HUTCHINSON ISLAND — A 28-year-old Stuart man drowned this afternoon at a beach south of the Jensen Beach Causeway.

Phillip Heycock of the 100 block of Southwest Salerno Road and two friends, a male and a female, had gone to Bryn Mawr Beach south of the Jensen Beach Causeway about 2 p.m. Heycock had been in the water about 10 minutes when the friends realized he was in distress and called 911, about 2:20 p.m.

Firefighters responded to the beach three minutes later, Martin County Fire Rescue Battalion Chief Kit Worley said.

Haycock was about 50 to 75 feet offshore when he was pulled to the shore but it was too late, Worley said.

“Unfortunately he was down too long,” he said.

Martin County Sheriff’s detectives said there were no signs of trauma and believe the drowning to be accidental.

Breezy weather in the Treasure Coast has heightened the possibility of riptides.

Fred Pierno in July 2007, when he was working to put out a small brush fire near the Holly Creek subdivision, just off Jensen Beach Boulevard. Photo by Vada Mossavat.

Fellow firefighters stood at Pierno’s bedside Wednesday as the Martin County Fire Rescue veteran lost a battle with Hepatitis C complications at his Port St. Lucie home.

“He died with his friends and his crew,” fire rescue spokesman Jon Belding said on Friday.

Afterward, Pierno’s friends remembered his commitment to Martin County Fire Rescue. Others said they considered the Vietnam War veteran a hero.

But Pierno, 55, also leaves behind a legacy of a different sort — he is the department’s first to die in the line of duty.
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JENSEN BEACH — The Treasure Coast Square Mall suffered significant smoke and water damage after a small fire broke out inside Santa’s Helper, Thursday morning, though the fire was quickly extinguished, a Martin County Fire Rescue spokesman said.

Just after 7 a.m., fire rescue received a call from an alarm company reporting a smoke alarm at Santa’s Helper, and about a minute later a security guard confirmed the fire, said Jon Belding, bureau chief of communications and public information officer for Martin County Fire Rescue.

The mall reopened about 10 a.m.

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INDIANTOWN — No one was injured in a fire that evacuated a shuttered tile company warehouse in Indiantown this morning.

The fire was reported to Martin County Fire Rescue official at about 10:35 a.m. and was under control a half-hour later, Fire Rescue spokesman Jon Belding said.

The fire was contained to a warehouse at Entegra Tile Production at 15700 S.W. Farm Road. Four construction workers at the site had to evacuate the warehouse as a result of the fire, Belding said. (more…)