INTF-1 at southern Indiana tornadoes

The Indiana Department of Homeland Security activated the FEMA asset just hours after tornadoes struck in southern Indiana. This isn't necessarily a big deal for media, but since I was in the process of gathering research for a book about the Urban Search and Rescue program, it was a good idea to again use Storify to identify material that could be of use later down the road. Here was my Storify: Indiana Task Force 1 at historic, deadly 3-2-2012 tornado

#Social46

A (subjective) "elite 46" were picked as ambassadors to the Circle City for activities associated with Super Bowl 46 on Feb. 5 in Indianapolis, Indiana. We were in charge of promoting a zip line, more bands than at Bonnaroo, and warming stations. Take that, winter!

I decided to use another social media site, Storify, and wrote "Indy aims to have most social Super Bowl ever" to chronicle what the group was doing, and to quantify output in some meaningful way. The second installment "I'm in it to spin it" proved even more popular.

High-profile bloggers took notice!

The excellent @JayBaer of Convince and Convert wrote, "Generally, the group has taken to the cause like a crafter to Pinterest, with dozens of tweets, photos, blog posts, and more popping up daily – and the game isn’t for another 10 days. Former reporter, now PR guy Tom Spalding is chronicling the blow-by-blow with regular Storify collections from the Social 46 trenches." Read his post here.

I got about 1,000 page views from installments 1 through 7. They were, in order:

Part III: A welcome to #SB46 Indy from #Social46 & friends!

Part IV: Football? #SB46 Indy feels pretty #Social46 to us

Part V: #Social46 has a picturesque impression on #SB46

Part VI: #Social46 welcomes Day 1 of #SB46!

Part VII: Ziplines, #SB46 & #Social46 odds 'n ends

Ex-firefighter is a Parkinson's activist

As Gary Coons talks about the security challenges that come with Indianapolis hosting the 2012 Super Bowl, he fidgets with a small patch of cloth. Holding the fabric helps still his hands from the shaking associated with Parkinson's disease.

"I try to keep my fingers from moving," said Coons, chief of the city's division of homeland security. "I do my best to hide it."

Coons, 39, believes he contracted Parkinson's during his days in the Beech Grove Fire Department, where he worked from 1998 to 2006.

Parkinson is an incurable, degenerative and debilitating disease. It also afflicts "Back to the Future" actor Michael J. Fox; Janet Reno, former U.S. attorney general; and former boxer Muhammad Ali.

Scientists are just beginning to explore whether there could be a link between exposure to heavy metals like manganese and Parkinson's disease. Coons thinks his could have been triggered that way. He thinks his may have come from breathing toxic air at a paint store fire three years ago.

In 2008, Coons founded "Firefighters with Parkinson's Disease," an Indianapolis-based organization working to educate firefighters and public safety employees about the dangers of suspected chemical triggers for Parkinson's. Coons is also raising funds for research.

His work led to a state law that enhances benefits for Indiana public safety workers who contract Parkinson's.

Richard Nass, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the Indiana University School of Medicine, has been inspired by Coons and his story.

Working with a neurologist, Nass is trying to examine the connection between toxins, such as lead and mercury, and neurological disorders, such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

He plans to take samples from firefighters' coats and swab their noses to determine how high their exposure to heavy metals may be.

"We want to make sure . . . that whatever conclusion we draw is the truth as much as we know it," he said. "I know of nowhere else in the country where we have this opportunity."

Coons hopes first-responders will wear their breathing apparatuses, even after a fire is extinguished, to avoid inhaling toxic air from leftover vapors.

"I want to make it safe," he said. "I don't want somebody coming down with a disease."

Coons was a career firefighter for 15 years before retiring in 2006 with a line-of-duty injury. In 2005, he went through a series of surgeries to repair his shoulder and back damage related to his line-of-duty injuries. During this time, his wife, Trish, began noticing he was moving more slowly, his legs shook, he had blank stares and he stooped as he walked.

He became aware of increased stiffness and pain in his shoulder and lower extremities, smaller handwriting and soft speaking. They both related these symptoms to his injuries and sought medical help from multiple physicians. They offered therapies, but his injury was never connected with a neurological disease.

