A firetruck crashed on its way to another vehicle accident along City Line Avenue Thursday.
The Belmont Hills Volunteer Fire Company was responding to an accident involving two vehicles near the intersection of City Avenue and Rolling Road in Bala Cynwyd around 2:15 p.m., according to reports.
As fire crew was headed to the crash, the truck and another car colliding near the intersection of City Avenue and 77th Street, according to officials.
Medical personnel transported the car's driver to a hospital and no firemen suffered any injuries, according to crews on the scene.
The truck never arrived at the scene of the crash at City Avenue and Rolling Road, where an ambulance took three people to area hospitals, according to officials.
That accident occurred around 2 p.m.
Six people suffered minor injuries when a van crashed in Delaware County Thursday.
The accident occurred around 1:40 p.m. along the Media Bypass near South State Road in Upper Providence Township, according to reports.
Authorities say they closed the road for approximately 45 minutes following the incident.
Stay with NBC10 for more on this developing story.
Animal lovers can get a lesson in the birds and the bees thanks to a camera that will capture a horse giving birth live.
The University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine has a “Foal Cam” inside the stall of a pregnant mare, My Special Girl, that starts rolling on Feb. 26.
“We hope that sharing the birth of this foal will give the world a window into New Bolton Center,” said Dr. Corinne Sweeney, associate dean of the center.
The live feed will start rolling ahead of the birth in case the foal decides to arrive early and will remain on even if there are complications during the birth, according to the doctors.
Even more fascinating than the broadcast is the manner in which My Special Girl was impregnated.
“She is just a surrogate mother carrying the baby for the donor mare, who supplied the egg, and the donor stallion, who supplied the sperm,” said Dr. Regina Turner of Penn Vet.
The school used advanced reproductive technique intracytoplasmic sperm injection, known as ICSI, which involves injecting a single sperm into a mature egg. Specialists transferred the embryo to My Special Girl in April 2013, according to a news release.
A Thoroughbred-Cleveland Bay cross mare provided the egg and a long-deceased Thoroughbred-Quarter Horse cross stallion provided the sperm, which came from frozen semen.
“We can create offspring even from a dead stallion,” Dr. Turner said.
The surrogate, My Special Girl, is an 11-year-old Thoroughbred used for teaching veterinary students.
Her pregnancy represents the first time ICSI has been completed successfully in the Delaware Valley, a procedure the doctors hope the school will replicate.
The doctors know the foal’s sex, but declined to share that information.
Whether a filly or a colt, anyone can weigh in on the new horse’s name since Penn Vet will be holding a naming contest once the foal is born.
PennDOT is moving forward with plans to fix more than half of the state’s structurally deficient bridges – dozens of which are in the Delaware and Lehigh Valleys – faster than ever before.
Under a new contracting method, the transportation agency is focusing on replacing between 550 and 650 bridges across the state that are similar in design.
"Some of the bridges you might not get to under the normal process for 15 to 20 years we’re hoping to replace as part of this project," said PennDOT Deputy Press Secretary Erin Waters-Trasatt.
Unlike past bridge replacement projects where PennDOT would dole out many contracts for each or small groupings of bridges, one team will win an overall contract and handle administering the design, engineering and construction of the new bridges. That team will also hire subcontractors to complete the projects.
"We anticipate that they will be giving out contracts to a number of other Pennsylvania contractors to complete the projects," she said.
The bridges that will be replaced have not yet been chosen, but PennDOT has identified a list of 998 spans that are structurally deficient and recommended for replacement. Of that number, 81 are in Southeastern Pa. and range in age from 10 to 160 years old.
The oldest bridge in our area, built in 1854, carries Stony Garden Road for 36 feet over Haycock Creek in Nockamixon Park, Bucks County, Pa. Further South in Hatboro, Pa., a 128-year-old span allows drivers on Warminster Road to cross the Pennypack Creek.
In Philadelphia, a 264 foot long, 6 lane section of Broad Street, just north of Callowhill Street and outside the old Philadelphia Inquirer building, is also structurally deficient. The bridge was constructed in 1895 to cross now defunct Reading Railroad lines.
The youngest spans, a pair of bridges that carry PA Route 33 over the Bushkill Creek in Easton, Pa., opened in 2004.
Waters-Trasatt said this is the first time a public-private partnership, which was made allowed via a law change in 2012, will be utilized on a bridge replacement project. She says PennDOT will retain ownership of the bridges and continue to handle minor maintenance like cleaning up debris and fixing potholes. But the builder would be on the hook for any major repairs that would need to be made to the spans.
"We anticipate that it’ll help with the structure of the bridges and that the builders may design a better bridge in the beginning that will extend the lives of some of the bridges," she said.
