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Pedestrian Pinned Under Pickup Truck at Third Thursday

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff

Firefighters were able to extricate the victim from under the vehicle.

PITTSFIELD, Mass. — A Third Thursday-goer was run over and pinned beneath a vendor's pickup truck on Thursday.

Police said the details of exactly what unfolded are still under investigation but 75-year-old Neil Atlas of Lenox was taken to Berkshire Medical Center with "serious but not life-threatening injuries."

The truck was driven by a juvenile, police said, who is not being named. The vehicle is registered to the Northeast Old  Fashion Soda Co.

"The vehicle is a Third Thursday vendor vehicle. The vehicle was being used for the set up for one of the vendor displays. The business owner directed his assistant to move the truck to get it out of the way. We don't know what happened with the operator but a pedestrian was struck, the operator panicked a little bit," Police Chief Michael Wynn said.
 
Wynn said the soda vendor was hanging signs and then was moving the vehicle off the street. The truck was "rolling forward," according to police, when it struck Atlas.
 
The Fire Department arrived on the scene near the intersection of Depot Street, jacked the Ford F350 into the air, and removed the victim from underneath. 
 
"Our officers stayed with them to keep them calm until the Fire Department got here and they did the extraction," Wynn said.
 
The chief did say the driver remained on scene, though some people at Third Thursday claimed otherwise. 
 
"The driver did not flee," Wynn said.
 
The incident occurred around 5 p.m. as the city's first block party of the year was about to begin. It posed an issue in getting vehicles to and from the scene on North Street. However, it also provided for a quick response to secure the scene with extra police officers at the event.
 
"We had a foot patrol officer with no equipment who was here practically right away. But we had difficulty getting the fire vehicles and the rest of our equipment here," Wynn said.
 
The incident does shed light on an issue the Police Department has noticed in the past of the conflicts between vendors setting up with vehicles on North Street until the very last moment.
 
"It is fairly common for vehicles to be setting up — it is one of the issues we've identified. They keep setting up right until we do the road closure and then they move off the block as we do the road closure," Wynn said.
 
Third Thursday is in its 13th year as a summer-long monthly street fair. May is the first fair of the summer. The event continued on despite the incident.
     

Camper Destroyed By Fire at Lanesborough Campground

By Andy McKeeveriBerkshires Staff
LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — A camper at Mount Greylock Campsite Park was completely destroyed by fire Friday evening, on the first day of the season.
 
According to Fire Chief Charlie Durfee, the owner of the camper had arrived that day, set up the camper, put her stuff inside, and then left to go shopping. While she was out, the camper caught fire and the fire took off from there to a point firefighters had no chance of saving it.
 
"There was black smoke billowing in the sky, fully involved, we called Hancock Fire Department for their tanker. We had their tanker, our tanker, and our two engines," Durfee said.
 
Durfee said there was a threat of attached propane tanks and Capt. Cody Sanderson had arrived first, removed those, and moved them away from the scene. But the fire had already been going too strong that firefighters could just put it out with no chance to save it.
 
The camper was toward the top of the hill of the Scott Road campground, with a narrow dirt road leading to it. There are no hydrants anywhere nearby.
 
"The challenges are, there is no water. We are up in the middle of nowhere. And campers are like a mobile home, they go up like that. It's minutes and they are gone. Nine out of 10 times you will never ever save a camper or a mobile home fire," Durfee said.
 
Campground owner Gordon Hubbard said the owner does have insurance on the camper. Interestingly, this is the first year Mount Greylock required all who lease sites to have insurance on their campers whereas before it was optional. Hubbard said in this case, the owner has carried insurance on it for years.
 
Nonetheless, the fire is "devastating" for the owner, Hubbard said, because the woman had lost everything she had put in it.
 
"Everything she has in there is gone, a total loss," Durfee said.
 
Durfee said he doesn't know what caused the blaze but if he had to guess, it was probably electrical.
 
"We'll never know what caused it. It is so burnt, we'll never know," Durfee said.
 
Hubbard praised the work the volunteer fire department did given the circumstances, saying they arrived quickly and put out the fire.
     

Two Hurt in Pittsfield Motorcycle Crash

Staff Reports
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Two people were taken to Berkshire Medical Center after a motorcycle accident on Linden Street.
 
Police said at about 10:45 p.m. the motorcycle crashed in front of 225 Linden Street. The driver and a passenger were transported to the hospital for what police describe as minor injuries.
 
The road was closed for about 20 minutes from King Street to Onota Street.

 

 

     

Four Arrested In North Adams Drug Raid

Staff Reports
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Berkshire County Crime Task Force arrested four people in a drug raid Monday afternoon. 
 
The District Attorney's office said Anthony Dobbins, 46, Brian Mullen, 53, and Samantha Lloyd, 32, of North Adams and Mark Tanguay, 36, of Williamstown were all arrested while executing warrants on a home and a vehicle. The District Attorney's Office said 141 grams of cocaine were seized as part of an ongoing investigation into drug trafficking.
 
Dobbins and Mullen were charged with trafficking in cocaine at an arraignment Wednesday in Northern Berkshire District Court and held without bail pending a dangerous hearing. Lloyd and Tanguay were charged with possession of crack cocaine and released pending a future court date.
 
The District Attorney's Office said detectives had identified Dobbins had been using Mullen's home at 152 Harding Avenue as a base to store and distribute crack cocaine during an "extensive" investigation.
 
At about 3 p.m, on Monday, Police observed Dobbins leaving Mullen's home in a BMW and stopped the vehicle on North Street. Detectives allegedly found crack cocaine and $998 in cash and placed him under arrest. Mullen was arrested when detectives executed a search warrant on his home and allegedly found more than 100 grams of cocaine. Lloyd and Tanguay were also arrested at the home.
 
"Thanks to the diligence of North Adams police officers and Berkshire County Crime Task Force detectives, a significant amount of crack cocaine has been removed from North Adams," District Attorney Andrea Harrington said in a prepared statement. 
 
"We are grateful to our law enforcement partners for their efforts and are actively working with the Berkshire County Drug Court, local government and community organizations to provide people struggling with substance use disorder the hope and help that they need to recover. We are working to address both the supply side and the demand side of the drug problem here in Berkshire County."
     
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