It took two years before Coons was diagnosed.

The mathematical probability of Coons (who was about 34 when he started developing symptoms) developing Parkinson's disease was 1 in 100,000. But a smattering of research suggests that firefighters run a much higher risk of developing the disease.

It's unclear how many firefighters have Parkinson's, as many younger victims don't come forward out of fear that they'll lose their job.

Charleston (S.C.) Fire Chief Thomas Carr also has the disease and believes his is "most likely" attributable to exposure to toxins during fighting fires. His assignments, including searching the rubble after the April 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, all doused him with toxins.

"I'm interested in Gary and Gary's work," said Carr, 56. "We're trying to leverage all of these connections with the fire service. . . . We have to teach our people."

Coons, whose professional career has ranged from firefighter to an administrator of the rescue group Indiana Task Force 1 and trustee of Perry Township, was named to his current job in 2010 by Public Safety Director Frank Straub.

Straub was aware that the person responsible for bringing together police, fire and emergency management personnel and resources under the homeland security division has an affliction that requires taking as many as 14 pills a day.

"I never once considered Gary's illness as a bar to appointing him to his current position," Straub said. "In fact, it is virtually impossible to slow him down."

Coons thinks he's sharper because of the constant flurry of activity. In early February, he shuffled between helping coordinate the city response to an ice storm and being a part of the delegation of officials who took a fact-finding trip to the Super Bowl in north Texas. He thinks his constant challenges and workload help him manage his symptoms.

His energy has earned the praise of Scott Newman, the former Marion County prosecutor who was diagnosed with Parkinson's while in office. He is also a former public safety director.

Usually those with Parkinson's can't handle too many competing stimuli that "can cause a freeze-up," said Newman. Coons "manages to ride through that . . . so full of energy that he leaves people in his dust."

Star reporter Shari Rudavsky contributed to this story.

Word count: 871

Copyright 2011 - Indianapolis Star - All Rights Reserved

11 years, 11 favorite assignments

Memorable stories I got to write about while at the Star, 2000-2011.


1) The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center with the late photographer Mpozi Mshale Tolbert. Got to stand on, and write about, and photograph the rubble pile for my generation's Pearl Harbor, 2001. 

2) Unveiling parking meter hogs in downtown Indy. Pure shoe-leather journalism, identifying scofflaw parking permits and keeping tabs on who parked there and for how long, caused Indianapolis officials to revoke all 3,300 tags and led to a policy overhaul, 2008 and 2009. The detailed observational skills of Heather Gillers and deft handling of the prose by Alvie Lindsay made it all the more memorable in terms of impact

3) Getting on Twitter and using it to chronicle, in real-time, breaking news events such as the Downtown Indianapolis suicide jumper and the New Year's Eve earthquake in Central Indiana.

4) Staking out the private airport at 2 a.m. as the Indiana Pacers players arrived back in Indy following the brawl in Detroit [I wrote story for Star and USA Today]; then interviewing Ron Artest a few days later at Emmis HQ as fans held a rally, including a bizarre dunk tank (video) that had a radio DJ wearing a wig and pretending to be a Detroit Piston who had helped start the melee in 2004.

5) Before Twitter and before widespread Wi-Fi, reporters had to call and dictate information from crime scenes. What I remember best from the 2004 killings of two police officers -- one with Butler PD outside of historic Hinkle Fieldhouse, one with Indianapolis PD, was working alongside a fully-staffed superb reporting team that included Matthew Tully (now the Star's lead columnist), Ted Kim, Vic Ryckaert, Staci Hupp, Tammy Webber, et al, as we phoned in information to rewrite men Tom Leyden and John Strauss. Strauss asked so many questions for his scene-setting piece on IndyStar.com that he caused the cell-phone batteries in THREE of our Star-issued Nokias to go dead. 2004.

