The Perryville Fire Department responded to several calls in the past week. The following is a summary, by day, of the incidents in which a report was available.
May 15
At approximately 7:16 p.m., the fire department received a call of an individual allegedly trapped into a pipe near Progress Drive, though quite a bit of uncertainly surrounds what occurred.
“I don’t think we really know what it really was,” said Major Bill Jones of the Fire Department. “We got a call that a person fell or crawled into a storm pipe.”
The incident occurred in the 100 block of North Progress Drive near an apartment complex, Jones stated.
The drain area is kind of a dry weather creek, but it’s a natural drainage for runoff during storms, according to Jones.
“The drain area then goes into a large, concrete pipe that goes under the bypass, and then it comes out near Grand Avenue,” Jones said. “We got the call that this person fell into or crawled in or was somehow stuck in this drain pipe,” Jones said. “When our guys got there, they searched the drain pipe left and right. I mean they searched. They searched as far as they could. They yelled for the person and there was no response.”
Responders ended up finding a middle aged white female laying on the bank near the archery place, according to Jones.
“We don’t know if she was in that pipe,” Jones said. “There was not enough water coming through that pipe to move her through the pipe, not near enough water.
“This was one of the most confusing calls as far as what actually happened,” Jones said.
Several of the details from the original call could not be confirmed, according to Jones.
“What we do know is she was not trapped in the sewer pipe when we arrived,” Jones said. “She was laying on the side of the bank.
Jones believes the woman was having “cognitive problems” at the time of the incident.
The woman was taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Jones did not believe the woman had been assaulted or was being threatened by anyone where she would have ran out of the pipe or that somebody hit her with a car.
May 15
At approximately 5:56 p.m., the fire department got a call to Westar Aviation at 1390 Highway H for an issue with an alarm system.
“Apparently the McBride bottoms area there had been without power since approximately 10 (a.m.) Sunday morning. Power was not restored until Saturday, May 14, at about 6 p.m.
“When it got restored, numerous alarms at Weststar aviation went off,” Jones said.
For this incident, Jones went on scene to investigate for the department.
“I went down to check it,” Jones said. “Weststar was in touch with us by phone as well.
“The worker had just left and he returned back to West star,” Jones said. “We walked all the buildings at Weststar and we reset about some alarms but we did have one sprinkler alarm system where the system was actually dumping water from the sprinkler system.”
Alarms were reset and the department checked protection systems, Jones said.
At approximately 3:48 p.m., the fire department was called to Perry County Memorial Hospital to check on damage from a lightning strike which led to a power surge.
In addition to that it set off several alarms, Jones said.
The buildings that were involved were checked, and the alarms were reset, Jones said.
May 14
At approximately 9:25 p.m. the fire department was dispatched to the 600 block of Perry County 904. Sparks and fire coming from the ground in back of a mobile home had been reported, according to Jones. “This was during this the thunderstorm,” Jones said. “While we were in route we encountered heavy rain and hail. And when we arrived there it was a virtual light show with lightning. We had a lot of lightning strikes.”
Upon arrival, rescue workers found several holes, which had fire shooting out of them prior to the department arriving.
We had a feeling that it was lightning related,” Jones said. “...They said it looked like a bunch of sparklers had been shoved down in there and are a fountain those fire fountain type things. But there was obvious from those holes because each one of them had dirt blown out of it and the dirt was all blown over to one side.”
No injuries were reported.
At approximately 6:32 p.m., the department was dispatched to mile marker I-55 in the vicinity of milemarker 135 in reference to a motor vehicle accident.
A southbound motor vehicle went into the guardrails and and came to a rest, according to Jones.
“We went primarily on that one to set up a (helicopter) landing zone,” Jones said. “It was discovered by some of the first law enforcement on the scene that no medical attention was needed and so we were cancelled on that one.”
May 13
At approximately 3:13 p.m. the department received a fire alarm sounding from the One Hope Church structure, which is at 1324 Grand Avenue.
Those responding didn’t see or smell any smoke, Jones reported.
“Rescuers reportedly didn’t see anything other than there was a considerable amount of water dripping out of the light fixtures,” Jones said. “What we discovered was that the air conditioning unit in on the second floor of that church. The condensation part of it was not draining properly, and had drained onto the floor of the second floor and leaked down through the floor into the light fixtures and it was shorting out both light fixtures as well as the alarm system.”
Rescuers turned off the breakers to the affected area of the church and they were referred to plumber, a heating and air conditioning serving business as well as an electrician.
