Aid and police were called about 4:45 this morning to a train versus pedestrian accident in Centralia near Summa Street.
Riverside Fire Authority Firefighter-paramedic Mark Holmberg said firefighters stood by while police conducted a search. They returned to their station after a body was located, he said.
Holmberg said a freight train was stopped on the tracks in the area.
More to come.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Firefighters in Centralia and Chehalis found the Fourth of July surprisingly accident-free, although police had their hands full with the annual fascination with explosive powder.
Somebody blew up a toilet in the men’s bathroom at the skate park off Harrison Avenue in Centralia with an unknown type of firework, according to a report made to the Centralia Police Department about 10:20 p.m. on Saturday.
And officers were called about the same time last night to Eckerson Road where neighbors said a 19-year-old man was on his roof shooting guns into the air.
Witnesses told police he had fired some 50 shots with his .22 rifle and 12-gauge shotgun.
When police arrived, Dana M. Rook, of Centralia, was still on top of his house, but eventually came down, according to police. Officers reported he was intoxicated and tried to struggle with them after he was handcuffed in the back seat of a patrol car.
He was arrested and booked into the Lewis County Jail, according to police, for unlawful discharge of a firearm, minor in possession and resisting arrest.
In Chehalis, firefighters heard lots of racket overnight but it appeared citizens were either careful, or lucky, Fire Chief Kelvin Johnson said this morning.
And responders from Centralia’s Riverside Fire Authority found their night pleasingly uneventful, according to Firefighter-paramedic Rob Smith.
Around 10 o’clock-ish, they were called when a ball from a Roman Candle went out of control and smacked a woman on the backside, but she got away with probably no worse than a little red mark, Smith said.
Residents seem to have made it through the holiday with all their fingers intact, according to Smith. The “old-timers” at the downtown station could hardly believe they got a good night’s sleep last night, he said.
“Not a single fire call all night,” Smith said. “We were just laying there with one eye open and there were no calls.”
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
The man accused of cutting another man across the back of the neck during a dispute at a Chehalis apartment building was charged Friday with first-degree assault, a class A felony with a maximum penalty of life in prison.
Chehalis police arrested Terry Lee Bryan, 30, described as a transient, after the 1:15 a.m. call on Thursday to the apartments on the 200 block of Northwest Chehalis Avenue.
According to charging documents, officers arrived and encountered several of the building’s inhabitants yelling and pointing out apartment numbers five and six.
When Sheldon Hardy emerged, he was shirtless and his face and upper torso were covered with blood, according to the documents. An officer placed him in a prone handcuffing position on the ground, and then the officer observed a large cut on the back of his neck, the documents say.
The officer entered the other apartment and found Bryan standing there. Bryan said Hardy had come in an attacked him, according to the charging documents.
Hardy, 36, who also had a laceration on his shoulder and another above his eye, was taken to the hospital, treated and then released later in the morning.
The weapon police recovered was a blue, folding box cutter type knife, the kind that uses a razor blade, according to Chehalis police detective Sgt. Rick McNamara.
Bryan has no stable address but has lived in the Chehalis and Centralia area for the past four years, has no income from any source and no felony history, according to police and the attorneys handling his case. However, he has some 22 misdemeanors, mostly trespassing citations, the lawyers told the judge on Friday afternoon in the Chehalis courtroom.
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Steve Scott requested Bryan be held on $50,000 bail. Defense attorney Bob Schroeter asked Lewis County Superior Court Judge Nelson Hunt to consider $25,000 bail.
Judge Hunt set bail at $100,000.
Bryan’s poverty made him eligible for a court-appointed attorney. His opportunity to make his plea will come next Thursday.
•••
Read the original news story from Thursday, July 1, 2010 here.
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Police responding to an overnight call about a dispute at a Chehalis apartment found a man with a large cut across the back of his neck and subsequently arrested another man.
The Chehalis Police Department reported officers found a large amount of blood in the hallway, a knife and bloody clothing in an apartment at 216 NW Chehalis Ave. The call came about 1:15 a.m. today.
A 36-year-old Chehalis man, whose name has not been released, was taken by ambulance to Providence Centralia Hospital. He was conscious when firefighters arrived. The victim had also had a laceration on his shoulder and another above his eye, according to a news release from the Chehalis Police Department.
The victim was released from the hospital this morning, detective Sgt. Rick McNamara said just after lunchtime today.
Police reported the victim and residents of the complex pointed them to their suspect.
Terry Lee Bryan, 30, described as a transient, was arrested for first-degree assault and booked into the Lewis County Jail, according to police. Bryan “hangs out” in the Chehalis and Centralia areas, according to McNamara.
Police reported the assault appeared to have stemmed from an argument between the two, and are investigating to find out more, according to the news release this morning.
Bryan was visiting someone at an adjacent apartment, McNamara said. He didn’t know if the two men knew each other.
•••
This news story was updated at 1:30 p.m. Thursday July 1, 2010
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
Family and friends finished a second day of searching for the missing Morton teenager Austin King about 8 p.m. last night, with no luck.
