SEATTLE — Just before 5:30 a.m., during a response to a previous collision on Interstate 5 in Federal Way, a South King Fire & Rescue Firefighter from Gig Harbor was critically injured when a southbound traveling automobile lost control and struck him.

Wynn Loiland, 52, suffered severe head and face injuries, a collapsed lung, and fractures. He was unconscious while being taken to Harborview Medical Center and is in critical but stable condition.

“This is the most serious incident we’ve had happen to any of our firefighters,” Deputy Chief Gordie Olson of South King Fire & Rescue told the Seattle Times.

At around 5:00 a.m. a black pickup truck traveling on Interstate 5 rolled over and came to a stop after hitting the left barrier near Kent, roughly twenty miles from Seattle. The two occupants of the automobile were not injured and had left the scene by the time Loiland, one other firefighter, and their Lieutenant arrived after being dispatched by South King Fire & Rescue. While the firefighters were investigating the scene of the crash a red Chevrolet Blazer lost control in the left-hand, southbound lane and struck Loiland while skidding into the right shoulder, narrowly missing his colleagues.

It is not believed that alcohol or drugs were a factor in the crash – fog, slick roads, and speed are thought to be the main causes of the accident — though an investigation is ongoing.

According to the Seattle Times, Loiland’s wife and two sons were keeping vigil at Harborview and some of his colleagues had arrived at the hospital to offer support.

DALLAS — A Texas firefighter was killed in a car accident Sunday.

Angelina River Volunteer Firefighter Anthony Quinten Meyers, 38, was working a Jasper County wildfire when the ATV he was riding in was struck by pickup truck that was also working the fire.

Meyers ran a stop sign and was hit by the truck, driven by a Texas Game Warden.

The crash occurred at 3:15 p.m, 15 miles northwest of Jasper

Meyers was taken to a Jasper hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The Boston Fire Department suspended 54 firefighters on Thursday who were part of a state-wide scheme involving more than 200 Emergency Medical Technicians who faked medical training certifications last year, according to state investigators.

Although other districts planned to fire the EMTs involved in the fake training, the Boston Fire Department decided to wage a yearlong investigation, which culminated Thursday.

“They did not follow established procedures when they were going to be recertified,’’ said Fire Department spokesman Stephen McDonald in a Boston Globe article. “The state made us aware of it, and we did an investigation.’’

Two instructors were accused of falsifying certification records for 213 emergency medical technicians in 2010. They gave the EMTs credit for classes that did not take place, from refresher courses to certification in advanced cardiac life support, according to a state report obtained by the Boston Globe.

The investigation yielded that 20 of the 54 Boston firefighters involved received false credentials twice. This earned them a 45-day suspension without pay. The remaining 34 received the falsified certifications once, and got a 15-day suspension without pay.

All will have to repay the department the $1,000 or more stipend they each received for agreeing to take the courses, which are not required, according to McDonald.

The stipend was equal to 37.5 hours of overtime pay for those who did it once. Those who did it twice received double that amount.

The investigation came after state officials received tips that EMTs were gaining false certification.

Leo Nault, a former employee of Trinity Ambulance in Lowell, admitted to collecting between $50 and $125 for offering EMTs fake credentials. He gave these to 170 people.

Lexington Firefighter Mark Culleton said he falsified test scores, but told officials that he “was just trying to help fellow EMTs who were experiencing some hardship,’’ according to the report.

Although those involved in the scheme were a small part of the state’s 23,000 EMTs, the Department of Public Health began outlining steps to prevent training fraud, including monitoring the courses, said Julia Hurley, a department spokeswoman.

The Department of Public Health suspended the licenses of the involved EMTs for up to nine months, and the two instructors were banned from practicing in Massachusetts. Many have appealed the suspension.

DALLAS — A 35-year-old city firefighter died Thursday morning after he was found unresponsive in the station.

Chris Pham, 35, was found in his bunk during the shift change at Fire Station 49. Fellow firefighters found him and performed CPR. He was taken to Methodist Charlton Medical Center where he later died.

