County's Texas Twp. Mr. ...

CENTRALIA, Pa. – Standing before the wreckage of his bulldozed home, John Lokitis Jr. felt sick to his stomach, certain that a terrible mistake had been made. He'd fought for years to stay in the house. It was one of the few left standing in the moonscape of Centralia, a once-proud coal town whose population fled an underground mine fire that ...

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Family members of a teen killed when he jumped from a moving ambulance said that the death of the autistic 16-year-old on Sunday could have been prevented. For starters, Shelley Hodge didn't want her son, Ryan Emory, released from the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute in Columbia on Feb. 6. On his discharge papers she wrote: "I, Shelly ...

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) - Forget "Fore!" "Fire!" was the cry of the day for a golfer whose off-target swing sparked a 12-acre blaze in Southern California. The golfer at the Shady Canyon Golf Course in Irvine landed a shot in the rough Saturday. On his next swing, his club snagged a rock, causing a spark that lit the rough ablaze and ...