TV news helicopter makes emergency landing at Elgin's Wing Park Golf Course
A Chicago TV news helicopter covering the recovery of missing person Karen Schepers' car from the Fox River Tuesday made a safe emergency landing at Wing Park Golf Course in Elgin.
Mike Lehman, director of golf operations for the city of Elgin, said the NBCSky5 helicopter landed at the golf course about noon. The pilot told him the copter's gauges indicated it was overheating, he said.
The helicopter had been hovering above the Slade Avenue boat launch where crews were working to remove a 1980 Toyota Celica that investigators confirmed belonged to Karen Schepers, 23, who lived in Elgin and disappeared April 16, 1983, when returning to Elgin from a Carpentersville bar where she'd gone with coworkers.
According to an NBC 5 news report, the helicopter's cockpit warning light indicated an engine problem so the pilot made a precautionary emergency landing. No one was injured in the incident.
Lehman said the pilot called a repair service, which had the helicopter back in the air by 3:30 p.m.
'He's a great guy. I am glad he is safe,' Lehman said. 'The (golf) course doesn't open until Friday so I gave him a Wing Park shirt before he left.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Yahoo
SWAT Raid Fallout: McKinney Ordered To Compensate Homeowner
A ruling years in the making affirms property rights in a case previously reported by The Dallas Express. A federal judge has ordered the City of McKinney to pay nearly $60,000 in damages to a woman whose home was destroyed during a 2020 SWAT standoff—despite her having no connection to the fugitive inside. Vicki Baker, a cancer patient and retired grandmother, was preparing to relocate to Montana when police descended on her property. The SWAT team was pursuing her former handyman, who had barricaded himself inside her McKinney home. 'I told them, 'Please don't destroy my house,'' Baker recalled to NBC 5. They did anyway. What followed was a five-year legal battle in which the city refused to pay for the $60,000-plus in property damage, forcing Baker to dip into her retirement savings just to make the home livable again. With the help of the Institute for Justice, Baker took the city to court, arguing that government agents who destroy private property—regardless of motive—should be held financially accountable. 'We're trying to establish that even if the government is acting for a legitimate reason, they must compensate property owners for what they destroy,' said attorney Jeffrey Redfern. The city previously offered a partial settlement, but Baker refused, pushing for full compensation and a broader legal precedent. Last week, a federal judge agreed and ordered McKinney to pay $59,656.69. City officials told NBC 5 they are 'evaluating options for appealing the ruling.' Baker, now retired and living on Social Security, says she fought not just for herself but for others who might one day find themselves in her position. 'It was disastrous for me, but what if it were a single mom with no savings? Someone has to stand up,' she said. The ruling could signal a growing trend of courts reining in unchecked government immunity when innocent citizens bear the cost of public safety operations.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Yahoo
Renee Ferguson Dead at 75 After Trailblazing Journalism Career
Renee Ferguson, a trailblazing television reporter in Chicago, is dead at 75. How did Ferguson die? Ferguson's cause of death was not released. Tributes flowed in for the investigative journalist. NBC 5, her former television station, confirmed her death with her family on June 6, 2025. "Renee Ferguson left an incredible echo in our newsroom that still rings through the DNA of our investigative journalism, and that legacy will continue," said Kevin Cross, president and general manager of NBCU Local Chicago, to that station. According to that station, Ferguson was the first Black woman to work as an investigative journalist for a Chicago television station. She worked for NBC Chicago from 1987 through 2008, the station wrote. Indiana University honored Ferguson in an alumni tribute before her death. She was the co-founder of the Chicago chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists, the university wrote. "A television journalist and investigative reporter, Ferguson's writing roots trace back to her adolescence, even before she attended IU," the university bio says. "Her junior high school named her Most Likely to be a Journalist. Ferguson always wanted to be a writer, and living up to her middle school superlative, she has told countless stories over her career," the bio says. According to The Chicago Tribune, Ferguson's career spanned 25 years at two television stations in that city. Ferguson's husband, Ken Smikle, died before her, according to a 2018 article in the Chicago Sun-Times. It says that he died after his wife made a public plea for a donor heart for him. He was described as a "well-known" journalist who ran a marketing firm. He was 66 when he died after suffering from congestive heart failure, The Sun-Times Ferguson Dead at 75 After Trailblazing Journalism Career first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 7, 2025
Yahoo
04-06-2025
- Yahoo
