SOMERVILLE, MA - An off-duty Somerville firefighter braved a raging flash flood to pull a woman off the roof of her floating car and drag her to safety as a pounding rainstorm hit the Boston area yesterday afternoon. “He saved my life,” said Christine Broderick, 45, of Somerville, who wore a soaked “I’m Purrfect” T-shirt with a picture of a cat. ...

NEW HAVEN — With due deference to rank, city Firefighter Rick Conte believed his deputy chief and longtime friend was crazy. After all, the odds of actually seeing 65-year-old video footage of Conte’s late father, a U.S. Army MP, during a TV documentary on World War II was about one in 8 million, the number of Army soldiers who served in ...

LAUREL -- Jones County's volunteer fire departments responded to 51 calls ranging from brush and structure fires to medical emergencies during the Memorial Day weekend. "That's an extremely high number of incidents for this time frame," said Jones County Fire Council Public Information Officer Lance Chancellor. "Volunteer firefighters responded to 15 woods or brush fires, four structure fires, 25 medical first ...

NEW HARMONY, UT - Twelve-year-old Cory Arnett was on a midday drive Monday with a neighbor and three preschoolers when he started feeling nervous about how fast they were traveling on the poorly maintained dirt canyon road. Beth Donnelly, 23, was driving the 2003 Ford Explorer on Pace Canyon Road. In the backseat were her 2-year-old daughter, Berlin, another 2-year-old girl ...

MODESTO, CA - Last month, Modesto firefighter J.D. Clevenger said he was eager to return to active duty. "I can't wait to cut another hole in a roof," the 32-year-old said during an interview with The Bee. "The smell of a two-stroke (chain saw) engine will get me over this." He could get that opportunity as early as today, when he ...

SOMERSET, UK - A Somerset paramedic is heading to Afghanistan to help children born with a limb disability. Nich Woolf will be working with Sandy Gall's Afghanistan Appeal (SGAA) to help youngsters who have developmental dysplasia of the hip (DDH). Children in Afghanistan run a higher risk than normal of having the condition, which can mean they need braces to enable ...

HOUSTON - One year ago, a Cy-Fair volunteer firefighter's life was changed forever. Thomas Shuster lost both of his legs at the hands of a suspected drunken driver. And now, he's telling us about the journey he's taken the past year and his hope for the future. Success comes in the small victories for Shuster. "I've realized that my life changed ...

LANCASHIRE, UK - Hero firefighter Steve Morris has spoken in detail for the first time about the six minutes that changed his life forever. Three years after being permanently disabled in a house fire which killed a grandmother and her four-year-old granddaughter, Mr Morris has given his support to a disability hate crime campaign to be launched next week. The blaze, ...

BOSTON - A quick-thinking student EMT who tried to save a Bolton high school senior who died Monday after collapsing at track practice said yesterday he struggled mightily to rescue his friend. “I did what I needed to do,” Brad Lewis, a Nashoba Regional High School student EMT, told reporters. “I wasn’t treating symptoms, I was treating my friend. It was ...

BOSTON - A decade after he died as an iconic American hero, Jerry Dewan remains a public servant, providing educational and medical opportunities to kids through a fund established in his name. It’s called the Gerard Dewan Memorial Fund. In addition to offering a scholarship at Sacred Heart School in Roslindale, which he attended, and endowing a family resource room at ...

ATLANTIC CITY — No one ever denied that Leo Hinton was a hero. But on June 25, nearly four decades after his death, he finally received the recognition so many insisted he deserved. Forty-two years ago, the off-duty firefighter walked into a blaze at a hotel in Atlantic City. Dressed in civilian clothes and armed only with a fire extinguisher, he ...

ARLINGTON, Va. – Ray Vivier had been an adventurer, a Marine veteran who explored the country from South Carolina to Alaska, the father of five children. The 61-year-old also was a man starting to get his life back together after living for years in a shanty beneath a Cleveland bridge. He had struggled with alcoholism, but by November he had a ...

QUEENS, NY - For ladder 163 in Woodside, Queens, the third weekend in June is always laden with emotion and remembrance as the fire company pays tribute to three firefighters killed in a blaze on Father's Day, 2001. This year, the memory of the dead was honored in the most fitting way: Ladder 163 Firefighter Thomas Adams rescued a man from ...

SOUTH WALES, UK - A firefighter who donated his bone marrow to a total stranger has received transatlantic news that he helped save the life of a US family man. Jeff Samuel underwent one and a half hours of surgery to harvest bone marrow from his pelvis and had to take a week’s leave from his job as watch manager at ...

COLLINSVILLE, MO - Collinsville Assistant Fire Chief John Nichols will hang up his fire helmet after 33 years on the job in March. Not only will it be his last day on the job, it will be the first time in about 100 years that a Nichols family member will not be working for the department. His father, Alvin Nichols, served ...

TORONTO - A Toronto paramedic who cracked TIME Magazine‘s 2010 list of the “100 most influential people in the world” is on his way to a star-studded gala in New York city next Tuesday held in honour of nominees including the likes of President Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Conan O’Brien and Lady Gaga. Rahul Singh, a 20-year veteran paramedic, said he ...

AMITYVILLE, NY - William End wanted to become a firefighter because of friendship. Sunday he got his wish -- but the swearing-in took place in a hospital bed where he lay recovering from a crash that killed one of his good friends in the department. End barely had the strength to lift his new Amityville Fire Department badge, and he choked ...