League Club of Naples awards record $683K in grants to Collier, Lee nonprofitsFriday’s Furry Friends: Holly, Slim
League Club of Naples awards record $683K in grants to Collier, Lee nonprofits At a mid-April breakfast event, the 35 area nonprofit agencies—chosen from a record number of applicants—were awarded grants from the women’s volunteer organization in areas ranging from arts education, to fighting hunger and homelessness, to providing bikes and wheelchairs to children in need
Tim Aten Knows: Chick-fil-A drive-thru proposal faces criticism in Naples Chick-fil-A is proposing a drive-thru restaurant at the site of the former Red Lobster restaurant on U.S. 41 in Naples, but the project is facing early criticism.
NAPLES Friday’s Furry Friends: Holly, Slim For this week’s Friday’s Furry Friends, WINK visits the Collier County Domestic Animal Services to showcase two adorable animals ready to be adopted.
FORT MYERS Caught on Camera: Dust Devil spotted spiraling in Fort Myers A dust devil was spotted and recorded by a WINK News viewer on Hanson Street in Fort Myers.
Warm, dry and breezy afternoon after a comfortable morning The Weather Authority is tracking a comfortable Friday morning start with dry and breezy afternoon conditions expected.
NAPLES Event held in Naples for National Crime Victims Week The City of Naples and Project HELP held an event in Baker Park for National Crime Victims Week.
NAPLES 25-acre brush fire off I-75S in Collier County lowers air quality The Greater Naples Fire Rescue responded to a 25-acre brush fire at Mile Marker 96 on I-75 in the Picayune Strand State Forest.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral softball coach arrested for alleged inappropriate conduct with student released on bond A former Cape Coral volunteer softball coach arrested for alleged sexual contact with a student was released from jail on bond.
FORT MYERS A prom like no other at Golisano Children’s Hospital Logan Stryker may be a little young for high school prom, but he’s the prom king of Golisano Children’s Hospital.
FORT MYERS Group protests death of Christopher Jordan Their messages were aimed at the Fort Myers police department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and State Attorney Amira Fox.
FORT MYERS A least 3 cars involved in crash near Top Golf Way and Challenger Blvd. It happened near Top Golf Way and Challenger Boulevard in Fort Myers.
Hendry County Fired deputy charged with crimes had troubled past in law enforcement A local police officer resigned in lieu of termination after dozens of disciplinary actions against him, so how was he hired at another SWFL law enforcement agency?
New resolution could help fend off FEMA’s threat to pull flood insurance discount Some United States representatives are taking matters into their own hands to help those threatened by more expensive flood insurance.
NAPLES Local group rallies in solidarity with Israel Passover week is an important time for the Jewish community, but hostages are still being held.
From Verot to The Show: Blaze Alexander is living his MLB dream Former Bishop Verot star Blaze Alexander is now living his MLB dream as he got called up to join the Arizona Diamondbacks.
League Club of Naples awards record $683K in grants to Collier, Lee nonprofits At a mid-April breakfast event, the 35 area nonprofit agencies—chosen from a record number of applicants—were awarded grants from the women’s volunteer organization in areas ranging from arts education, to fighting hunger and homelessness, to providing bikes and wheelchairs to children in need
Tim Aten Knows: Chick-fil-A drive-thru proposal faces criticism in Naples Chick-fil-A is proposing a drive-thru restaurant at the site of the former Red Lobster restaurant on U.S. 41 in Naples, but the project is facing early criticism.
NAPLES Friday’s Furry Friends: Holly, Slim For this week’s Friday’s Furry Friends, WINK visits the Collier County Domestic Animal Services to showcase two adorable animals ready to be adopted.
FORT MYERS Caught on Camera: Dust Devil spotted spiraling in Fort Myers A dust devil was spotted and recorded by a WINK News viewer on Hanson Street in Fort Myers.
Warm, dry and breezy afternoon after a comfortable morning The Weather Authority is tracking a comfortable Friday morning start with dry and breezy afternoon conditions expected.
NAPLES Event held in Naples for National Crime Victims Week The City of Naples and Project HELP held an event in Baker Park for National Crime Victims Week.
NAPLES 25-acre brush fire off I-75S in Collier County lowers air quality The Greater Naples Fire Rescue responded to a 25-acre brush fire at Mile Marker 96 on I-75 in the Picayune Strand State Forest.
CAPE CORAL Cape Coral softball coach arrested for alleged inappropriate conduct with student released on bond A former Cape Coral volunteer softball coach arrested for alleged sexual contact with a student was released from jail on bond.
FORT MYERS A prom like no other at Golisano Children’s Hospital Logan Stryker may be a little young for high school prom, but he’s the prom king of Golisano Children’s Hospital.
FORT MYERS Group protests death of Christopher Jordan Their messages were aimed at the Fort Myers police department, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and State Attorney Amira Fox.
FORT MYERS A least 3 cars involved in crash near Top Golf Way and Challenger Blvd. It happened near Top Golf Way and Challenger Boulevard in Fort Myers.
Hendry County Fired deputy charged with crimes had troubled past in law enforcement A local police officer resigned in lieu of termination after dozens of disciplinary actions against him, so how was he hired at another SWFL law enforcement agency?
New resolution could help fend off FEMA’s threat to pull flood insurance discount Some United States representatives are taking matters into their own hands to help those threatened by more expensive flood insurance.
