[IRCA] Re: [NRC-AM] Re: Fwd: Fw: Don Erickson Dies in Fire

["Rick Shaftan" <shaftan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Very sad.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill Harms [mailto:wharms@xxxxxxxxxxx] 
> Sent: Friday, March 04, 2005 11:12 PM
> To: irca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; nRC; glenn Hauser
> Subject: [NRC-AM] Re: [IRCA] Fwd: Fw: Don Erickson Dies in Fire
> 
> The following is from the Press-Enterprise Tues. 3/1
>  
>  
> Riverside man dies in fire
> 
> BLAZE: It was aided by stacks of magazines and newspapers in 
> his home, an official says.
> 
> 08:19 AM PST
> on Tuesday, March 1, 2005
> 
> Special to The Press-Enterprise
> 
> A Riverside man who was a self-described "pack rat" was 
> killed Monday afternoon when a fire tore through the 
> newspaper-and-magazine-stuffed rooms of his Essex Street house.
> 
> Neighbors identified the victim as Donald Erickson.
> 
> Firefighters said the blaze began somewhere in the back of 
> the house, in the area where Erickson's body was discovered. 
> The cause of the fire has not been determined.
> 
> Firefighters break the windows of a house on Essex Street in 
> Riverside after a fire 
> was reported by neighbors Monday.             
>  
> 
> Riverside Fire Department Division Chief Tedd Laycock said 
> the fire spread quickly, aided by ceiling-high stacks of 
> newspapers, magazines and other items.
> 
> "For some reason, he had all the windows boarded up," Laycock 
> said. Even when firefighters broke through the boards, they 
> were still blocked by dense stacks of boxes and papers. Rows 
> of file boxes labeled "Magazines" could be seen through the 
> windows from the street.
> 
> Laycock said neighbors' calls to 911 came in at 12:52 p.m. 
> Eight units responded. 
> The fire was contained by 2 p.m., but brown smoke continued 
> to pour out of the roof from a fire deep within the house.
> 
> Thelma Cryst, who lived across the street from Erickson for 
> decades, said he was friendly but reclusive.
> 
> "He was a very quiet person. I didn't know him too well. We 
> would chitchat, but it was never anything really personal," she said.
> 
> "He always helped out with anything I needed," Cryst said, 
> explaining that at Christmastime he would help move her 
> furniture to make way for her tree.
> 
> She said Erickson had a lot of medical problems. "I've been 
> concerned about him a long time," Cryst said. "He hasn't been 
> happy for, really, a long time," she said, walking out onto 
> her driveway in socks and slippers. "When your lease is up, 
> your lease is up."
> 
> "He called himself a pack rat," said Josie Herrera, who lived 
> nearby. But neighbors said they had no idea of the extent of 
> his condition until today.
> 
> "He was a nice guy," Herrera said, "but he was always locked 
> in there. I got the impression that he didn't want nobody 
> checking up on him."
> 
> Whenever neighbors went to check on him, she said, "He would 
> say, 'I'm OK. I'm OK.' He didn't want nobody worrying about him."
> 
> By the time firefighters arrived, neighbors had already 
> broken open a door and a window.
> 
> "We didn't know what to do," Herrera said. "We wanted to 
> help. But there was so much smoke. We couldn't."
> 
> Cryst said Erickson had been teaching a computer class twice 
> a week. She said he moved to the neighborhood in the 1970s.
> 
> ===============================================
> 25th Edition of the AM Radio Log
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> 
> 


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