“Just all over,” his older step-sister Michelle Bloomstrom said of where they looked. “In the brush, on the river, up logging roads.”
Austin King
Christy Harper said she last saw her 16-year-old son about 12:15 a.m. on June 23 when he said goodnight and went off to his bedroom with two buddies to watch television.
Wednesday came and went, and then on Thursday when they knocked on his door, he didn’t answer. He wasn’t there, she said.
Austin, one of four children who live with her on Chapman Road in the Tilton River Mobile Home Park, sleeps in a small detached building he calls his apartment, his mom said. It’s not unusual for Austin to sleep in and not emerge from his room until mid-day, explaining why he wasn’t missed earlier.
But last Thursday she spoke to the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office to make a missing person report. She’s worried and says she doesn’t think he ran away.
“He’s never taken off without telling us where he’s going,” Harper said Tuesday night.
Austin hasn’t been in touch with his girlfriend who he normally texts or talks to every day, she said. The family has posted fliers everywhere they can, she said.
A sheriff’s detective interviewed Austin’s family and friends. Two deputies joined the group on Tuesday during their search.
The 16-year-old, who his mother said is home schooled, doesn’t have a debit card, a credit card or cell phone detectives can track, according to sheriff’s Cmdr. Steve Aust.
“We’ve exhausted our leads,” Aust said yesterday. “At this point, we just stay on top of it.”
The sheriff’s office hasn’t organized a search and rescue group, because there’s no one place to start looking, according to Aust. The two days of searching this week were organized by a Morton woman. They plan to do it again today.
Harper said her son doesn’t go out after dark, or really anywhere without somebody else. He likes to spend time playing video games, listening to music and watching movies, she said.
The sheriff’s office has technically classified Austin as a runaway juvenile, but that’s just “semantics,” Aust said. Being put in the system that way means if he comes into contact with a law enforcement officer, they will return him home, Aust said.
The vast majority of cases like this are resolved with no problem, Aust said.
The Lewis County Sheriff’s Office already this year has taken 77 missing person/runaway juvenile reports, according to Aust. Only six of those remain active cases, and all six are runaway juveniles, according to Aust.
“We don’t have any reason to believe it was foul play, to believe he ran away, to believe its suicide, we’re just at a dead end,” Aust said.
Twelve-year-old Kayla Colman from Pe Ell holds still as special makeup is applied to simulate scrapes on her cheek
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CURTIS – The sun was shining outside, but inside the Baw Faw Grange, some three dozen first responders and others listened quietly as the fire chief questioned them one by one on what they learned or how they felt during the just completed simulation of an emergency response to a head-on crash between a school bus and a loaded log truck.
Lewis County Fire District 13 Chief Gregg Peterson asked for feedback first from the children who played the roles of victims, some who had patiently waited to be “saved” as they lay on the pavement or in the brush along Lost Valley Road.
Fire Chief Gregg Peterson
“You liked how much you were checked on, even though you were dead,” Peterson said, repeating a comment from one of the youngsters.
Nearly all the pretend casualties echoed the sentiment, telling how a firefighter, EMT or paramedic was at their side during most of their time at the scene.
The debriefing was part of a long day on Saturday in the Boistfort Valley in which members of three fire departments, along with paramedics from American Medical Response, practiced how they would handle a mass casualty incident.
They started about 10:30 a.m.
Kids waited inside the Grange kitchen as 19-year-old Jennifer Peterson and Fire Capt. Ken Columbo sorted through their Hollywood makeup kits to apply “injuries” to faces, arms and other body parts. Each child had a card to describe their particular trauma.
“Minor cuts and scrapes,” Columbo read from 12-year-old Kayla Colman’s card. “Have a seat.”
Behind them, 15-year-old Sawyer Zock seemed almost pleased with the piece of wood that appeared to have impaled him through the chest.
Some 42 people took part in the exercise held in Curtis, in part, according to Chief Peterson, so the three volunteer fire departments in West Lewis County can find ways to work more closely with each other. It’s an ongoing process, and necessary, because when emergencies happen during the daytime, many of his 27 department members are at work and unavailable.
Members of Lewis County Fire District 11 from Pe Ell took part, but none were able to make it Saturday from Lewis County Fire District 16 out of Doty and Dryad.
Sawyer Zock, 15, of Pe Ell, pretends he is injured as firefighters tend to a girl in the brush during a mock school bus versus log truck crash on Saturday
They try to hold such multi-department drills about once each year, although this was the first since the December 2007 flood, Peterson said.
“This was the most complex one,” he said.
Peterson was quick to point to volunteer Fire Capt. Michele Hulbert as the organizer of the event.
The grange and adjacent District 13 fire station sit about 14 miles west and south of Chehalis. It’s a place that served as one of the hubs of activity during and after the flood that devastated so much of west Lewis County. Their parking lot on Saturday was packed with emergency vehicles.