No cause of death was released.

According to Dallas Fire-Rescue Chief Eddie Burns, Pham has been on the job since 2006.

A Wharton county, Texas, Judge recently ruled that a transgender widow’s marriage to a Wharton Firefighter was not legal at the time of the firefighter’s death, leaving the widow ineligible to receive her husband’s death benefits.

Firefighter Thomas Araguz died in the Line of Duty during a fire at an egg farm in Wharton, in July 2010. He was 30.

The Firefighter married Nikki Araguz, a male to female transgendered person in 2008, but District Judge Randy Clapp has since ruled their marriage invalid because the state of Texas does not recognize same sex marriages. The state is not considering the widow’s sex change as a factor, and is determining gender using chromosomes, in accordance with a precedent set in a 1999 appeals court case.

The firefighter’s first wife, Heather Delgado, and his mother, who originally filed the lawsuit, are looking to gain the more than $600,000 in death benefits, according to the Associated Press.

The widow tried to prove herself female gendered in court to claim her marriage was legal, but she was unsuccessful. Araguz and her lawyers plan to appeal the case, according to chron.com.

“Both myself and my family are grateful for the outpouring of understanding, kindness, sympathy, and support over the past year,” Araguz said in an issued statement. “I am totally devastated by the court ruling. At this time I have no comment for the media, but will be issuing a statement shortly after I consider my options.”

The firefighter’s mother, Simona Longoria, claimed to have learned about Araguz’s sex change just before her son’s death, and claimed that her son was unaware of his wife’s status and left their home when he found out.

Araguz argued that her husband knew about the sex change, and supported her completely throughout the surgery. She underwent surgery two months after their marriage in 2008, according to chron.com.

Texas Family Code allows transgendered people to use proof of their sex change to obtain a marriage license, however a lower court threw out the wrongful-death case of a San Antonio woman’s husband, stating that since the widow had undergone a sex change, her marriage was not legal.

A Suffolk County Grand Jury recently indicted a Cambridge man and four executives of LifeLine Ambulance in Woburn for their alleged involvement with falsifying EMT training records as part of a well-publicized scandal.

Thomas Codair Sr., 49, of Cambridge, is alleged to be the main person responsible for the controversy. Codair previously worked as an emergency medical technician at Armstrong Ambulance and taught EMT refresher courses to police officers and firefighters from 2006 through 2009. He is accused of falsely re-certifying dozens of EMTs who did not complete or even attend the training.

Codair is not employed by LifeLine, but four of his co-defendants run the company.

The investigation began in December 2008 and a Suffolk County Grand Jury returned indictments against Codair and four LifeLine Ambulance executives on April 28, 2011. In addition to Codair, these executives include Brian Connor, 49, of Arlington, the president of LifeLine; and Jonathan Kulis, 37, of Wilmington; Michael McPherson, 38, of Billerica; and Brian O’Connor, 39, of Woburn, all vice presidents of the company.

All of the indicted men are charged with Office of Emergency Medical Services (OEMS) violation, which is making false statements aiding evasion of OEMS requirements. They are also charged with conspiracy to commit OEMS violation.

Once EMTs are initially certified, OEMS requires them to renew their certificates every two years. These classes are intended to provide additional training and education to help EMTs remain up-to-date with new developments in emergency medical services.

Allegedly, Codair permitted EMTs to sign rosters for these courses without actually attending the course and then submitted them to OEMS, which then qualified the EMTs for recertification.

Authorities allege that Connor, Kulis, McPherson and O’Connor did not attend any classes, but signed attendance rosters for a refresher course in 2007. Subsequently, Codair is believed to have submitted the rosters to OEMS for credit.

Each of the men will be arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court at a later date.

Source: Woburn Advocate

CORRECTION: Because of a reporting error, it was incorrectly stated that Codair is employed by LifeLine Ambulance in a prior version of this story. He is not, but his co-defendants are.

A Windsor, Conn. firefighter died in the line of duty after collapsing during a fire on Monday.

