Month: October 2025

By Rachel Whelan

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    BATESVILLE, Indiana (WLWT) — What started as a drive down a quiet country road quickly turned into a life-or-death situation for one man — and a stranger who refused to look the other way.

Robert Chamblin says he was driving along St. Marys Road in Batesville on Aug. 29 when he saw a car lose control, flip over into a ditch, and catch fire. Instead of just calling for help, Chamblin jumped into action.

“There was no one else there to help him and he needed help,” Chamblin said. “I would hope someone would do the same for me.

Chamblin called 911 as flames began to spread from the bottom of the car. On the other end of the line was Ripley County dispatcher Tim Costello, who calmly guided Chamblin through what became a tense rescue.

“Just one person, he’s getting out of the vehicle and I’m going to help him get out of the car because there is smoke and flames coming from the bottom,” Chamblin told Costello during the call.

Chamblin put his phone down to pull the driver away from the burning vehicle. Costello stayed on the line, waiting for several tense minutes. Then finally, Chamblin said he driver was safe and about 40 to 50 yards up the hill from the flames.

“Alright, Robert, good job, good job,” Costello said in the recording. “We’ve got everyone coming to you as quick as we can.”

Weeks later, Chamblin and Costello met in person for the first time. The Ripley County Sheriff’s Office honored Costello with a Life Saving Award for his steady guidance during the emergency.

“He did an amazing thing and I was very inspired by his actions,” Costello said. “I feel he needed the recognition.”

But Chamblin insists the real heroes are dispatchers like Costello.

“I helped a guy one time,” Chamblin said. “They do it every day. These guys deserve all the respect and recognition in the world.”

Due to privacy laws, officials cannot release the injured driver’s name. Chamblin says he hopes to learn more about his condition — the last he heard, the man was flown to UC Medical Center with a hip injury.

If you have any information or know the driver involved, contact newsdesk@wlwt.com.

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By Emma Hamilton

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    RICHMOND HILL, Georgia (WJCL) — For five years, the familiar scent of French fries had been the backdrop to Zach Martin’s life. Every shift, he put on his uniform and greeted customers at the Richmond Hill McDonald’s, a steady, reliable presence. His manager, McDonald’s Second Generation Director, Justin Stanberry, attested to his dedication. “Zach was a great employee,” he said. “He was great on the customer service side. Everybody loved to see him. He just made everybody feel good on a daily basis.”

But last Friday, with a box of celebratory donuts in hand, Martin walked through the restaurant’s doors as an employee for the final time. He’s taking a leap of faith, trading his steady job for a brand-new adventure—one that has already taken the internet by storm.

Martin is 26-years-old and on the autism spectrum. He has always had a dream of doing art for a living. He’s making that dream a reality. “I wanted a dream job,” he simply stated when asked why he opened the shop. He’s creating woodland-themed ornaments and cards and selling them through his own TikTok shop.

With the help of his mom, Erika, Zach launched his online store. The small, handmade items—like a beautiful Christmas tree card featuring a design Zach had personally drawn—has quickly captured the hearts of the internet. The response was immediate and overwhelming. In just six weeks, Zach’s shop generated $23,000 in sales.

The sudden boom shocked both Zach and Erika. “Completely overwhelmed. It took us by surprise. We weren’t prepared,” Erika admitted. She had been hesitant at first, unsure if people would trust a new shop on TikTok. But the community support was massive, and now, their home has become a bustling workshop as they work hard to fulfill hundreds of orders. Every single ornament and card is carefully handmade by the mother-son duo.

For Erika, there is no greater joy than seeing her son’s art appreciated by so many. She hopes their story sends a powerful message about ability and opportunity to others. “A lot of people don’t think that people on the spectrum have these capabilities or these possibilities, and they really do,” she said. “We just have to learn to make the world accessible to them and help them do it.”

Now, Zach is fully focused on his booming TikTok shop. When asked if he was ready to take on the shop full-time, his answer was a resounding “Yeah.” He’s already thinking of new creations, like turning some of his other paintings into new card designs.

Zach is having his own art show on Friday, November 7, from 6-8 p.m. at the Richmond Hill City Center in JF Gregory Park. Not on TikTok? You can also purchase Zach’s work on his website.

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By Kennedy Camarena

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    SALT LAKE CITY (KSL, KSL TV) — Search and rescue crews traveled through a snowstorm in Little Cottonwood Canyon on Saturday to find a lost hypothermic hiker, and get them back home to safety.

The Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team said the four hour rescue mission began on Saturday at 7 p.m. when a hiker called for help on the south ridge of Mt. Superior.

“The hiker had set out earlier in the day, attempting to summit the mountain, and went off-trail when a snowstorm rolled in,” the search and rescue said.

Temperatures quickly dropped to around 20 degrees Fahrenheit and snow began blowing around the hiker, leading to limited visibility.

Once the hiker called for help, the search and rescue said teams met at the base of Alta Ski Resort to travel up the mountain and start looking for the hiker.

“The rescuers broke trail through several inches of snow on a technical, steep ascent for about 1.5 hours before making contact with the hiker,” reported search and rescue. “As rescue teams assessed a cliff-edge traverse through a waterfall to the subject, a break in the storm occurred.”

A Utah Department of Public Safety helicopter then took the hiker via “hoist rescue” to an ambulance, which then took the hiker to a nearby hospital for treatment.

According to the search and rescue, the hiker was hypothermic but in stable condition when brought to the hospital.

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By Lisa Crane

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    HAYDEN, Alabama (WVTM) — Parts of Alabama are experiencing extreme drought conditions right now. The Forestry Commission has put the entire state under a fire danger advisory. And the lack of rain is impacting many crops that could affect our fall and winter holidays.

At The Great Pumpkin Patch in Hayden, they grow some of their pumpkins; many of the small pie pumpkins came from their own fields. But because of a lack of rain, most are from farms in other states.

For a day at the pumpkin patch, this dry, warm weather is perfect, but it’s not so great for the pumpkin growing season.

Pumpkin Patch owner Julie Swann said, “We have not had rain, probably for us it’s been since August. And then prior to that, it was probably the good rains that we had, you know, April, maybe some of June.”

The Great Pumpkin Patch is parched, and the drought does have an impact on the gourds they grow there.

“It doesn’t necessarily affect the size simply because pumpkins take so long to produce. But it does the quantity, it affects that, you don’t have as many, you know, to produce as far as vines won’t produce as much without the rain,” Swann said.

So the owners have to reach out to farmers in Tennessee and Michigan and buy their pumpkins to sell in Hayden. And Halloween may not be the only holiday impacted by the drought. Paul Beavers at Beavers Christmas Tree Farm in Trafford said the lack of rain is particularly hard on his youngest, smallest trees.

“If it continues all the way through winter, it might kill some of my smaller trees. Hopefully, it’ll stop sometime in the next month or two,” Beavers said.

A lack of rain means the trees will just stop growing, so the drought could impact the size of your Christmas tree. But the trees tagged for sale are five years old or more, so problems might not be realized till Christmas of 2030.

“We’re still going to have over 3000 trees ready to sell this year,” Beavers said.

When the owners of the pumpkin patch have to buy more pumpkins from out-of-state farms, their costs increase, but they say this year, they are not raising prices for customers.

They’ll have to re-evaluate that next fall.

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By Megan Matthews

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    LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (WLKY) — The University of Louisville is inviting all Swifties to a new course, “Swiftonomics,” which uses Taylor Swift’s career to highlight core economic concepts like supply and demand and opportunity cost.

“We certainly have a lot of Swifties and a lot of people who are just interested in Taylor Swift. As you know, she’s had a huge economic impact. She’s an incredible business person. And so we thought, well, let’s try this at UofL,” said Beth Munnich, an associate professor of economics who helped develop the class.

The course is divided into three sections — each named after a Taylor Swift song — and asks students to apply economic thinking to real-world questions fans already debate.

“How do we decide how much we’re going to pay to go to an Eras Tour concert? It depends not only on how much I value something, but how much everybody else wants to go and how much they’re willing to pay,” Munnich said.

Swift’s lyrics also serve as case studies for trade-offs and scarcity.

“We don’t have infinite amounts of time. ‘August, time is slipping away,’ and we make decisions, knowing that we’re making trade-offs about how we spend our time and how we spend our money,” Munnich said.

Open to any enrolled student, the class aims to meet people where their interests already are.

“People are coming in because they have some interest and varying levels of knowledge about Taylor Swift, but they can relate to the ideas and they know the lyrics—but maybe they’ve never thought about that lyric from the song ‘August’ as opportunity cost,” Munnich said.

After a strong first day on Monday, Munnich hopes to expand Swiftonomics into a full-time course offering in the future.

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