Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The Lewis County Coroner’s Office’s only full time employee has been let go following her arrest last month for suspicion of driving under the influence of drugs.

The chief deputy coroner, Carmen Brunton, was put on administrative leave July 15 after she was stopped because she was weaving on the roadway on Interstate 5 south of Chehalis just before 8 a.m. on her way to work.

She told a sheriff’s deputy she was on numerous prescription medications and had taken Oxycodone about an hour earlier, according to a Lewis County Sheriff’s Office incident report.

Brunton, a county employee since 1993, was responsible for the day to day operations of the coroner’s office.

Her boss, elected Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson, works only part time as do six other deputy coroners.

Wilson said Brunton’s administrative leave ended at 5 p.m. yesterday.

“At this point, she will not be coming back,” Wilson said yesterday evening, declining to elaborate.

Brunton, a Winlock area resident, declined to comment.

Deputy Jason Mauermann wrote in his report that he responded to a citizen report in Napavine that a Black Expedition was “all over the road.”

When he contacted Brunton near the Labree Road interchange, the deputy wrote, she had very slow speech and heavy, sleepy eyes but he didn’t detect any odor of liquor. When asked, she said she was on numerous prescription medications, including muscle relaxers, heart pills and pain medication, according to Mauermann.

Upon further questioning, she told him she had taken Oxycodone for pain that morning, but not a muscle relaxer, according to Mauermann’s report.

Wilson, who has worked with Brunton since she started there, said to his knowledge, all of Brunton’s medications were legitimately prescribed.

The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office that morning requested a trooper to come to the scene and take over the investigation to avoid a conflict, because they work closely with Brunton, according to sheriff’s Cmdr. Steve Aust. Troopers conducted standard field sobriety tests and took her into custody, according to Mauermann’s report.

Trooper Steve Schatzel, a public information officer for the Washington State Patrol, said troopers are waiting for the results of a blood test screening for drugs. Brunton had not yet been charged by citation in Lewis County District Court as of yesterday.

Brunton has been the chief deputy coroner for the past 10 to 12 years, after working her way up the ranks, Wilson said.

Her duties included managing the office, assisting in death investigations, arranging autopsies and notifying the next of kin when deaths occur that are under the jurisdiction of the coroner’s office.

The office remains staffed Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. by a senior deputy coroner.

Wilson, who has been elected coroner for 28 years, said also, under state law, his office is responsible for collecting any medications they find belonging to the deceased individuals they are responsible for. He said he’s not seen anything breaking the protocol he has set up for safe storage and eventual destruction of the wide variety of drugs they confiscate.

Wilson decided not to run again for coroner and two men are vying for that position in the upcoming election; Mossyrock resident Micheal Hurley and Chehalis resident Warren McLeod.

Wilson indicated his high regard for his longtime employee when he spoke yesterday

“It’s going to be a big loss for the coroner’s office, ’cause she was a valuable asset,” Wilson said.

Joshua A. Fitchhorn, 32, wearing red and white jail garb, listens to a defense attorney before Fitchhorn was charged with assault in court on Friday in Chehalis.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

More detailed accounts of last week’s police pursuit, ramming and shots fired involving a stolen pickup truck and a Centralia patrol car show the 1999 Ford F350 turned southbound on Euclid Way as the police cruiser was traveling north on the same residential street.

Officer Michael Lowrey stopped his fully-marked patrol vehicle with his overhead lights activated and watched as the lifted four-wheel drive truck continued straight toward him and slammed into the front of the patrol car, according to charging documents in the case.

A residential surveillance camera captured the moments on videotape and was handed over to the Centralia Police Department.

The suspect is being held on $500,000 bail in the Lewis County Jail and Lowrey will be on administrative leave until a review of the shooting is completed.

Joshua A. Fitchhorn, 32, of SeaTac, went before a judge Friday afternoon and is expected in Lewis County Superior Court again on Thursday.

Defense attorney Bob Schroeter told Judge Nelson Hunt that Fitchhorn is unemployed and his last residence – since the beginning of May – was American Behavioral Health Systems, a drug and alcohol treatment center in Chehalis.

Also in the Chehalis courtroom on Friday afternoon was the owner of the truck and his friend, Clyde Hughes of Napavine.