6) Covering Hurricane Katrina along with photog Sam Riche and in WTHR Channel 13's RV-1 in Biloxi, Mississippi in September 2005 to follow the Indiana Task Force 1. 13 journo Scott Swan and photojournalist Scottie Allen were great traveling buddies. Went, two weeks later, to Louisiana to cover Hurricane Rita with photog Adrienne Jaeckle in more challenging, brutal conditions. We flew for that assignment to Dallas, then drove a rental down to New Orleans, sleeping in a small rental car, the floor of a bug-infested wildlife refuge, with the military in an unairconditioned hog barn and even the sidewalk of a Louisiana vistor's center. http://bit.ly/8YEXyG

7) Pioneering some real-time web reporting from the Jill Behrman trial in Martinsvile in fall 2006. I convinced the judge in Morgan County to let me type on the laptop in court. I typed stories in Gmail and hit the send button during recesses to try to outscoop the Indy TV media and indefatigable Laura Lane of the Bloomington Herald-Times and Keith Rhoades of the Martinsville Daily Reporter. Thank God the Star's Tim Evans and Mike Fender were able to zip down Ind. 67 to help write and photograph the surprising nighttime quick "guilty" verdict. 

8) An investigative (and award-winning) report with coworker Eunice Trotter, looking at the seemingly anything-goes police-pursuit policy in place in 2005 in Marion County/Indianapolis. The title: Are police chases worth dying for? http://bit.ly/dPrGVB

9) Exposing the degenerates who lured poor Katrina refugees from NOLA up to Indianapolis to stuff their vacant, dilapidated apartment complexes. The "recruiters" promised gift cards, Colts tickets and shopping sprees to convince New Orleans folk to relocate. [Postscript, my father, George Spalding, came up to help me donate some furniture and clothing to help some of those new Hoosiers out].

10) My work on the "web desk" for the indystar.com that included co-producing over 1,000 daily business e-mail newsletters in four years. Some gosh-darn fierce battles with the skilled folks over at IBJ and Inside Indiana Business for sure. I had the wide latitude to chase click-generating breaking news stories from the "UFO in Kokomo" ... to the "Belichick bodyguard bump" after the Colts' 35-34 win over the Patriots ... to an audio/video slide show after the June 2008 floods.

11) Many, many police stories including working with my police beat cohorts Vic Ryckaert, Kevin O'Neal, Terry Horne and John Tuohy. Tuohy and I hopped an interstate chain link fence after a box truck full of painters caught fire on I-465, killing two in 2003.

Kudos to the many, many editors who fixed dirty copy and pointed out organizational and grammatical deficiencies.

It's been a ride.

Defining Peyton's impact

From the Jan. 27, 2011 edition of the Indianapolis Star, I wrote: "Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning has surpassed golfer Tiger Woods and NBA star LeBron James as the most powerful person in sports in a news organization's ranking. Though Manning didn't make it to this year's Super Bowl, he led the Colts there in two of the past four seasons, winning Super Bowl XLI and maintaining an all-American image, Bloomberg Businessweek says in its newest rankings out today."

Mark Patrick, host of a drive-time sports show on Indianapolis radio station WNDE-1260 AM, talked to me [listen to the podcast here] about Manning being ranked the most powerful athlete in sports, and who he beat out to come in at No. 1.

This is the news story in its entirety, courtesy of Pacers Digest.

Up, up and away

Batman, Superman souvenirs auctioned in Indianapolis

A story regarding the 1,000 mementos from a now-defunct Indianapolis museum honoring Superman and Batman sold as part of an auction process made the cover of USA Today's

web site.

Mighty temblor!

Evon Wainscott's morning started with a "pair of booms" that tilted the homemade crafts on her walls and left up to 100 cracks in her snow-covered yard.

The 61-year-old woman lives east of Kokomo -- a few miles from the epicenter of a 3.8 magnitude earthquake that lasted only a few seconds Thursday morning but was strong enough to be felt in six states. Here was the IndyStar story.

We told the story early on by use of Twitter. Here's one: #IndianaQuake 4.2 earthquake, Indiana. Dec 30 7:55am EST (13m ago, 9km SE of Greentown, depth 4.9km) see it yourself-> http://bit.ly/ftVPK3