Ex-Milwaukee firefighter dies from brain cancer: 'They just don't make them like Nick anymore'
As Nick Adamski sat in a Milwaukee firehouse watching Diane Pathieu anchor the WTMJ-TV morning news, he turned to his fellow firefighters and set his destiny. "I'm going to marry that girl some day," he declared. Maybe it was Adamski's plan all along, but Pathieu was approached by a colleague of Adamski's while at the O.A.R. concert at Summerfest in 2007. He told her Adamski really liked her. Pathieu agreed to pass along her email address. About a day later, Adamski emailed Pathieu apologizing for his colleague's approach at the concert and asked if he could take her out. Several phone calls turned into a four-hour lunch date and the couple was inseparable ever since. The former Milwaukee firefighter and his Chicago TV anchor wife were together for 18 years and have spent the last four years sharing Adamski's story of courage as he battled glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer, after a December 2020 diagnosis. He lost that battle with cancer on May 27. He was 42. Adamski worked for seven different units from 2001 to 2013, when he injured himself on the job and had to retire from firefighting. Adamski was recognized with an award by the Milwaukee Fire Department after saving an infant from a fire in 2003. "That is a rescue award under extreme fire conditions at tremendous risk to the firefighter himself," Milwaukee Fire Chief Aaron Lipski said June 3. "You never know until you're faced with these circumstances if you'll be able to move past how hot and dismal it is inside burning buildings." Adamski didn't share his award with his wife until they moved in together when they got married in 2012. "I never talk about it," Pathieu recalled her husband saying. "There was this fire and there was this baby." Pathieu said Adamski then described finding a baby in the fire who was not breathing before reviving the baby and bringing the baby back to life. Lipski said that child, at last check, survived severe burn injuries "over much of his body." Pathieu said Adamski always "wanted to keep that inside" and that he "cherished it." He asked his wife to not share it with others. Adamski also never told his wife the whole truth of how he injured himself while on the job, ending his firefighting career. A fellow Milwaukee firefighter of Adamski's shared with Pathieu in recent days that Adamski hurt his knee "so bad, it popped" after he bent down to catch a colleague that was falling, putting his own body at risk. "I learned that after his death," Pathieu said. "That's the type of person Nick is." Adamski didn't dream of being a firefighter but a professional athlete. He was born and raised in Milwaukee and "his whole family" still lives in the area, Pathieu said. He attended Milwaukee Tech High School, what is now known as Bradley Tech in Walker's Point. After injuring himself, he could no longer play sports, and Adamski "had to pivot" on career plans and was into cars after studying them in high school, Pathieu said. But he ultimately settled on a life of service. "I think he was thinking about either the police department or the fire department," Pathieu said. "I think he became more of a person who wanted to help others as he got older." According to Lipski, Adamski was appointed to the department in October 2001 and went on duty disability in April 2013. He worked at Ladder 15, Engine 11, Engine 23, Ladder 14, Engine 31, Engine 14 and Engine 33. Pathieu said she got to know a lot of his fellow firefighters over the years. "A lot of them were at our wedding," she said. "He had a very strong connection to a lot of his brothers and sisters at the fire department and he would talk about them all the time." Having dated Adamski since 2007 and after working in the Milwaukee market for several years with WTMJ-TV, Pathieu received a job offer in her native Chicago. She would split time between Chicago and Milwaukee, working and trying to spend as much time as she could with Adamski. Her Assyrian background forbids her from living with a partner until marriage, she said. "It was getting a little bit more challenging because I was getting more hours," Pathieu said. Adamski proposed on Valentine's Day 2012, the couple got married in October of that year and Adamski moved to Chicago full time in 2014. They'd still often travel back to Milwaukee, Pathieu said. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Adamski decided to build a gym in the basement of the couple's home, where he and his father-in-law would work out in the morning. A couple days before Christmas in 2020, Pathieu's father arrived at the home to work out and there was no sign of Adamski. "Nick wasn't answering the door and all the lights were off and that was very rare for Nick because we both are very early risers," Pathieu said. Pathieu, who was anchoring the news at the time, had her dad stay at the house as she furiously called and texted her husband, with no luck. Then, during a commercial break, Adamski was able to make a call to Pathieu. "I said, 'Are you OK?' And he said, "No," Pathieu said. Pathieu called 911 and an ambulance arrived, where Adamski was found having recently suffered from a seizure. He was transported to a hospital. As Pathieu arrived