Home explosion in Missouri leaves six people injured, three in critical condition
Douglas Sacha/Getty Images/STOCK
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.) — A massive home explosion in Missouri over Thanksgiving weekend left the residence in rubble and six people inside injured, according to fire officials.
The explosion occurred on St. Louis Road in Jefferson City early Saturday morning at 2:44 a.m., according to a press release from Jefferson City Fire.
The cause of the explosion is still under investigation, officials said.
Emergency responders said of the six individuals injured in the blast, two were transported to Jefferson City Airport and flown to University Hospital in Columbia, Missouri.
The remaining four people were transported by ground to University Hospital.
Three of the victims are listed in critical condition and received critical life support, Cole County EMS Chief Eric Hoy told ABC News’ Missouri affiliate KMIZ.
The other three have moderate injuries and are stable, the outlet reported.
Photos released by officials show the explosion left the home almost completely leveled, with responders saying they discovered the six individuals among the debris upon arrival.
“Rescue operations were particularly challenging due to the extensive structural collapse and significant debris,” Jefferson City Fire said in the release.
“The team had to carefully tunnel through layers of debris to reach the final occupant, who required intensive extrication,” officials added.
All six of the individuals were safely removed from the residence by 5:52 a.m.
Additionally, fire officials said in the release that two pets were rescued from the collapsed home and are now in the care of animal control.
(DELPHI, Ind.) — A pair of teenage girls who were on the Delphi, Indiana, hiking trail the same day two younger girls were murdered are speaking out about their recollections of the “bridge guy.”
Railly Voorhies testified Tuesday at Richard Allen’s murder trial that she was on the small-town trail on Feb. 13, 2017, with a friend and two sisters.
Voorhies, who was 16 at the time, said she passed a man near Freedom Bridge on her walk home.
When asked to describe the man, Voorhies said he was a Caucasian man with his face covered. She said he was overdressed for the weather, had on dark clothes, was wearing a hat and had his hands in his pockets.
The prosecution pulled up a photo of the “bridge guy” — the grainy image of the suspect walking on the bridge near where the girls were last seen — and Voorhies said, “That was the man I had waved at on the trail.”
During cross-examination, defense attorney Jennifer Auger noted that Voorhies gave a different description of the man when interviewed earlier. Voorhies first described the man as in his early 20s or 30s with a bigger build, brown eyes, dirty blonde curly hair, a square jaw and a wrinkly face. She also said he was wearing black jeans, a black hoodie, black boots and a black mask.
During redirect, prosecuting attorney Stacey Diener asked Voorhies if she had ever given a statement to police or asked to give a statement about estimating someone’s height or weight.
Voorhies said, “No. I was certain that was the man that I saw. I can say with confidence the person in the picture is the person I saw.”
Auger then asked Voorhies if the photo of the “bridge guy” influenced her memory, and Voorhies responded, “Possibly, yes.”
Breann Wilber, who was on the trail that day with Voorhies, testified that she also noticed the man who was overdressed for the warm weather.
She said the man was walking with a “purpose,” didn’t respond when Voorhies said hello and gave off “weird vibes.”
Wilber said that, when she saw the picture of the “bridge guy,” the “first thing I thought is — that is the person I saw on the trail.”
During cross-examination, Wilber was also pressed on how her description of the man she saw on the trail changed over the years.
Best friends Libby German, 14, and Abby Williams, 13, were walking along the trail when they were killed on the afternoon of Feb. 13, 2017.
Libby posted a photo of Abby on Snapchat as they walked over the Monon High Bridge. After crossing the bridge, they saw a man behind them, and Libby started a recording on her phone at 2:13 p.m., prosecutors said.
The man pulled out a gun and ordered the girls to go “down the hill,” prosecutors said. The girls complied, and then the video on Libby’s phone stopped recording, according to prosecutors.
The eighth graders’ bodies were discovered the next day.
Allen, a Delphi resident, was arrested in 2022 and has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Voorhies noted in court that she was friends with Libby and Abby on Snapchat, while Wilber said she knew Libby’s older sister and was friends with Libby on Snapchat.
(NEW YORK) — One person is dead and nearly two dozen others were rescued Thursday after being stuck underground due to an equipment failure in a Colorado gold mine, officials said.
The individuals were part of a tour group and became stuck near the bottom of Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine in Cripple Creek around noon MDT on Thursday, according to officials.
Teller Counter Sheriff Jason Mikesell said one person had died in the incident, and that 23 people had been stuck in the mine shaft.
“I am relieved that 12 of the people trapped in the Mollie Kathleen Mine have been safely rescued,” Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement Thursday night.
“Our deepest condolences to the family and friends of the individual lost in this incident,” he added.
Eleven others were rescued earlier in the day Thursday, including two children, officials said.
They were able to bring up the trapped adults four at a time to get the remaining 12 rescued, County Sheriff Jason Mikesell said during a presser after the rescue.
The death was related to the elevator malfunction but no further details were available, Mikesell said.
To begin the rescue, engineers had to repair at the elevator stuck at 500 feet, check the cables and then run a test round by sending it down to the 1000-foot level and back up.
After that was successful, the rescue began, according to Mikesell.
Local hospital UCHealth said they had received seven patients, all of whom were treated and released after the incident.
Elevator and mine safety experts went to the site to inspect the elevator’s safety before it was used to bring those trapped up to ground level, according to Mikesell.