Robert Watts, 50, a Marine Corps veteran and volunteer firefighter in the town of 30,000, was charging a fire hydrant when he collapsed. Other firefighters at the scene performed CPR on him and tried to resuscitate him, but Watts was pronounced dead at St. Francis Hospital a short time later.

He had been working at a call for smoke in the building at the Windsor Rehabilitation Center at about 8 p.m. Monday.

Watts was a Manchester, Conn. native. He leaves a 17-year-old son and a 15-year-old daughter.

A northern Texas firefighter was critically burned fighting a wildland fire last weekend, according to FirefighterCloseCalls.com, which reports on firefighter fatalities and injuries.

Elias Jacquez, a member of the Cactus, Texas Volunteer Fire Department, suffered third-degree burns over 60 percent of his body on Saturday while battling the blaze that burned 60,000 acres, or about 94 square miles.

The fire burned about 40 miles north of Amarillo.

Jacquez was taken by medical helicopter to University Medical Center in Lubbock where he is listed in critical condition.

A Sandown, N.H. firefighter died during a training exercise Sunday morning.

Harold Frey, 46, of Sandown, was finishing an ice rescue training class on the Exeter River just before noon when he collapsed, suffering a heart attack, said Fire Chief Wilfred Tapley.

Tapley said that Frey was a new member of the department, though he was a longtime firefighter.

According to FireFighterCloseCalls.com, which reports on firefighter deaths, Frey had just gotten out of the icy water when he couldn’t catch his breath. Crews on scene were unable to revive him.

Frey’s death is considered a “death in the line of duty.”

Tapley said that members of the Granite State Fire Service Support Team were on hand at the Sandown Fire Department providing assistance to its members.

A volunteer firefighter from the Shapleigh, Maine department died last night in a single vehicle accident while responding to a call.

David Remington, 58, of Acton, was responding to a rescue call when he lost control of his truck and crashed, according to FireFighterCloseCalls.com.

Remington was ejected and killed instantly, pronounced dead at the scene. It appears that he was not wearing his seat belt at the time.

Police are investigating the accident; the cause is still under investigation.

Shapleigh has a 27-member volunteer department and responds to one call every other day, according to the town website.

As New England emerges from the Blizzard of 2010, fire officials would like to remind residents that every moment counts in a fire. So, while you’re digging out your car, your mailbox, your stoop, and sidewalk, don’t forget to free your nearest fire hydrant.

“As you dig your way out of this storm, please adopt your nearest fire hydrant,” said Massachusetts State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan. “In a fire seconds count, so please help your local firefighters by removing snow from around the hydrant nearest to your home. It could by your house or your neighbor’s that you help them save.”

Fires often accompany winter storms because of the combination of windblown power lines and overused fireplaces. Basement flooding is also a fire danger, because flood waters can short a building’s electrical system, sparking an electrical fire. A house was destroyed and another badly damaged after flood waters sparked an electrical fire on Monday morning.

Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn will block a bill that would cover the health-care costs for Ground Zero workers, preventing a vote before the Christmas holiday, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Coburn, who is a medical doctor, joins conservatives who do not want to spend the billions necessary to provide medical care to the police officers and firefighters who have gotten ill or may eventually get sick after spending days and weeks on the respiratory poison-filled rubble of the World Trade Center in New York.

The bill’s sponsors, New York Democrats Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, have the votes to get the bill passed, the Republicans can still block the bill because of the filibuster. The House already passed the bill.

Funding for the health-care would come from closing a corporate tax loophole.

The bill is named for James Zadroga, a New York Police Department detective who died in 2006 of respiratory disease that has been linked to his rescue work at Ground Zero.

Jon Stewart has spent days ranting about the Congressional failure to pass this bill thus far.

Coburn’s office can be reached at 202-224-5754 or by fax at 202-224-6008 or by email.

Firefighters from around the region battled a 3-alarm fire at the home of one of their own last night in the Worcester County town of Uxbridge.

