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Family asking for help after plane crash destroys car

Family asking for help after plane crash destroys car

Yahoo28-05-2025
SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — Days after a small plane crashed into a Murphy Canyon neighborhood, killing all six people on board, survivors on the ground are facing the emotional and financial toll of the disaster — including residents whose vehicles were destroyed by flaming jet fuel that poured through the streets.
Home security footage from a Ring camera captured the moment burning fuel flowed down a gutter, igniting cars along Taussig Street. One of those vehicles was a Kia Soul owned by Nichole Crone, who lives in the neighborhood with her husband, a U.S. Navy service member, and their three children.
Temporary fence set up around site of deadly plane crash in San Diego
'We got woken up about 4 a.m. by our son,' Crone said. 'He sleeps with his window open, and he heard the tires on the car popping. That's what woke him up — that's what woke us up.'
Crone requested her face not be shown for privacy reasons but wanted her story told.
Just moments after a Cessna 550 struck power lines and stadium lights before crashing into a home on Sample Street, Crone and her family watched as her parked car was engulfed in flames.
'A lot of people were panicking, telling us to get out, to leave, because they thought the car was going to explode,' she said. 'So we were panicking.'
'Debris everywhere still burning': Family whose house was hit by plane shares what they saw
Crone said her vehicle is typically not parked on that side of the street — except on trash days.
'It was trash day, and normally our car would be right in front of our house,' she said. 'But our trash cans had to go out the night before.'
Adding to their hardship, Crone said her insurance provider, USAA, recently informed her that it would not cover the full cost of the vehicle.
'They want to give us like $15,885, minus our $1,000 deductible, and we still owe like $19,000,' she said.
VIDEO: Fireball erupts as plane crashes in San Diego
The family depends on two vehicles: Crone uses her car for Instacart deliveries to supplement their income and to transport one of her children, who has autism, to several therapy appointments each week. Their other vehicle is used by her husband for commuting to Coronado.
'We're stressed out,' Crone said. 'We just got that second vehicle two months ago. We're already struggling with both car payments, and now we lost a vehicle and still have to make payments on it.'
A friend has started an online fundraiser to help the family recover. Crone said she hopes the insurance company reconsiders the payout, given the circumstances.
'It wasn't only us that this happened to,' she said. 'But for us specifically, it's just hard to understand why insurance wouldn't pay off the car in full. This wasn't our fault.'
Despite the high mileage on the car, Crone said she and her husband are continuing discussions with insurance representatives in hopes of reaching a resolution.
Visit the GoFundMe: Fundraiser for Nichole Crone by Megan Ball: Help the Crone Family replace their car.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Doyel: A box comes in the mail. Turns out, you didn't know your dad as well as you thought
Doyel: A box comes in the mail. Turns out, you didn't know your dad as well as you thought

Indianapolis Star

time7 minutes ago

  • Indianapolis Star

Doyel: A box comes in the mail. Turns out, you didn't know your dad as well as you thought