Firefighters from Riverside Fire Authority in Centralia brought their MCI unit, a trailer packed with materials and equipment useful if any kind of incident resulted in a large number of victims. Assistant Fire Chief Mike Kytta said none of the four MCI trailers parked around Lewis County for about the past six years have yet been used in a real emergency but could be, for example, if an Amtrak train wrecked, a large building or stadium collapsed or a bus crashed.
“All it takes is one school bus or a Greyhound with 50 people, or 40 or 30,” Kytta said. “And we’re there.”
The radio call went out about 12:15 p.m.
Firefighters and medics tend to the "wounded" during a simulation on Saturday of a mass casualty incident along Lost Valley Road in the Boistfort Valley
About four miles up the twisting, two-lane Lost Valley Road a yellow school bus was sat cheek-to-cheek with a truck. (Masquerading as a log truck was a dump truck pulling a trailer, which served a dual purpose. It carried a working port-potty for participants.)
Responding personnel were told leaking fuel was running in streams down the roadway and caught on fire.
The complication meant emergency vehicles had to take a longer route, but soon a row of seven ambulances were parked and idling along the tree-lined road at the opposite side of the scene.
Firefighters and medics evaluated the 12 children and two adult drivers they found, conducted some on-scene treatment and packaged up several on backboards for transport.
Incident commander, District 13 volunteer Capt. Kurt Reichert directed their activities. Nearby, a responding pastor comforted and prayed with a girl sitting in the truck’s cab next to another girl who had assumed the role of a deceased driver.
Chief Peterson acted as an observer. He and Capt. Hulbert looked around and spoke of some of the challenges such an incident would create. They would need a human to be at each roadblock a little earlier if something like this really happened, they said.
It wouldn’t take long for a mob of frantic parents to appear, Hulbert said.
“We’re gonna have parents coming from both ends, we’re gonna have parents walking through the woods,” she said.
Emergency vehicles from four agencies respond on Saturday to the mock scenario of a log truck versus school bus collision about four miles up Lost Valley Road in West Lewis County
When they were all back inside the Grange discussing what they’d learned, some spoke of not having enough of certain equipment they needed nearby.
There was confusion initially about who was incident commander because the individual who arrived first hadn’t been slated for that task.
“People might hear a more senior officer ordering resources over the air, but the first person on the scene is in charge, even if they’ve only been working a week,” Peterson reminded them.
Kytta, a veteran professional firefighter and longtime chief in rural Centralia, offered praise all around, but noted there were some responders completely out of radio contact.
Pastor Rex Beresford, of Boistfort Community Church, was among the last to speak before the meeting broke up for the barbecued hamburgers and hot dogs waiting in the next room. His own daughter was one of the “victims”.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve driven those curves, that was our bus,” Beresford said. “That was about as real as I ever want to see it.”
•••
Former West Lewis County resident Rob Keller played the role of a news photographer who shows up to the accident scene and said he plans to post his photographs on his web site, www.robcat.net
Firefighters from Lewis County fire districts 6, 5 and 8 keep watch and spray water onto the excavators and bulldozers moving the remains of the Lewis County Adventist School into a huge burn pile today west of Chehalis
By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
CHEHALIS – It was somewhat like an immense bonfire but flames flared mostly on one side while streams of water from firefighters’ hoses kept the opposite section smoldering as bulldozers took turns pushing the remains of the school into the pile.
Members of three area fire districts took the opportunity to practice today as they assisted the contractor in demolishing the Lewis County Adventist School west of Chehalis.
“Wow, it doesn’t even look like there was a school here now,” said Linda VanPuymbrouck, a Curtis resident who was among a small group of teachers, church members and parents who staked out a birds-eye view from the adjacent hillside.
While the original plan to make room for a new school on the site off of South Scheuber Road included various firefighter training exercises before the entire building would be set ablaze, the fire chief concluded certain construction peculiarities made that approach unsafe.
Less than three hours into the burning, the bulk of the structure was gone, said Lewis County Fire District 6 Chief Bud Goodwillie.
The chief supervised 32 firefighters who got to practice some of the basics, while the contractor Adam Kugel and his crew of three added to the burn pile. They began the demolition last night.
“It was blazing hot, almost unbearably hot,” Kugel said as he came off a shift of nearly an hour inside his excavator.
Firefighters worked in roughly 20-minute shifts keeping streams of water flowing to prevent the equipments’ hydraulic lines from igniting.
Some 60 students from kindergarten through tenth grade will attend classes next year at the Chehalis Seventh-day Adventist Church nearby on Chilvers Road.
The following school year, they should be inside a $3.5 million, new two-story building with the same views of Mount St. Helens, Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, according to church member Bill Hammond, chair of the building committee.
The structure, at 28,000 square-feet will be more than double the size of the former school and will feature a full-sized gym.
Twenty-nine year-old Kugel, who is coordinating the work with another contractor, is an alumni of the private school. He was hot, but pleased as the work was winding down about 1 p.m.
“They still got something good out of it,” he said of the firefighters. “And so far, it’s been good.”
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