The two men had stopped at Burkett’s Auto Sales on South Gold Street in Centralia to talk with the owner, John Burkett on Thursday afternoon, the men said after the brief hearing. Winlock resident Thomas Howsden stepped out of his pickup truck and left it running when somebody drove it away, according to charging documents.

Hughes and Burkett hopped into Burkett’s truck and gave chase, as they contacted 911, and followed the stolen truck through town, Hughes said.

“We lost him six or seven times and then we’d see him pop out on another street,” Hughes said.

The 30-year-old Napavine man said they were just seconds behind the confrontation between the police officer and the suspect.

The videotape – broadcast by Seattle television stations – shows the truck hit the patrol car, back up and then move forward again as though to make a U-turn and strike the patrol car a second time. It shows Lowrey then exit his vehicle and take aim with his handgun as the pickup drove away.

Centralia Public Information Officer John Panco last Friday said one bullet was confirmed as having struck the truck. Howsden, who has gotten his vehicle back, described it as having two bullet holes through it, but otherwise in relatively fair condition.

Hughes described what he concluded were the pathways of the two rounds. One traveled through the rear passenger window of the truck, through the passenger headrest and out the lower driver’s side of the windshield, Hughes said. The other bullet entered the driver’s side door just about at ear level, he said.

Nobody was shot. Neither police nor prosecutors have detailed the number of shots fired or where they ended up.

Court documents charging Fitchhorn note Officer Lowrey fired several shots at the fleeing pickup truck.

While Fitchhorn was arrested and booked after Thursday’s events for first-degree assault, he was charged on Friday with with second-degree assault. He was also charged with vehicle theft, attempting to elude and hit and run.

The defendant has two prior convictions for felony eluding and three times been convicted for second-degree taking a motor vehicle without permission, according to Deputy Prosecutor Kjell Werner. He also has a 1995 second-degree assault conviction, according to Werner.

Werner said outside the courtroom he applied the lesser assault charge because first-degree assault involves intent to to do great bodily harm. “And I’m not sure there’s enough evidence for assault one,” Werner said.

The speed of the truck as it turned south on Euclid and was observed by Lowrey coming at him was described as a “high rate”, in charging documents.

Centralia Police Chief Bob Berg yesterday noted it was fast enough it caused over $5,000 damage to the patrol car and put his officer on medical leave for five days.

Lowrey was treated for a minor injury to his head and released from the hospital Thursday evening.

The 11-year veteran of the department is expected to return to what Berg described as modified duty pending the outcome of the administrative review.

Berg said a panel of three command-level officers – two from an outside his agency – will review Lowrey’s actions in comparison to department policies. They’ll then give a report and a recommendation to Berg, the chief said.

The last time a Centralia officer shot at a suspect was in January during a robbery at the TwinStar Credit Union. Otherwise it’s relatively rare, according to Centralia police.

Berg said he could recall four such incidents in the past 30 years, including one fatal shooting of a robbery suspect in the 1970s.

Chehalis firefighters Rob Gebhart and Jay Birley play bagpipes with other firefighters during a benefit last Wednesday night at the Market Street Pub.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

After a log truck driver crushed by his own pickup truck returned to his Winlock home following a 12-day stay in the hospital, one of the EMTs who had come to his rescue babysat his children on recent day so the injured man’s wife could go to work.

A half dozen members of the mostly volunteer fire department had already finished moving the D’Adda family into their new home since the Father’s Day accident happened as they were in the midst of a move.

Greg D'Adda

On the evening of June 20, after firefighters got Greg D’Adda loaded into a helicopter bound for a Seattle trauma center, they helped make sure his wife had a ride up there to be with him.

The firefighters and EMTs save lives, save houses and come to the aid of those who call; and sometimes it’s each other who they help.

D’Adda, 38, has been a volunteer firefighter for more than eight years, most of those with Lewis County Fire District 15 in Winlock.

“We take care of our own,” said Firefighter-EMT Carrie Pennington. “We don’t usually babysit people, we don’t usually offer up that much help.”

The department of some 30 members cares for a community of more than 3,000 people in South Lewis County.

It’s not all that uncommon to respond to a 911 call  for one of the volunteers themselves. They went when a recently retired firefighter suffered a cardiac arrest in church. They went early last year when the house of a fairly new volunteer went up in flames.

So last week, it wasn’t so surprising the Market Street Pub in Chehalis was packed with more than 50 firefighter friends, family and strangers to help raise money for the D’Adda family’s growing medical bills.

