Election Section

Rug burn 

Berkeley firefighters responded to an emergency call in the 3200 block of Roosevelt Avenue, only to discover that a resident had done more damage to himself than the fire had to his home. 

Deputy Fire Chief Gil Dong said the 11:41 a.m. call March 10 reported “people jumping out of the windows on the second floor.” 

They arrived to find one occupant sitting on the ground, nursing a leg injured in his leap from the window. 

Inside the residence they found a mess in the form of a burned piece of carpet and the residue that is left after a dry fire extinguisher is used. 

Deputy Chief Dong said the small carpet fire had caught fire because it had been left on top of a floor heater, a common source of fires in Berkeley when temperatures drop. 

The injured occupant was taken to an emergency room. 

Friday the 13th 

The early hours of Friday the 13th kept Berkeley’s bravest hopping. In addition to a dramatic rescue of a West Berkeley family stricken with carbon monoxide poisoning, firefighters simultaneously rescued a fallen hiker in the hills. 

“A call came in at 1:38 a.m. from the area of Dwight Way and Fernwald Road that a hiker had fallen in the Claremont Canyon Regional Preserve,” said Deputy Chief Dong. 

UC Police, East Bay Regional Parks District officers and BFD all joined in the search. “Because we didn’t have an exact location, we had to search all the trails in the area,” he said. 

Rescuers eventually located the stricken man, who had fractured his leg in the fall. 

“We packaged the patient up in a Stokes Basket and carried him down to Claremont Avenue,” where an ambulance was waiting to take him to an emergency room.