The fire broke out at 7:19 p.m. at the duplex at 12a Hazel St., off North Main Street, steps from the Hannaford Supermarket, said Melanie Blodget-O’Toole, a spokeswoman for Uxbridge Police and Fire. A local on-call firefighter lived on one side of the two-family home with his parents, and a father with several children lived in the other apartment.

Two residents were transported to area hospitals with what Blodget-O’Toole called non life-threatening injuries. A firefighter was also hospitalized with smoke inhalation.

The fire destroyed the house and caused a gas leak in the neighborhood that forced six other homes to be evacuated last night, officials said. Blodget-O’Toole said most of the families would be allowed to return home within a few hours, but one house may remain evacuated overnight.

The fire burned for several hours, and water was still being poured on the ruins late last night.

Fire crews from Sutton, Douglas, Millville, Northbridge, Upton, Mendon, and North Smithfield, R.I. responded last night.

State Fire Marshal Stephen D. Coan said that State Police from his office would be investigating the fire. It was too early to determine a cause last night, but Coan said, in a phone interview, that one angle of the investigation will be to determine of the fire caused the gas leak or if the gas leak sparked the blaze.

A 16-year-old volunteer Israeli firefighter died in the Carmel forest fire in Israel, a wildfire that is ravaging the landscape.

Elad Riven, of Haifa, was killed Thursday. He was a volunteer with a scout group of students.

He was in the northern city of Afula when his mother received a call to alert him to respond to the fire. He arrived soon afterward to assist evacuating residents from the area.

At least 42 people were also killed Thursday as a bus brought in to evacuate people from the area got caught in the fire.

According to FireFighterCloseCalls.com, the remains of a police commander who was killed while on his way to rescue residents were found. Lior Bokor, 57, was head of police operations for Israel’s northern region. Police searched for him on Thursday, but it appears he was caught in the fire while trying to ascertain the location of the bus that caught on fire.

The massive fire burns as mutual aid comes in from dozens of countries from the US to Russia as the Israeli firefighting response has been underwhelming, with staffing and supply troubles. Crews expect it will take at least a week to contain the blaze.

Published reports indicate that while policing services are well-maintained and adequately staffed in Israel, firefighting has not been an area of focus lately, and the country is now paying the price.

Southeastern Massachusetts is in mourning after the death of a third generation firefighter, who suffered a heart attack while responding to a fire call.

Firefighter Kenneth Marshall Jr., just 33 years old, was officially a Rehoboth firefighter for 15 years. His father, Kenneth Sr., is a retired firefighter, and grandfather George “Rab” Wetherall, served for 30 years.

Marshall, an on-call firefighter, was driving a firetruck en route to a reported kitchen fire around 9:30 p.m. on Thursday when he slumped over. The other firefighters stopped the truck, performed CPR and tended to him, but he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro.

Marshall leaves a wife and two children, ages 3 and 6.

The wake will be Wednesday at the Foley Hathaway Funeral Home in Attleboro. The funeral is set for Thursday at the Community Covenant Church, with a burial at Oak Knoll Cemetery.

Marshall was the 78th firefighter to die in the line of duty this year, according to the US Fire Administration.

A woman responsible for a traffic crash that killed a South Carolina firefighter faces several charges.

Neida Ortega, 34, was allegedly speeding and only had a Mexican driver’s license when she crashed a van into a Chevrolet Impala, sending the second car careening between two parked firetrucks in the eastbound lane of I-20 while firefighters battled a roadside brush fire.

Columbia-Richmond Firefighter Chance Zobel, 23, was killed and a second firefighter, Larry Irvin, was seriously injured.

Police said the firetrucks were parked with their lights flashing.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement is investigating the possibility that Ortega is in the country illegally.

A funeral will be held for Zobel on Wednesday at 1 p.m. at the Shandon Baptist Church in Columbia, S.C.

Nicholas Duncan, 23, of Jamaica Plain was arraigned today in West Roxbury District Court, charged with stealing a fireman’s helmet out of a firetruck as its crew was working at a medical call on Huntington Avenue.