“I don’t know how we did yet, but I think we did really good,” District 15 Firefighter-EMT Patrick Jacobson said last Thursday, the morning after the party.

Tonight, they expect to present D’Adda with the proceeds – which might be around $1,400 – at the department’s weekly training, according to Jacobson.

The Wednesday night gathering featured members of the Chehalis Fire Department Capt. Rob Gebhart and Firefighter-investigator Jay Birley playing bagpipes. They were joined by others from the Vancouver Firefighter Pipes and Drums, as well as some from the Pierce County Fire Pipes and Drums.

The pub rocked.

Greg and Delores D’Adda came out for the event.

While he’s in a wheelchair, with a leg brace and an arm sling, the volunteer firefighter said he doesn’t have too much pain.

He’s mostly concerned about a doctor visit later this week when he hopes to find out if he needs surgery on his broken collarbone – and if he might get a walking cast. His wife is primarily worried about him moving around too much and his spinal cord, because his back was broken in three places.

Greg D’Adda said he doesn’t recall much about the June accident.

He was working beneath his four-wheel drive Dodge half-ton pickup truck at his new home on Burnett Road when it fell off the jack and out of gear, he said.

“The next thing I knew, it dragged me 20 or 30 yards; that’s what I’ve been told,” D’Adda said. “It rolled me up in a ball, and somehow I flattened out. I looked back to see the driver’s tire.”

Pennington answered the call with Fireifghter-EMTs Mary Miller and Tamara Mitchell.

We did our EMT things, said Pennington, a Winlock native.

“We found out what was hurting, what wasn’t and what we had,” she said.

D’Adda was put in a cervical collar and strapped to a backboard, and they were joined by paramedics from South Lewis County EMS, and then the rescue helicopter at the grade school’s play field, she said.

The father of two says doctors are talking like it could be a year and a half before he gets back to work; and he probably won’t be able to return to log truck driving.

His list on injuries is long, and also includes broken ribs, a broken long leg bone and a crushed foot and heel.

“And my ACL is torn,” D’Adda said. “I don’t know what that is. I have no clue.”

He didn’t have medical insurance, but his car insurance paid its maximum of $10,000 which goes toward the $17,000 Life Flight bill, he said.

Fortunately he learned he got approved for DSHS’s state-funded insurance and is told it will be retroactive to June 1, D’Adda said.

He’s grateful for that, and for the help he’s getting from fellow firefighters. It’s like a family he’s grown into, he said.

He didn’t expect he really needed health insurance.

“I’m not one who gets sick or gets hurt,” D’Adda said. “But I kinda wish I had it. I’ve got medical bills racking up left and right.”

Vancouver Firefighter Pipes and Drums and others entertain a crowd Wednesday night in Chehalis

•••

EMT has treated much of the town over 30 years

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Carrie Pennington didn’t realize at first it was a fellow volunteer firefighter who was hurt when she responded to the 911 call.

She didn’t recognize the address, but it turned out Greg D’Adda was just moving to a home in Winlock, Pennington said.

It didn’t take long to figure it out.

“You get out of the rig and see him laying there and see his family all around him, then ‘oh my goodness’,” she said. “It kind of gives you a little knot in your stomach.”

Lewis County Fire District 15 Chief Jon Hensley – leader of some 30 firefighters in the Winlock area – has logged 27 years with the department. In a small community, they’re bound to respond to calls for people they know, according to Hensley.

“I would say it’s not all that often, but when you do, it hits home,” Hensley said last week.

For Pennington, who’s been working an ambulance for three decades in her hometown, it’s not unusual.

“Quite often I know who it is,” the 54-year-old said. “Very rarely do I not know.”

Pennington graduated from Winlock High School, as did her parents and her children. For the past 20 years she’s been a teacher’s assistant at the elementary school.

The mother of five has been an EMT since before the fire department existed as it does today.

“Back when i joined in 1980 it was a private ambulance service,” Pennington said.

It was called Winlock Ambulance Service and most of the employees were women, she said.

She planned to go to nursing school and thought it would be good experience to discover if she could handle the things she might see as a nurse.

When the private company folded, it was given to the fire department. In order to keep working and be eligible for future retirement benefits, the EMTs had to also become firefighters, she said.

Pennington doesn’t do a lot of firefighting, she said. And she never did get her nursing degree.