There were three plans in total, Mikesell said, but being able to repair the elevator was plan A.
Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and Mine Safety will investigate the incident.
As the individuals were stuck, Mikesell said there was no concern about oxygen running out, adding that they had water, chairs and blankets and were able to communicate with rescuers.
The mine, which is about 1,000 feet deep, is a popular tourist destination.
They haven’t had an incident like this since 1986, Mikesell said.
Multiple agencies, including search and rescue teams, responded to the incident with heavy equipment.
In a statement Thurasday afternoon, Gov. Polis said he was monitoring the situation and sending state resources to assist in rescue efforts.
“I have spoken to the Teller County Sheriff and County Commissioners and will stay in touch through the course of this rescue effort,” Polis said at the time. “The state is assisting Teller County and sending resources to rescue those inside the mine.”
“We will do everything possible and assist the county to ensure a speedy and safe resolution of the situation,” Polis added.
(NEW YORK) — Across hours of podcast and television interviews, Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth has articulated his plan for a “frontal assault” to reform the Department of Defense from the top down, including by purging “woke” generals, limiting women from some combat roles, eliminating diversity goals and utilizing the “real threat of violence” to reassert the United States as a global power.
As President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for the Secretary of Defense, Hegseth, 44, could have the chance to implement that vision, commanding the country’s more than a million active duty soldiers.
An infantry officer in the U.S. Army National Guard, Hegseth deployed to Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan before leaving the service with the rank of major, according to military records. Hegseth has worked for Fox News since 2014, where he co-hosts “FOX & Friends Weekend.” Once a critic of Trump’s foreign policy and military stances during Trump’s 2016 campaign, Hegseth grew to become one of Trump’s fiercest on-air defenders.
“Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First. With Pete at the helm, America’s enemies are on notice – Our Military will be Great Again, and America will Never Back Down,” Trump said announcing the nomination.
A New York Times best-selling author, Hegseth has frequently commented on military policy and suggested one of his first orders of business would be firing any generals who supported the Pentagon’s diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
“First of all, you got to fire the Chairman Joint of the Chiefs and obviously going to bring in a new Secretary of Defense, but any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever — that was involved in, any of the DEI woke s—, has got to go,” Hegseth said during a recent interview on the “Shawn Ryan Show” podcast. “Either you’re in for warfighting, and that’s it. That’s the only litmus test we care about.”
Hegseth had preemptively defended the move, saying it would be a return to normalcy for soldiers rather than a “MAGA takeover.”
While Hegseth has described countries like Russia and China as threats, he has framed the military’s biggest threat as an internal one, arguing that “wokeness” divided the military internally and created an issue that adversaries can exploit.
“I think our biggest threat is internal. I think we’re committing cultural suicide, and we’ve lost complete focus on the basics and building blocks of what made Western civilization in America exceptional, fruitful, prosperous, strong, free,” Hegseth said on the podcast.
Hegseth has proposed a wholesale purge of military officials who have supported DEI policies, urging a “frontal assault right back at what’s been done to this military from the top and to the bottom.”
“The dumbest phrase on planet Earth in the military is our diversity is our strength,” Hegseth said on the podcast, arguing that uniformity between soldiers is a key to the military’s strength.
“Every time I hear a military leader say [diversity is our strength], I throw up in my mouth a little bit more, because if they believe it, it shows you how sideways and how indoctrinated they are,” Hegseth said on “The Right Take With Mark Tapson” podcast.
While 17.5% of active-duty military personnel are women, Hegseth has argued that military leaders should acknowledge that their main constituency is “strong, normal men,” rebuffing efforts to diversify the ranks of the armed services.
“There aren’t enough lesbians in San Francisco to staff the 82nd Airborne like you need, you need the boys in Kentucky and Texas and North Carolina and Wisconsin,” Hegseth said on Tapson’s podcast earlier this year.
Hegseth was on the “Take It Outside with Jay Cutler and Sam Mackey” podcast and said that transgender soldiers are “not deployable” because they are “reliant on chemicals” and suggested that women should not serve in certain combat roles.
“Everything about men and women serving together makes the situation more complicated, and complication in combat means casualties are worse,” Hegseth said on Ryan’s podcast, arguing that men are “more capable” in combat roles because of biological factors.
An ardent defender of the president-elect, Hegseth has argued that the United States military under Trump was more effective by posing both “uncertainty” and the “real threat of violence.”
“At least under Trump, there were missiles falling on terrorists’ heads,” Hegseth said on the “Man of War” podcast with Rafa Conde. “They knew he meant business. Kim Jong Un, even though it didn’t work, knew Trump meant business. Fire and fury was a real thing. Uncertainty is a real thing. The real threat of violence is a real thing, and none of that exists under these globalists who think they can sanction their way.”
He has also criticized international institutions like the United Nations as a “farce” and “giant joke” while advocating a military policy that aims to end long-term conflicts through decisive action.
“We expect this clinically sanitized, you know, no civilian casualties. Everything’s going to be perfect. No one’s going to get hurt, everything. It’s just not how war operates, and that’s unfortunate,” Hegseth said on “The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe” podcast. “But if we try to do it with kid gloves or with surgical gloves, we’re never really going to get rid of, actually exterminate the enemies that we need to defeat to create a peace on the other side.”
