FORT PIERCE — A trauma surgeon and nurse on their way to work at Lawnwood Regional Medical Center & Heart Institute on Saturday became first responders at an accident scene.

Dr. Alex Funicello, who was returning from a Hutchinson Island condo to finish rounds at Lawnwood, found the base of South Bridge blocked with police cars and accident tape.

Raymond Chew, 47, lay in the intersection of Seaway and Indian River drives, his motorcycle nearby and his helmet loose but still on. No emergency medical crews had arrived when Funicello arrived.

So, the trauma surgeon went to work, assessing the patient.
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MARTIN COUNTY — Almost two weeks after her apartment building caught fire, Karen Diaz’s second-floor apartment still smells of smoke.

The fire that briefly displaced Diaz, 21, and her family from their lodgings at The Crossings at Indian Run never entered the apartment, but the smell still greets her when she wakes and when she walks out the damaged front door.

“It feels like it’s on fire again,” said Diaz, who lives in the apartment with her mother, 4-year-old son, older sister and infant niece.

The fires that struck the building at 3740 Southeast Gatehouse Circle and a condo in Port Salerno on Independence Day weekend are over, but the task of recovering is not. The American Red Cross of Martin County has spent a little less than $1,000 aiding those affected by the fires.

On July 4, fire broke out at one of building’s three columns and spread up its interior to the building’s attic, where it was contained.

The fire department accused two juveniles of starting the fire with fireworks. The juveniles are not being charged, but they are being put into a fire safety program, said Frank Lasaga, community safety coordinator for the Stuart fire department.

Diaz and her family were the only ones relocated after the fire, estimated to have caused $80,000 in damage, and have since returned home.

The Red Cross spent a little less than $200 for the family’s food and alternate lodgings while repairs to the ceiling were made, said Sam Yates, a spokesman for the organization. Diaz said the family stayed at Molly’s House in Stuart from July 6 to July 8.

Earlier on July 4, a fire in a waterside condo on the 4000 block of Manatee Lane ended with one dead and one injured. The next day, firefighters with Martin County Fire Rescue returned when another fire broke out in a different area of the same building. None were injured in the second fire.

Yates said the Red Cross spent more than $300 helping the survivor of the first Manatee Lane fire. It has also spent $550 helping a family displaced in the second Manatee Lane fire and will contribute more to help to help them find a place to stay.

After the fire, dust from the attic covered the apartment floor and furniture, Diaz said. The front door was damaged and cut from when firefighters broke into the apartment. The apartment and outside stairwell still smell, and the storage closet on the balcony smells of mold and smoke.

“I don’t know how I’m going to get in there with that smell,” Diaz said.

Parts of the apartment’s ceiling have been repaired, and the dust has been cleaned from the apartment floor. Diaz is still waiting for the apartment complex to replace the front door and damaged air conditioning equipment. Diaz said the complex told her the door would be repaired next week.
By Alex Tiegen, TCPalm.com

ROSELAND — Slabs of stucco-covered clay bricks, which had once held up a U.S. Coast Guard station and then a crab-processing house, lay in heaps around folk singer-songwriter Arlo Guthrie’s contractors.

Guthrie and Melbourne builder Joseph Horschel had hoped to preserve the old walls on the outside while making a home out of the 80-year-old building, which overlooks the Indian River Lagoon, in the 13000 block of North Indian River Drive, north of Sebastian.

They were going to add stronger walls inside to stand up under hurricane winds. But they couldn’t save the walls.

“That was a disappointment,” said project designer John Anderson, from Indian Harbor Beach. “We found cracks we couldn’t see until we got all the stucco off … It was too much to work with, so unfortunately we were not able to do what we hoped to do and save the walls.” (more…)

Jeffery Servidio

Jeffery Servidio was at the Martin County Jail on $52,750 bail this morning after encounters with two elderly Jensen Beach residents last week.

One 89-year-old woman told Martin County Sheriff’s deputies a man had pushed her inside her home in the 1200 block of Northwest 21st Street after she answered the door New Year’s Day morning, according to sheriff’s reports.

The man ran off in a white pickup after she screamed for help, she told investigators.

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