Fatal accident scene ‘gruesome’ for crews

Spokane Valley Fire Department crews were called to a double-fatality accident at Broadway and Locust on Tuesday evening, but the man and woman in the car were already dead when they arrived, said Assistant Fire Marshall Bill Clifford.

“There was nothing really we could do,” he said.

After police finished their investigation, firefighters used their extrication equipment to cut the people out of the car. “It was a pretty gruesome scene for our guys,” Clifford said.

The rest of the week of Feb. 9-15 was much quieter, with firefighters responding to a broken fire sprinkler head at Gus Johnson Ford and a fire in the engine compartment of a 1994 Camaro.

A brush fire was reported on Donkey Island in the Spokane River near Plantes Ferry Park on Tuesday. “There were some kids that were down there having a camp fire,” Clifford said. They apparently saw the person calling about the fire, put the fire out and were gone by the time firefighters arrived, Clifford said.

There were 156 EMS calls among the 183 calls crews responded to during the week. Perhaps the oddest call of the week came in at 4:53 a.m. on Feb. 11 at the Aslin Finch grain elevator at 5618 E. Sprague Ave. “They had somebody that had broken into the building and cut a line into the molasses tank,” Clifford said. “I’m not sure how big the tank was.”

The molasses flowed across the parking lot and into Sprague. Crews blocked off a lane and washed the street while Aslin Finch employees dealt with the mess on their property, Clifford said.