Patriot Bremerton
“Oh my aching feet...” Local woman uses reflexology to heal heels Page 10
FRIDAY, MAY 16, 2014 | Vol. 17, No. 14 WWW.BREMERTONPATRIOT.COM | 50¢
Spring means kittens, kittens, kittens BY LESLIE KELLY LKELLY@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
When spring rolls around, employees at the Kitsap Humane Shelter know what’s coming. Kittens, kittens, and more kittens. If this year is anything like previous years, there’ll be crates and cages just about everywhere — in the reception area, in the hallways and in just about every office. The shelter will do its best to adopt this season’s kittens, offering special pricing when possible and taking kittens on the road to be shown at places where they hold adoption days. But with kitten season comes something else, besides the need for adopters. KHS will need foster homes to care for kittens that are taken in when they are too young to be adopted. In fact, KHS officials say they could use up to 40 more people willing to be foster moms and dads and families for kittens younger than eight weeks old. “Right now we have about 25 active fosters,” said Kaitlin Hibbs, foster care coordinator at KHS. “Some of them are from last year and even last year we were short of the number we needed.” In order to foster kittens, volunteers sign up with the shelter and go through training. Hibbs said what’s needed in a foster volunteer is people
Kevan Moore/staff photo
Jacob Switzer graduated from Olympic High School in 2005.
BPD’s new officer is an OHS grad
Leslie Kelly/staff photo
Kaitlin Hibbs, foster care coordinator at KHS, snuggles with a kitten who is almost old enough for adoption. with patience and time. “In some cases, these kittens have to be bottle fed every few hours,” Hibbs said. “That can mean getting up in the night to care for them. “And sometimes the kittens have to be brought back and forth to the shel-
ter for checkups and vaccinations.” According to Natalie Smith, director of animal welfare at KHS, the shelter gets litters of newborns whose mothers have abandoned them for any number of reasons. Additionally, the shelter gets kit-
tens from feral cats who don’t or aren’t able to care for them. “Sometimes the mother cat has been killed, hit by a car, or just left and the kittens need care,” she said. But she cautions people from bringSEE KITTENS, A9
Man survives watery crash into Sinclair Inlet BY LESLIE KELLY
LKELLY@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
The 88-year old man who was pulled from his car after it was submerged in the water off Bachman Park on May 8 remains in the Intensive Care Unit at Harrison Hospital in Bremerton, hospital officials said. The man suffered a medical emergency and lost control of his vehicle ending up in Sinclair Inlet at the end of Trenton Avenue. After being pulled from the water, he was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation. A pair of Good Samaritans from SAFE Boats International, Jon Watkins and Jenson Charnell, who were testing a boat for the U.S. Coast Guard in Sinclair Inlet, responded to the watery crash along with a Bremerton Firefighter Alex Magallon and Bremerton Police Officer John Bogen and Lt. Pete Fisher to extract the driver.
Bogen reached into the car through the window and felt the man, he said. After several dives, he was able to unfasten the buckle on the seatbelt and pulled the driver out of the car window, with the help of Watkins. Firefighter Alex Magallon, meanwhile, used an axe to break out a window of the vehicle and would later need stitches for a cut. Bremerton Police Chief Steve Strachan said the man was driving down Trenton Avenue at a high rate of speed when the Cadillac bottomed out in front of the parking area of the park, narrowly missed a tree and went flying into the water. Jim and Francoise Deighan were eyewitnesses to the incident. Francoise was weeding the garden and her husband, Jim, was on a ladder cutting vines when they saw a car coming fast down their street. They live in a house at the top of the hill overlooking Bachman Park.
“I saw it happen,” Francoise said. “The car was traveling so fast. I said to my husband, ‘He’s going too fast. He’s not going to be able to stop.’” As they watched, they saw the car hit a bump in the street, heard it bottom out and then sail between a large tree and a neighboring house and splash into the water. “I got my phone and called 911,” she said. “Jim, he ran down to the water to try to help the man.” Francoise said she saw an elderly man at the wheel of the car. She said it appeared he didn’t apply the brakes or try to stop. “It must have been something medical,” she said. “Because he didn’t try to stop. It was like he wasn’t alert.” She saw her husband take off his shirt and take his keys and wallet out of his pockets and go in the water after the driver. At that point two Bremerton police officers and a Bremerton firefighter
arrived and went in the water to help. “By then, the car was all the way under,” Francoise said. “But one of them had a hammer of some kind and broke out the window and got the man out.” Jim Deighan said he was attempting to perform CPR on the subject as other paramedics arrived. “When they brought him up, he wasn’t moving,” he said. “I pressed on his chest and tried to get him to breathe. Water came out of his mouth and he was breathing.” The Deighans, who have lived on the hill above the park since 1999, said this was the first time they’d seen anything like this. “It’s usually just a quiet street,” Francoise said. Jean Parks, another neighbor who watched events unfold, said she’s lived nearby since 1977. “It’s just awful,” she said. “I wasn’t SEE CRASH, A9
BY KEVAN MOORE KMOORE@SOUNDPUBLISHING.COM
Bremerton’s newest police officer is a 2005 graduate of Olympic High School. Jacob Switzer, 26, was sworn in as an officer by Municipal Court Judge James Doctor during last week’s city council meeting. Switzer later said he was surprised by the large turnout of officers at his swearing-in ceremony, some of whom he hadn’t met yet and others he had only known for a day or two. “One comment that was given to me by one of the officers that I had just met was, ‘Even though your family can’t be here, this family is here for you,’” Switzer said. “That alone told me I was in the right place.” As a teenager, Switzer participated in the Bremerton Police Department’s Explorers program and knew even then that he eventually wanted to become a police officer. “I think it’s a fun job even though we see the bad side of people,” he said. “But, you also have a lot of good moments, too, with people. For all the bad moments that you have, if have just one in 100, or one in 1,000, good contacts, its worth it all. I really enjoy that, knowing that I’ve really helped somebody.” Even though he’s only been with the department for about a week, there are a lot of familiar faces. He’s working with some officers that he first met as an Explorer and two of his forSEE OFFICER, A9