They told me about that first birthday – the first one since he died. They said it would hit like a train. They were right. My dad would've turned 80 on Sunday, July 27. It has been nearly nine months since he died, and for nine months there has been grieving. But this is also true, what they say: It gets better with time, the hurt – the shock – that Robert Leon Doyel, my dad, the hero of my childhood, is gone and not coming back. It is the way of the world for all of us, losing a parent or someone else we love, but your pain cannot lessen mine. Nor can mine lessen yours. The things people tell you, they're true. Everyone grieves in their own way. My way has been gutless, hiding behind the gratitude – it was and still is real – that his suffering is over, and hiding some more when I chose not to fly to Florida to attend his service. His memorial was held several months after he died on Nov. 1, and by then I'd moved onto something like denial: He's gone, he's not coming back, and I'm doing OK up here in Indiana. Dad's last decade was not pleasant, starting with a car accident that left him with an uncountable number of broken bones – doctors found new, healed fractures for years – shortly after he retired. The years got worse, and his final 18 months were full of physical pain and emotional confusion. It was heartbreaking, hearing him cry on the phone in pain or mental torment, certain that everyone was out to get him, wondering why I wasn't coming to Florida to rescue him from the hospital where he was being held against his will. My dad was a lawyer, then a judge. He had a brilliant mind, legal and otherwise, and he had an argument to make on behalf of his freedom, if I would just get him before the proper authorities. Why wasn't I coming? Well, Dad, I was there last week. Do you remember? He'd start crying. No, I wasn't going to Florida to attend that service, several months after he died. It was going to hurt too much. It was safer up here in Indiana. It really does get better with time. Everyone tells you that. Nobody told tell me about the box in the mail. Nobody told me about that. From October: Rose's death stabs at my childhood, but rekindles my Dad's forgotten love language Obituary from November: He desegregated youth baseball. Veteran, teacher, judge. I called him dad. He never told me about the sniper fire at Da Nang. My dad was a U.S. Navy cook at Vietnam. That's what he told me – that's what he was. And he was proud of his service, overseeing the galley at Tien Sha Peninsula, on an old French army camp at the foot of Monkey Mountain. Dad was responsible for the feeding of 10,000 soldiers and other personnel every day. He told me that. He never told me about the time the North Vietnamese knocked out power in the galley, or about his decision to utilize charcoal grills and other temporary power sources to feed thousands of soldiers, some on floating galleys on the river, while sniper fire was coming from the jungle. He didn't tell me about receiving a Navy Achievement Medal with the Combat V, or the citation written Dec. 9, 1969, that congratulates my dad for his 'ingenuity and resourcefulness' at Da Nang and ends like this: Lieutenant (second grade) DOYEL's exemplary professionalism and devotion to duty were in keeping with the highest tradition of the United States Naval Service. E.R. Zumwalt, Jr. Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy Commander U.S. Naval Forces in Vietnam It was in the cardboard box, that medal and letter. Don't remember seeing the letter before now, but I remember the medal. As a boy I played with it – never noticed that little 'V' – and with his other Navy service stripes and medals, pins and cufflinks. Didn't know what any of it meant. Look, I was 7. This was Norman, Oklahoma, in the 1970s. Dad and I talked about OU football, about Barry Switzer and Lee Roy Selmon and Billy Sims. We didn't talk about Da Nang. From 2017: The Christmas when Gregg Doyel learned the truth about Grandma, and Dad The box showed up three days before his birthday. I knew it was coming – his wife of 35 years, Chelle, had told me to be on the lookout – but it sat on my floor for 24 hours before I had the guts to open it. What's another thing people say? Something about some doors being better left unopened. Same goes for boxes. But not this box, as it turns out. The tears came, sure, along with fresh salvos of shock and sadness. Nine months, Dad? Some days it feels like it's been just a few weeks. Other days, feels like years. You form a callous, and along comes a time capsule that peels it off, teaching you about the man you thought you knew so well. And I did know my dad well. Knew his strengths, and his weaknesses. Faults? Oh, he had faults. I could write a book about mistakes he's made. Could write a book about mine, too. This box didn't have any of his faults. Don't be afraid of it, G-Pistol, Dad could've told me, using the nickname he gave me as a kid; this box won't hurt you. These were papers and pictures and, sure, awards he'd saved over the years. His military file is in here. So are his academic records. Top 5 percent of his class at the University of Oklahoma – and the OU law school? Didn't know that. When he took the bar exam in Georgia in 1987, he received the highest score in the state? Didn't know. Here's his diploma from the University of Oklahoma College of Law. Didn't know he was managing editor of the Oklahoma Law Review. A busy man, my dad. What did I know of him being busy? He played catch in the backyard whenever I asked, which was every day in Norman and Oxford, Mississippi, where we kicked field goals at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium and shot baskets at Tad Smith Coliseum. More of the same in New Glarus, Wisconsin, and then Macon, Georgia, for my high school years. Baseball, basketball, soccer. He had all the time in the world. When did he have the time to earn 1976 Jaycee of the Year with the Norman Jaycees? When he did he have time in 1983 to earn a Doctor of Juridical Science from the law school at Wisconsin? To be on a legal team in Georgia that argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in November 1986? That was my junior year of high school. The Supreme Court? From 2018: Youth baseball in Oxford, Miss., was segregated in 1978. Here's what Dad did. From 2020: Celebrating Father's Day in a sports world getting smaller and smaller He moved to Florida the next year, leaving me in Macon for my senior year of high school. I was supposed to live with a friend's family, but when that fell through my dad showed some of his ingenuity and resourcefulness by finding a furnished apartment and putting me there for the year. I was playing soccer and baseball and working two jobs in Macon while he was in Florida, working as a lawyer. Here in the box is a plaque from the Polk County Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, recognizing him for serving as president from 1990-91. He became a circuit court judge in 1995, and here in the box is a commendation from the chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court, Harry Lee Anstead, 'for exemplary service (and) providing leadership within Florida's Court System in the area of Domestic Violence.' Did he ever tell me he was president of the local defense lawyers? Or honored by the Florida Supreme Court? I knew he was a charming rascal. Did I know someone had given him a desk nameplate that confirmed it? Bob Doyel Charming Rascal No, I didn't. But I knew he cared deeply about victims of domestic violence. Bench assignments in Florida's Tenth Judicial Circuit rotated every few years – Felonies, Civil and Family Law – and nobody wanted to work in Family Law. But there was no getting out of it, and when Dad was assigned Family Law in 1997 he was miserable about it, unsettled to hear about the suffering of so many women and children. But he found his calling. When it was time to rotate bench assignments a few years later, Dad asked to stay where he was in Family Law. His colleagues were more than happy to leave him there. Here in the box is a plaque from his fellow judges in the Tenth Judicial Circuit: In grateful appreciation for your dedication and distinguished service as Chairperson of Polk County's Domestic Violence Task Force Another plaque: In appreciation to Bob Doyel for your dedicated service as president of the Ritz Theatre 100, 1990-99 Ritz Theatre? Really, Dad? In his retirement my dad wrote one book about domestic violence that was published, and dictated a work of fiction – dictated it; think about that – that should've been. Apparently he was a prolific writer of letters to the editor, too; they're in the box. He clipped them, along with stories I'd written for the IndyStar that were picked up by the Lakeland Ledger. He even clipped a rebuttal letter in the Ledger from a woman who disagreed with his letter arguing for 'free long-acting, reversible contraception (LARC) to reduce teen pregnancies and abortions.' Here's something else, but not a plaque. More like a pin, a trinket. Wait, is this... A key to the city of Winter Haven, Florida? This is how I'm spending what would've been the weekend of his 80th birthday, digging through military files and pins and papers he'd been saving for 50 years – learning about a U.S. hero on the Tien Sha Peninsula, and the hero of my childhood. Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Threads, or on BlueSky and Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar, or at Subscribe to the free weekly Doyel on Demand newsletter.