But she responds to a lot of aid calls. She’s treated members of the department and individuals she knows from school and church.

“I worked on my mother when she had a cardiac arrest; I’ve worked on my dad when he was sick,” Pennington said.

“Without a doubt, that was probably the toughest call I’ve ever been on,” she said of trying and failing to revive her mother in 2005.

Today, the volunteer department has about nine EMTs, and the mix is closer to half women and half men. Even Chief Hensley’s daughter, who Pennington taught in her first year at the preschool has become one of the EMTs.

“I’ve gone on a call for one of our own EMTs; we had to go to her house,” Pennington said. “They’ve come to my house.”

Riverside Fire Authority responds to a house fire north of Centralia Saturday afternoon in a neighborhood without fire hydrants.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CENTRALIA – Firefighters rolled out more than 330 yards of five-inch hose across Harrison Avenue and down Prairie Avenue north of Centralia  to douse a blaze inside a house this afternoon.

Nobody was in the rambler at the time but unfortunately one pet cat perished and another was unaccounted for, Riverside Fire Authority Assistant Chief Mike Kytta said as crews came out of the home.

There are no fire hydrants in that area, according to Kytta.

Neighbors reported seeing black smoke, he said. Crews found what Kytta thought was a back bedroom burning and caught flames rising about five feet above the roof, the assistant chief said.

Firefighters from Rochester joined them and the blaze was under control within about 30 minutes of the approximately 3:55 p.m. call.

“It’s nice to be able to go out a rural area and find a fire as advanced as this was; and, they’re going to be able to repair this house,” Kytta said.

It followed a kitchen fire in a house south of Chehalis this morning.

Lewis County Fire District 5 was called at 10:30 a.m. to a home on the 800 block of Koontz Road.

A woman there had thrown bacon on the stove before going out to feed her horses and returned to find her house full of smoke, District 5 Firefighter Raymond Smerek said this afternoon.

Nine firefighters were on the scene. The fire was limited to an area in the kitchen, he said.

Volunteer Firefighter Corey Youngren gets ready to remove his outer gear after coming out of a house on Prairie Avenue north of Centralia on Saturday afternoon.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Seven vehicles – four of them semi-trucks – had to be towed from Interstate 5 yesterday afternoon after collisions that shut down the freeway north of Centralia and caused miles-long backups for hours.

It began about 1:30 p.m. when cars began slowing for traffic near the county line and a northbound 2004 Volvo tractor-trailer rig changing lanes rear-ended a Mazda pickup and then struck a Ford pickup, according to the state a patrol.

Twelve vehicles were involved but only three individuals sustained minor injuries, according to authorities.

It happened in the bottleneck area under construction, according to fire department Lt. Isaac Garza.

The congestion got so bad so quickly that responders from Centralia’s Riverside Fire Authority couldn’t get to the scene and ambulances from Rochester went there by traveling south in the northbound lanes, according to fire department officers.

“The road construction makes it really difficult to access because there’s no shoulders,” West Thurston Regional Fire Authority’s Garza said this morning.

Garza said a semi-truck pushed a passenger car up onto the right hand concrete barrier, crushing the car. The car’s two female occupants, from Portland, were taken by ambulance to Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia.

“They were very, very fortunate,” Garza said. “Normally we would have expected to see a higher level of injury there.”

The 2008 Camry was totaled, as was a 2002 Ford Explorer, according to the Washington State Patrol.

The state patrol blamed inattention, following too closely and an unsafe lane change for the pileup. Any citations or charges are pending the completion of the investigation, according to the investigating trooper.

Although Centralia firefighters couldn’t get to the scene, they assisted two individuals stuck in the traffic and in need of aid for other reasons.

Fire Capt. Scott Weinert said a pregnant woman began having contractions and they took her to the hospital; and a recently discharged heart patient was running low on oxygen and needed to get off the freeway.

By 3 p.m., the northbound lanes of Interstate 5 were backed up beyond the area south of the 13th Street interchange in south Chehalis, and city streets inside both Chehalis and Centralia were described as clogged.

The 12 drivers involved came from places as far away as Albany, Ore. and Zillah. A 27-year-old man from Tenino was reportedly uninjured.

Centralia resident Benjamin Alsterberg was the third individual who was hurt, according to the state patrol. The 24-year-old was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital with for injury to his neck and head

The northbound lanes were reopened around 5 p.m.