Duncan was released on $250 cash bail and will return to court on December 13, said Jake Wark, a spokesman for the Suffolk District Attorney’s office.

Duncan allegedly grabbed a Boston Fire Department helmet off of the Ladder 26 fire truck and walked away. A witness notified the firefighters, who soon spotted Duncan and another man seated at a bus stop.

Duncan gave the helmet back when firefighters confronted him, but one of his friends, James Nardone, 23, of Cummaquid, Maine, allegedly pushed a firefighter and tried to run, only to smack his head into a pole at a bus stop. Nardone will be summonsed to court at a later date on a count of assault and battery on a public employee.

Officials originally told Blast that Duncan ran into the pole.

NEW HAVEN — A Waterbury, Conn. firefighter has died after suffering a massive heart attack hours after his shift ended Tuesday.

Lieutenant Bruce Bachinsky, of Waterbury’s Engine 8, fell ill a few hours after coming home from his shift. In the fire service, his passing is considered a death in the line of duty.

Bachinsky was a 12-year department veteran. Arrangements are pending.

A Ghent, N.Y. firefighter died while responding to an emergency call on Tuesday, according to FireFighterCloseCalls.com.

Captain William Akin, 52, a member of the Ghent Volunteer Fire Company was responding to a car accident in his personal vehicle, a 2001 pick-up truck, when he struck a utility pole on Route 66.

Power lines and part of the pole came down on top of Akin’s truck. He was extricated by members of his own fire company and that Chatham Fire Department. He was pronounced dead at an areas hospital.

Authorities are investigating why Akin ran off the road, including whether Akin suffered a medical problem before the crash.

According to the US Fire Administration, Akin had more than 25 years of experience

Ghent is 16 miles northeast of Catskill and 10 miles off the Massachusetts border.

Sixty-five firefighters have died in the line of duty this year.

(Media credit/KFMB-TV)

SAN DIEGO — A San Diego Fire-Rescue Department ladder truck got stuck in a roadway trench while returning from a medical call Monday night, according to FireFighterCloseCalls.com.

KFMB-TV reported the truck, designated Engine 10, drove over a steel plate covering an open trench near the 6300 block of Alvarado Road near Alvarado Hospital at about 11:30 p.m. Monday. The 70,000 pound truck was too heavy for the plate, and it gave way, trapping the truck by the rear wheels.

Fire firefighters were in the truck when the accident occurred. No one was hurt. The truck was freed about an hour later, KFMB reported.

The department said there was damage to the truck’s exhaust system. The truck was taken out of service for repairs.

Police are investigating to see if the wrong type of metal plate was used to cover the trench.

An Orange County Fire Authority firefighter died Thursday during a training operation.

James M. Owen, 56, was on a break from rescue drills at the OCFA Headquarters in Irvine when he collapsed and went into cardiac arrest, according to the U.S. Fire Administration, which reports on firefighter deaths.

“Firefighter/Paramedic Owen was participating in multi-company training at the Orange County Fire Authority Regional Fire Operations Training Center when he fell ill,” the USFA said in a statement. “Crews on scene immediately rendered care and while being assessed Owen went into a full cardiac arrest.”

Owen was taken to Western Medical Center in Santa Ana where he died.

He was a 30-year department veteran.

“He was a top-notch firefighter,” OCFA Captain Greg McKeown told the Orange County Register. “To lose him like this is a tragedy.”

Owen was the 56th firefighter to die in the line of duty this year, according to the Fire Administration.

Two Bridgeport, Conn. firefighters have died fighting a massive house fire, according to a source briefed on the incident.

According to WTNH-TV, the city mayor’s office confirmed that the firefighters died battling a fire which broke out around 3:30 p.m. on Elmwood Avenue.

The firefighters’ names are Lieutenant Steven Velazquez and Michael Baik. Both leave children at home.

A fire source told Blast that the two firefighters were attached to Ladder 11 and were advancing an interior attack onto the third floor when they became trapped.

Initial reports indicate the house may have partially collapsed and that one of the firefighters may have called out a “mayday” over the radio.