Pennsylvania mom dies at daughter's softball camp after being crushed by falling tree branches
Pennsylvania mom dies at daughter's softball camp after being crushed by falling tree branches

New York Post

time5 hours ago

  • New York Post

Pennsylvania mom dies at daughter's softball camp after being crushed by falling tree branches

A Pennsylvania mom was killed while cheering on her daughter at the teen's softball camp when several branches suddenly fell from a tree and struck her in the head. Gendie Miller, 49, took shelter from the 90-degree heat beneath a tall tree alongside her husband, Bill, while they watched their 16-year-old daughter scrimmage in front of prospective college coaches at the Western PA College Showcase softball camp Thursday. 3 A Pennsylvania mom died after multiple branches fell on top of her at her daughter's softball showcase. GoFundMe While they were lounging beneath the old tree, Bill told WTAE he suddenly heard a loud cracking noise and hurried to usher his wife of 17 years away. 'I said to my wife, 'Let's go.' I jumped out of my chair, felt a small branch of some sort that grazed my leg. And I immediately turned to my right to look back at her, and she was face down with large, multiple branches and limbs,' he told the outlet. One of the branches hit Gendie's head. She fell unconscious and was pinned beneath the heap of fallen tree limbs, their daughter's softball coach wrote in a GoFundMe organized for the family. Many of the branches were between 10 to 12 inches thick, Bill said. Bystanders tried to help Gendie while emergency responders rushed to the scene. 3 Kendie and Bill Miller were married for 17 years. Facebook 3 Kendie was unconscious after the branches hit her and died in the ambulance. Facebook The crew loaded her into an ambulance headed to Forbes Hospital and was trying to evaluate if she could handle an airlift to a more advanced trauma center when she stopped breathing, according to the GoFundMe. Gendie was pronounced dead at Forbes Hospital. 'To be so traumatic, and with the heavy load of the type of branch and limb, it was devastating. And I can tell you that she didn't die from her heart, because her heart's too big,' Bill told the outlet. He said Gendie was a devoted mom who 'would never miss a practice or an event' regardless of what it was or how far away. 'That was who she was,' he said. All donations to the GoFundMe will go to the family to help lift the 'burden off of coming up with funds they don't have right now for something so sudden and unexpected,' according to the fundraiser.

Mom dies after tree branch falls on her at daughter's softball camp, PA family says
Mom dies after tree branch falls on her at daughter's softball camp, PA family says

Miami Herald

time14 hours ago

  • Miami Herald

Mom dies after tree branch falls on her at daughter's softball camp, PA family says

A family is mourning after they say a woman was hit by a falling tree branch at a softball camp in Pennsylvania, killing her. Gendie Miller and her husband, Bill, were watching their daughter play softball at the Western Pennsylvania College Showcase Camp in McKeesport on July 24, WPXI reported. The couple was sitting under a 'large shady tree since temperatures were in the 90s' while their daughter performed drills before a scrimmage in front of college coaches, according to a GoFundMe page. Then, Bill Miller heard a cracking sound, WTAE reported. 'I said to my wife, 'Let's go.' I jumped out of my chair, felt a small branch of some sort that grazed my leg. And I immediately turned to my right to look back at her, and she was face down with large, multiple branches and limbs,' Bill Miller told the news outlet. Gendie Miller was knocked unconscious. As she was being transported to a hospital, she stopped breathing and was pronounced dead on arrival, the GoFundMe said. 'It's such a crazy, freak accident,' family friend Luka Bompiani told WPXI. 'There's no weather involved, no wind. They were just sitting under a tree watching their daughter play softball.' Nitro Fastpitch 16U Walker said in a Facebook post that the Nitro family mourns the loss of Gendie Miller as it 'is felt through waves of grief and sorrow.' 'We didn't know that could happen so soon. The next few weeks will be tough. I love you Gendie Miller. Until we meet again, I love you forever,' Brandon Bickle, who said Gendie Miller was his aunt, wrote in a Facebook post. McKeesport Mayor Michael Cherepko said in a statement to WTAE that the city's 'thoughts and prayers are with the family at this time.' 'An evening that started like any other, with families and friends gathered in the park for a game, has ended in tragedy after this horrible accident,' Cherepko said, according to the outlet. McKeesport is about a 15-mile drive southeast from Pittsburgh.

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