A final request for proposals on the project will be released later this year and then a qualified team will be awarded the contract. PennDOT hopes to start replacing some of the bridges in 2015. The project does not have a completion date.
Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.
Chickie's & Pete's, Philadelphia's sports claim to fame, has agreed to a proposed multi-million dollar settlement with the Department of Labor.
The sports bar and restaurant chain has signed a judgement agreeing to pay more than $6.8 million in back pay and damages for improperly taking tips from servers and violating federal minimum wage, overtime and record-keeping requirements, according to the United States Department of Labor.
"The egregious actions by Chickie's & Pete's harmed real people and violated the promise that a fair day's work deserves a fair day's pay," said U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez.
The settlement proposal comes after the labor department was tipped off in 2012 to the wrong-doings and investigators from the Wage and Hour Division's Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey offices conducted investigations at nine of the company's restaurants.
The investigation showed that the company required servers to give a portion of their tips to an improper "tip pool" and that owner Peter Chiarrocchi Jr. kept about 60-percent of that pool for himself.
The amount was known in the sports chain as "Pete's Tax" and was paid by the manager in cash at the end of each shift, according to the Department of Labor.
The investigation also uncovered that servers and bartenders were paid a flat shift pay of $15, well below the required federal minimum wage.
In addition to the $6,842,412 settlement to be doled out between 1,159 employees, Chiarrocchi and the company will also pay a $50,000 civil penalty. Chiarrocchi will be required to write an article for a restaurant trade publication that addresses an employer's obligations under the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to the DOL.
Police believe they know what caused a canopy that covers gas pumps at a Quakertown gas station to collapse and hit a car on Thursday afternoon.
They say that heavy snow on the roof of the canopy is most likely responsible for the collapse.
The collapse took place at the Sunoco at 331 West Broad Street, just moments after five cars pulled away. The front of an 86-year-old woman's car was damaged in the collapse. Police say if the woman had been just a few more feet under the canopy, she would have been crushed.
No one was injured in the scary incident.
Explosions involving oil trains have become a very scary reality in recent years.
From the December explosion that forced hundreds of North Dakota residents to flee, to the derailment of a crude oil train in Canada that killed more than 45 people to a very close call right here in Philadelphia last month.
The scare came when an oil tanker derailed on a bridge over the Schuylkill River. Railroads crews were able to transfer the flammable crude oil from the five suspended rail cars, but there's a strong possibility that not every incident involving oil trains will end safely.
"It's scary! It's scary!" Southwest Philadelphia resident Sarah Kurnes told NBC10's George Spencer.
Yes, it is scary, especially since the highly flammable crude oil is being transported directly through some of our city's most populated areas like University City, Center City and South Philadelphia.
Iris Marie Bloom is part of a coalition of community activists looking to stop the oil trains from traveling through our area, an area, critics say, that simply can not evacuate safely in the event of a disaster.
"Imagine most of the city trying to evacuate in the middle of the day, or even the middle of the night..." Philadelphian Coryn Wolk said.
Local groups aren't the only ones trying to stop the traveling of these trains through big cities. Federal officials are also discussing whether these trains should be re-routed around cities.
Even employees of Philadephia Energy Solution, a company that employs nearly a thousand locals, agree that something needs to be done to assure the safety of residents surrounding railways.
"Everyone wants to have safe transportation of this vital energy source," said Chief Executive Officer Phil Rinaldi.
The body of a young mother missing for nearly two weeks was found Thursday slumped over inside her car, parked in the shadow of Philadelphia's busy 30th Street Station, as it collected parking tickets and snow.
Marple Township Chief of Police Tom Murray tells NBC10 Philadelphia the body of Nadia Malik was found inside her black Nissan along the unit block of S. 30th Street in Philadelphia around 12:15 p.m. on Thursday. That is behind the Internal Revenue Service's Philadelphia headquarters and across the street from Amtrak's 30th Street Station.
Murray says police have been searching for the 22-year-old mother of two from Marple Township, Pa. and her car since family reported her missing on Feb. 9.
Philadelphia Police Lt. John Walker says the woman's body was found slumped over in the passenger seat of the car, under a pile of books.
"There was a bookbag with stuff dumped out and on top of her," Walker said.
Detectives said the car had first been parked on 23rd and Market sts. right outside of the PECO building. It remained in that spot for four days until it was towed by the Parking Authority to the spot along 30th Street.
Since the Feb. 10, the car has been ticketed seven times leaving people to wonder how the body was not seen with so much activity surrounding the vehicle.
The reason, Walker says, is because the car has darkly-tinted windows and was covered in snow most of the time it was parked along the street.
It took police a 911 phone call complaining about the car's parking spot and most recently, a tip caller who recognized the vehicle's description through media reports about the missing woman to prompt further inspection.