•••
Note from Sharyn: If any reader got a photo from this, I’d sure like it if you would email it me to share here. You can send it to me at sharyn.decker@lewiscountysirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CENTRALIA – The Centralia police officer involved in yesterday’s pursuit that led to shots fired in a north end neighborhood has been identified as Officer Michael Lowrey.

Lowrey, an 11-year veteran of the department, will be on administrative leave, as is standard procedure, pending the results of a review of the incident, according to the Centralia Police Department.

Images of a late model pickup ramming a Centralia patrol car Thursday afternoon are captured on a neighbor's surveillance camera.

Lowrey fired at least two shots at a suspect who police say rammed his patrol car twice during a chase that began on Kresky Avenue and ended in a residential area at the north end of town.

Nobody was hit by any bullet but one round struck the stolen late model Ford pickup truck being driven by a 32-year-old SeaTac man, according to Officer John Panco.

Panco said a resident of the area handed over a video of the ramming and shooting that took place on Euclid at Third street around 5 p.m. yesterday. The pursuit continued over railroad tracks and ended about a block later when the suspect bailed out of the truck and fled on foot.

Centralia Police Officer Michael Lowrey is shown as he fires at a pickup truck driving away after it rammed Lowrey's patrol car.

Joshua A. Fitchhorn, 32, was arrested shortly afterward on the other side of the Skookumchuck River in Rotary Riverside Park. He was checked out at the hospital because he was scratched up from the brush, according to Panco.

Lowrey sustained a minor injury to his head – complaining of a headache – from the ramming, Panco said. He too was taken to Providence Centralia Hospital and was released last night.

It began about 4:20 p.m. when Fitchhorn allegedly stole the truck from Burkett’s Auto Sales on the 1100 block of South Gold Street. Lowrey spotted the pickup on Kresky and a chase ensued. A second Centralia police officer joined the pursuit just after the suspect rammed Lowrey’s patrol car, Panco said.

Panco said the front of the patrol car sustained some damage and the front of the pickup got minor damage.

Fitchhorn was booked into the Lewis County Jail for first-degree assault and possession of stolen property. He is expected to go before a judge this afternoon.

The last time a Centralia officer shot at a suspect was in January during a robbery at the TwinStar Credit Union, Panco said.

Other than that, it was “before my time and I’ve been here 21 years,” Panco said.

Today, Lowrey is on medical leave and after he is cleared medically, he will be placed on administrative leave, according to Panco.

After the criminal investigation is concluded, an outside agency will conduct an administrative review of the incident, Panco said.

•••
See photos and read yesterday’s story: Patrol car rammed; officer fires weapon during police pursuit in Centralia

•••
kirotv.com this afternoon posted the uncut video of the driver of the truck seen ramming the Centralia police car and the officer getting out and firing at the truck.

KING5.com has posted a portion of the video along with its today’s newscast about the incident.

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

CHEHALIS – The trial date for the Winlock grocery store manager accused of stealing lottery tickets has been pushed into October as attorneys go through a crate full of evidence and reports.

Benjamin C. Macy was charged in May with two counts of second-degree theft after a video surveillance camera allegedly showed him scratching off dozens of $20 tickets at 4:30 in the morning at the Cedar Village IGA.

The 51-year-old has pleaded not guilty and is free on bail.

Macy, a Winlock resident, has worked for the store for 30 years, according to charging documents filed in Lewis County Superior Court.

Charging documents give the following account:

Raleigh Stone, the owner of the grocery store contacted Winlock Police Chief Terry Williams in early May after he found several scratch tickets in the trash can in Macy’s office.

The tickets were sequential, and not played in the normal fashion. Just the hidden code was exposed – the code used by lottery merchants to verify winners.

Williams and another officer set up a hidden camera to record the service center in the store at night for a period of about two weeks. On two nights, the camera recorded Macy open up three packets, each containing 75 $20 scratch tickets. The video showed him scratch the area to expose the hidden code necessary to see if the tickets were winners.

On May 22, the police chief contacted Macy at the store and spoke with him.

Macy allegedly said he has been doing it for about three years, although not every day. He said he sometimes pays for the tickets. He was arrested.

A trial is set for the week of Oct. 18 and expected to last three days. Macy is represented by Centralia attorney Jonathan Meyer.