GREENWOOD TWP. — A family of five lost their home and most of their possessions after a fire tore through their small, one-story house north of Rohrsburg on Monday morning.
Evelyn Janney, 68, was the only one home when the fire started around 9:45, according to her daughter, Claudette Adams.
Adams and her husband, Mike, also live at 2559 Rohrsburg Road with Claudette’s youngest daughters, ages 14 and 12.
ELYSBURG — Knoebels will unveil a new ride for 2020 that will allow passengers to use their own muscle to help power cars.
The 32-passenger ride, Tornado, is expected to be up and running for the park’s April 25 opening day, according to park spokesperson Stacy Ososkie.
Tornado will be located near the StratosFEAR drop tower ride and Kreeper’s Pumpkin Patch game.
COOPER TWP. — Two State Troopers were slashed by a knife Tuesday night in a struggle with a man who had told his relatives he wanted to commit “suicide by cop,” police say.
Troopers were first called to 301 Pepper Hills Drive, a trailer in a court east of Danville, around 7 p.m. after a report of a man throwing knives at his sister, police said.
When they arrived at the home around 7:15 p.m., they found Michael Warren Hartzell, 24, in the kitchen with a knife to his throat and another in his belt, which he grabbed.
JACKSON TWP. — A woman died when a car she was riding in went off Green Creek Road on Tuesday morning and hit three trees, police say.
A man had been driving with the woman in the passenger seat on the road toward Waller when his car swerved and dropped down an embankment at around 11 a.m., said State Trooper Ryan Golla.
The car then hit a tree, spun and wedged between two more trees while facing backward, Golla said.
The impact folded the driver’s side door over the man’s legs and crushed down the black BMW sedan’s roof.
A major Pennsylvania hospital where three premature infants died in a bacterial outbreak last year routinely failed to sanitize the equipment it used to prepare donor breast milk, according to a state health department report released Monday.
Health department staff ordered Geisinger Medical Center in Danville to correct several deficiencies, determining the hospital’s systemic failure to prevent infection in its most vulnerable patients constituted “immediate jeopardy” — a legal finding that means Geisinger placed its patients at risk of serious injury or death.
DANVILLE — Montour County’s commissioners say the owners of a vacant and derelict hotel have had long enough to fix it — the county is stepping in.
The commissioners voted Monday to go to court to try to force action at the abandoned property that once housed Days Inn at the I-80 interchange in Valley Township.
Specifically, they’ll be asking the Montour County court to appoint DRIVE, a local economic development agency, as conservator of the property, since owner Haddon LLC of New Jersey has not maintained the former hotel.
SALEM TWP. — Employees were evacuated Tuesday from the Leggett & Platt manufacturing plant outside Berwick after an electrician doing maintenance work sparked a fire inside the building around 8 a.m., according to a fire official.
Salem Township Fire Chief Rich Eyer said operations at the factory — which manufactures foam carpet bedding and employs about 80 people — may halt temporarily due to extensive water damage inside the plant both from a sprinkler system and from hoses used by firefighters to douse the blaze.
BERWICK — Flames ripped through a Fairview Avenue home before dawn Monday, but the couple who lived there was safe after leaving for an early breakfast out.
Janice and Tony Dalberto had received a gift certificate for hotel and dinner in Lancaster as a 45th anniversary gift from their daughter, Carmella Leffler, but hadn’t had a chance to use it during the pre-Christmas rush.
On Monday morning, they got up early for breakfast at The Cracker Barrel in Buckhorn before heading south for the belated anniversary celebration.
SALEM TWP. — A Wapwallopen teen lost control of his car and crashed into a utility pole, throwing live electrical wires onto another vehicle Friday morning, police say.
The 16-year-old boy was headed east on East Front Street around 8 a.m. when he suddenly swerved across the center line and the opposite lane of traffic before smashing into a utility pole and coming to a stop in the front lawn at 531 E. Front St., said Salem Twp. officer Fred Westover.
The teen told police he “lost complete control” of his Subaru Outback moments before the crash, Westover added.
MIFFLIN TWP. — A man held his ex-girlfriend against her will inside a car for about two hours — beating and threatening her — after Christmas shopping led to an argument Monday night, arrest papers state.
The woman escaped from Joshua Kirchman, 23, at the Mifflinville Subway, but he fled before police showed up, police say.
Now police are searching for Kirchman, who they believe is living in the Catawissa area, and for Breanne Spudes’ blue 2017 Nissan Rouge, which they say Kirchman stole.