NAPLES Local group rallies in solidarity with Israel Passover week is an important time for the Jewish community, but hostages are still being held.
From Verot to The Show: Blaze Alexander is living his MLB dream Former Bishop Verot star Blaze Alexander is now living his MLB dream as he got called up to join the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Six crosses are placed at a makeshift memorial on the Florida International University campus in Miami on Saturday, March 17, 2018, near the scene of a pedestrian bridge collapse that killed at least six people on March 15. (AP Photo/Jennifer Kay) They had just finished up lunch, and set off to run a humdrum errand: a drive to the travel agency to pick up airline tickets for their annual visit to their beloved homeland Cuba. Osvaldo Gonzalez and Alberto Arias, friends and business partners, happened to pass under a Miami bridge that Thursday afternoon, the road bustling with fellow drivers also out on the most ordinary and unthreatening of life’s tasks. A teenager was driving her friend to the doctor’s office to pick up some medicine. A father of three was heading home from work. A woman on her way to a nail salon was stopped at a red light. Seconds — inches — would soon separate those who would live from those who wouldn’t. Sweetwater police Detective Juan Llera was at his office a few blocks away, when he heard what he thought was a bomb exploding. It was not a bomb; it was a bridge, a structure every American has passed under hundreds of times. But in an instant, this 950-ton span under construction at the Florida International University collapsed, and with no time to act or to flee, the cars that just so happened to be below it were pancaked under the rubble. Six people died. “Imagine,” said Amauri Naranjo, who has known Gonzalez since before he left Cuba in the 1980s, “a longtime friendship that survives even with the sea between us, and it ends because of something like that.” Gonzalez and Arias, who together owned a party rental and decoration business, were among the dead. Their bodies were found Saturday inside their white Chevy truck as rescuers for days painstakingly dug through the debris of the fallen pedestrian bridge at Florida International University. Hope for a miracle rescue faded as the names of the six dead became known, and those left living grappled with the senselessness, the suddenness of it. Many others had been saved by mere seconds. Dania Garlobo was driving to work at a nail salon when the green light changed to yellow and a man in a white Mercedes tried to make it through the light, but stomped on the brakes just as the bridge fell in front of him. “He was almost caught underneath. I couldn’t believe it,” Garlobo said. She watched the bridge smash into the street below in what seemed like an instant. “How is it that a strong bridge falls down like a piece of board?” Llera had sped to the scene, arriving within minutes. In the mayhem, he found a man lying unconscious on the street and started performing CPR. He could barely feel a pulse, but someone with the medical staff from the university came by and said, “you are keeping him alive. Keep going.” And so he did, and the man was alive when they rushed him away. Llera checked in at the hospital but could get no information. He thought the man had lived. He’d hoped they could shake hands one day. But on Sunday morning, he studied a picture on the news of a young man in a crisp red shirt. He has been identified by police as Navarro Brown, a 37-year-old employee with Structural Technologies VSL, listed among those killed. He had died at the hospital. “I feel like the bad guy won this time,” the officer said as he processed the news Sunday afternoon. The families of the dead and the injured asked for privacy as they try to make sense of their sudden, inexplicable loss. “It’s a pretty magical thing to find your soul mate in this world,” Brandon Brownfield’s wife, Chelsea, wrote on Facebook on Sunday. “Like pieces to a jigsaw puzzle, our crazy curvy edges matched and we fit together like no one else could.” The Brownfields had three young daughters, and the family moved to Florida several years ago for his job at Maxim Crane Works, according to a fundraising page a friend started for the family that had raised more than $50,000 in a few days. He was driving home from work when the bridge collapsed. “I now have to find the words and the answers to tell my girls that their Daddy is not coming home,” his wife wrote on Facebook. Investigators are still trying to figure out what caused the bridge to crumble. Cracking had been reported in the concrete span in the days before and crews were performing what’s called “post-tensioning force” on the bridge when it flattened onto the busy highway. Inside one car there, one teenager was killed and one walked away with minor injuries — a fate decided by which seat they happened to be sitting in. Richie Humble, a 19-year-old student, had not been feeling well earlier in the week. On Thursday, a friend, 18-year-old Alexa Duran, the nicest person he said he ever knew, gave him a ride to his doctor’s office to pick up some medication. They stopped at a red light, under the bridge. “I heard a creak, a long creak,” Humble told The Associated Press in a phone interview. “I looked up, and in an instant, the bridge was collapsing on us completely. It was too quick to do anything about it.” Once he realized he was alive, he also realized that he couldn’t get to his friend. As he called out for her, getting no response, a group of men outside the car started yelling at him to try crawling out of the car. They pried open the door to free him. He sat on a curb as rescue workers checked out the cuts on his leg and slight facture in a vertebrae. He remembers asking, “What do I do?” “Everyone has to pick up the pieces,” he said the rescuer responded. “Life doesn’t stop.” Duran’s uncle Joe Smitha was preparing for a colonoscopy that Thursday afternoon when he heard a bridge had collapsed near her school. She was not answering her phone, but he said he was not worried. His kids sometimes didn’t answer their phones right away. “I said, ‘What are the odds that out of the thousands of people in Miami that she would be one of six or eight people caught under the bridge at a red light?’” Smitha said. But then, after he awoke from anesthesia following the procedure, he learned she had been one of those six people caught under a bridge at a red light. __ Galofaro contributed from Louisville, Kentucky