Several other firefighters were hospitalized. No residents were hurt.

There was no immediate word on the cause of the fire.

A German fire officer, who was paralyzed in a November 2008 silo fire, took his own life.

Fire Officer Peter Jung, 42, formally of the Worms Fire Brigade for the German city of Worms, who had been the incident commander at the fire in the Rheind¼rkheimer silos, has died.

The fire broke out in a processor loading dock of a malt silo on the river Rhine. A 24-year-old firefighter from Rheind¼rkheim was killed when concrete debris fell on him.

Seven other firefighters were hurt, four seriously. Jung was one of the seriously injured firefighters. He had been a paraplegic and confined to a wheelchair since the fire.

More than 200 firefighters worked to get the blaze under control. It was the first time a Worms Fire Brigade firefighter died in the line of duty.

LOS ANGELES — Sega once had a quirky arcade cabinet called Brave Firefighters, but since then there really hasn’t been much attention paid to the genre of firefighting, which has been surprising, given how easily a major developer could have utilized the Nintendo Wii controls to profit by a quick and dirty firefighting sim.

They didn’t bite, so it took a small new developer called Epicenter Studios to bring the fire hose to the Wii.

Game design partners Nathaniel McClure and Bryan Jury are both former Call of Duty producers who wanted to tackle this genre for years.

“We wanted to have the action, and we wanted to do the excitement but get rid of the violence. Let’s save people instead of killing them,” said McClure in an interview with Blast.

The guys set out to create a fun and challenging video game while trying to be true to real life. They brought on a 27-year veteran California fire captain and several career firemen to consult on the game while bringing the developers’ own action game experiences to bear on this untackled genre.

“It’s been tricky balancing the realism and hardcore aspect with the fun,” McClure said. “We have a lot of action that will pull in the more hardcore gamer, but the difficulty efforts can be really insane. I challenge anyone to do expert mode and blast through it.”

My father is a firefighter, so I was dying to grab a Wiimote and attack the flames.

The game has nine levels, ranging from a simple house fire to an entire amusement park ablaze (there’s even a TV news studio fire) and the fire is completely organic. It will react and respond differently each time you play. You can point the nozzle directly at a hot spot or turn on mist mode to attack a larger area, depending on how your fire is spreading.

The game is hard. It is a good mix of timing your Wiimote actions with bluntly pouring water by the gallon from your 3″ attack line. But it’s not just about the hose. You’ll be caught in tight spaces with nothing but a handheld extinguisher, and you’ll be using various tools for car accident extrication and prying open doors.

“There are plenty of mini game collections out there. We really wanted to make an adventure game,” said Jury. “It’s single player, with a story mode. You’re a working firefighter (in) a fake LA kind of city.”

The adventure game motif shows well with voice actors from “Backdraft” and television’s Rescue Me.

While playing the game, you’ll have objectives like rescuing trapped people or killing power to an electrical fire. In between, you’re free to roam and focus on putting out the flames around you.

It’s a great game so far. Real Heroes Firefighter is the first potential hit in the fire genre, and it’s fun to boot.

The title should have been multiplayer, which could have been accomplished by adding an arcade mode where you and a friend compete to see who can put out the most flames.

Jury and McClure said they’re hoping the firefighting genre takes off, allowing them to develop more games like Real Heroes.

“This is our baby that we’ve been working on for years now. (Multiplayer) is definitely our goal — put it online, everyone rushes to the firehouse, you know?” McClure said, “It’s got a lot of potential. Hopefully the consumers will agree and we’ll go from there.”

A portion of the proceeds from this game will go to benefit the Firefighter Cancer Support Network.

A Boston firefighter was killed and others, including three other firefighters were injured Friday afternoon when a fire department ladder truck crashed into an apartment building on Huntington Avenue.

Three children are also being treated at Children’s Hospital Boston, according to Boston’s Channel 7.

According to The Boston Globe, the truck may have lost its brakes coming down a steep hill and lost control.

Turn to The Globe for more information on this story.