On Sunday, Malik's sister told NBC10.com she was on the phone with the woman, who was with her ex-boyfriend Bhupinder Singh at the time, when the phone suddenly cut off.
Singh, 25, was later arrested on a parole violation in Solon, Ohio. Authorities in Solon tell NBC10 they located him after tracing Malik's phone, which he was using. He has been questioned about Malik's disappearance, police said.
Police have not implicated Singh in the woman's death, but he is awaiting extradition back to Pennsylvania regarding the parole violation. He could be in the area as early as Friday morning.
Walker said there were no visible signs of trauma or signs of foul play. An autopsy is schedule for early Friday to determine the cause of death, he said.
Philadelphia Police continue to investigate the incident.
Malik leaves behind a 3-year-old boy and 2-month-old daughter, her family tells NBC10. She was also a Pre-Med student at Temple University.
Photo: Nadia Malik
Contact Vince Lattanzio at 610.668.5532, vince.lattanzio@nbcuni.com or follow @VinceLattanzio on Twitter.
A man was arrested for allegedly trying to abduct a young girl on a North Philadelphia street Thursday evening.
Authorities say the9-year-old girl was walking from a store on the 3700 block of N. 5th St. when a man approached her and grabbed her arm.
Able to free herself from the man's grip, the victim ran back into the store and screamed.
Witnesses took matters into their own hands, chasing the man and holding him down until police arrived, according to investigators.
The victim was not injured in the incident.
The suspect is in custody.
A sanitation truck clearing snow off a Queens street plowed through with such force that it threw mounds of heavy snow across the sidewalk and into a restaurant, blowing out the storefront and knocking over a customer seated inside, video shows.
It's the second time in just over a week that a New York City business has been damaged by snow and ice from a quick-moving snowplow truck.
Surveillance video from Thursday night's wave of snow at Exo Cafe on Austin Street in Forest Hills shows the moment the windows shatter.
A female customer seated by the window is knocked off her seat and tumbles over from the blast of the windows.
"Everybody jumped. The glass went all the way up to the bar," said restaurant manager Peter Kambitsis.
He said the driver of the plow truck didn't stop and that employees had to catch up to the driver when he finally stopped at a traffic light.
In a statement Friday, the Department of Sanitation said it conducted an investigation and is taking disciplinary action against the plow truck operators.
The customer who fell over from the blast went to the hospital to get checked out and appeared to be OK, said Kambitsis.
Kambitsis said the doors were broken and that he had to stay in the restaurant overnight Thursday to guard the business.
Last week, a snowplow in Brooklyn knocked over a pedestrian and broke the glass door of an auto dealership when it similarly sent up a wall of snow and slush. The Department of Sanitation said it was taking disciplinary action against the drivers in that incident.
The pedestrian said it was "very painful" getting hit in the face by ice.
Many people sick of the snow have already taken action to make their beach dreams a reality as realtors say Jersey Shore rentals are filling up fast.
"Many people are so tired of the winter and thinking of the nice summer weather," said Allan Dechert, former president of the New Jersey Association of Realtors.
Andrew Fasy of NJ Realty Inc. in Sea Isle also suspects the more than 50 inches of snow that fell in Philadelphia was a factor.
"People are dreaming of the beach," he said. "We are on fire with rentals this year."
The brokers at NJ Realty Inc. handle leasing for about 1,500 properties in Sea Isle and approximately 3,500 in Ocean City.
The number of rental leases signed is up more than 30 percent from the same date a year ago for NJ Realty, Fasy said.
He adds that the company's rentals are also up about the same amount from summer 2012, meaning it is unlikely the latest increase is due to Hurricane Sandy lowering the number of leases in summer 2013.
Another Sea Isle agency, The Landis Co. Realtors, is also experiencing a boom.
"We are at least 300 leases ahead of where we were last year," said Linda Taylor, Landis rental manager, who added that the increase represents a rise of nearly 25 percent.
Taylor's location manages about 1,200 rental properties, which are mostly in Sea Isle.
One Ocean City broker also noted more vacationers have lined up their plans earlier than usual.
"We're up about 10 percent over last year," said Jesse Briglia, owner of Jesse Real Estate.
All of the brokers say most of their customers book the rental properties online, making the increase even more noteworthy given the power outages that plagued much of the region in February.
But Briglia is cautious about the rise in early lessees.
"With the uncertainty of the finality of the school year," he said, "I think some people are waiting to know exactly where they stand."
Typically the third week of June starts the renting season for Shore towns, but many schools are extending the academic year to make up for snow days.
"The bargains are going be in June," Briglia said. "Especially for the larger properties where you'd be packed with kids."
Dechert warns that even those bargains might not last for long.
"To get the location you want and the type of property you want, you are much better off getting down here and booking early," he said.