at the hospital, doctors informed her that Adamski received a CAT scan and large tumor on his brain was discovered. Doctors believed it to be glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer. "Within the next day, so 24 hours later, he was unconscious with a breathing tube," Pathieu said. "And he had a huge brain bleed and they said, we need to go in and operate. We don't have a choice." Pathieu sat alone in a hospital waiting room, amid COVID-19 restrictions, "bawling my eyes out" and no comfort from loved ones. The surgeon comes out hours later and delivers the news. "We got the whole tumor. It's clean," he said. Relief set in for Pathieu. "They got the tumor, everything's all good," she said. But that was just the beginning for Adamski. "We quickly learned what kind of beast we were up against," Pathieu said. Adamski was in the hospital for a week or two after surgery before starting radiation, then chemotherapy, immunotherapy and different medications. The couple attempted to fight back the cancer and developed an understanding of methylation profiling, which is genetic testing on the cancer or tumor and finding medications that are not necessarily for that cancer but could work as treatment. "For example, the gene that they found in Nick's cancer, a drug that tackled bladder cancer, was effective on Nick's brain cancer, and that's because they both had the same gene," Pathieu said. When Adamski came to an understanding of the disease he was up against, he wanted to share his story. "He said, 'That's why I became a firefighter. I think that's why this happened to me. I just need to help people," Pathieu said. From that point forward, Adamski and Pathieu, who already developed an online presence as a journalist, gave speeches and interviews to different podcasts and TV programs, like "Good Morning America." "I think he felt more empowered and he felt like he was taking control of his health again, and he felt really good connecting with other patients," Pathieu said. Adamski had a mantra while becoming more known in the medical community — Positive Mental Attitude, or PMA. He adopted it as a way of life after reading "The PMA Effect," a book by motivational speaker John Joseph. "People made bracelets. They had T-shirts made," Pathieu said. "It was kind of his way of offering hope in a very hopeless situation." Everything seemed to be going well until June 2023, when Adamski had another brain surgery, and then second surgery in May 2024. "A tumor had dug itself deeper, so it started to affect his mobility," Pathieu said, describing how her husband's ability to walk or talk began to deteriorate subtly. Adamski also began to have seizures more often. The seizures became more intense in January 2025 and soon Adamski was back in the hospital. Adamski would never return home, except for a brief stay in hospice care at-home, before dying in May at a different hospice care facility. Pathieu and her family helped care for Adamski in his final months. She recently took off from her role as traffic anchor with KABC-TV in Chicago and has made several tribute posts to her husband on Instagram. A service was held for Adamski in Chicago on May 31 and then an Assyrian prayer breakfast was held in his honor on June 1. A Milwaukee celebration of life is taking place June 6 at The Packing House, 900 E. Layton Ave., where Adamski and Pathieu routinely met for drinks after work on Fridays, near his then-firehouse in Bay View. Pathieu expects Adamski's favorite orders from the bar to be available and maybe a few of his favorite musicians will be played. Adamski was a big music fan, lover of heavy metal and international bands, especially Ozzy Osbourne. "People would often tell me they ran into Nick at a concert," Pathieu said. An honor guard by the fire department will be present. "Friday is really meant to be what Nick always wanted his memorial to be, which is a bar and good laughter and friends," Pathieu said. Adamski was in the same fire academy class as Doran Kemp Jr., another Milwaukee firefighter who died of the same form of brain cancer in early 2023. Kemp followed in the footsteps of his father, Doran Kemp Sr., who was also a firefighter. "Nick was friendly with both (Kemp Jr.) and his father," Pathieu said. Cancer is a leading cause of death for firefighters, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Lipski said the firefighters "feel terrible," but are struck by how lucky Adamski was to have a "positive" and "strong" partner in Pathieu. While for Pathieu, it was Adamski that kept her motivated. "He was the love of my life, my soulmate, that whole cheesy thing, and we were best friends," Pathieu said. "I was just as obsessed with him as he was with me." Adamski is survived by his wife, Pathieu; his parents; stepfather; in-laws; brother; two sisters-in-law; two nieces and a nephew. Pathieu partnered with a nonprofit researching glioblastoma. To make a donation visit "He was someone who embodied positivity and just wanted to carry that on," Pathieu said. "And he did it so humbly and so eloquently and so beautifully. "They just don't make them like Nick anymore. They really don't." This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Former Milwaukee firefighter Adamski dies from brain cancer at 42
