LANCASTER, N.H. — A National Guard helicopter rescued an injured backcountry snowboarder in northern New Hampshire who had fallen and struck some rocks, state Fish and Game conservation officers said.
The snowboarder, identified as Patrick McQuaide, 31, of Pelham, N.H., was on a solo trip Friday in an area called the Great Gulf in a ski run known as Turkey Shoot.
A backcountry skier, John Dwyer, 32, of Beverly, Mass., saw McQuaide fall and skied toward him. There was no cellphone coverage, so he activated an emergency SOS switch on a tracking device, sending a message that McQuaide suffered serious injuries and was unable to walk.
“Due to the extreme remoteness of the area and the reported serious nature of the injuries, a call was made to the Army National Guard for the possibility of a helicopter rescue,” Fish and Game Lt. Mark Ober, Jr. said in a news release. “The Guard was able to quickly assemble a crew and flew a Black Hawk helicopter north from Concord.”
The helicopter lowered a medic onto the slope. With Dwyer’s help, McQuaide was hoisted into the helicopter and brought to a hospital.
The owner of an unpermitted firing range is facing jail time if he won’t allow officials from the town of Pawlet, Vt., to visit the property within 30 days, a Vermont judge said Monday.
The town has been working for years to get Daniel Banyai to comply with its zoning regulations, and later orders from the state Environmental Court.
During the remote hearing, Environmental Court Judge Thomas Durkin also told Banyai that he must sign a contract within 10 days with a surveyor to complete an assessment of the 30-acre property in West Pawlet to determine what is located there.
“I will caution Mr. Banyai that if you do not abide by this interim order in any respect I will then immediately … consider any request made by the town of Pawlet to have you jailed until you comply,” Durkin said.
Banyai bought the 30-acre property known as Slate Ridge in 2013 and sometime in 2017 he began operating what he calls a firearms training facility. The property is only permitted to have a garage with an apartment.
In March 2021, Durkin ordered Banyai to end any firearms training activities at the center and that he remove any unpermitted structures. Banyai appealed that decision to the Vermont Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the town earlier this year.
CONCORD — Three people have pleaded guilty to wire fraud in opening accounts at financial institutions in their names or in the names of churches to allow another person to use the accounts to sell virtual currency.
They pleaded guilty in federal court last week and await sentencing in July. Additional counts of wire fraud and conspiracy were dropped as part of a plea agreement.
Two admitted to opening accounts in the name of the Crypto Church of NH, and the Church of the Invisible Hand. The accounts were not used by churches, but by Ian Freeman to trade virtual currency, prosecutors said. The third person signed blank checks and gave Freeman the login information or those accounts, they said.
Freeman is a leader of the libertarian Free Keene group and hosts a radio show.
A request by the New Hampshire Department of Safety to buy 25 drones for disaster situations has been put on hold for a month, after lawmakers in both parties raised privacy concerns.
At its April 15 meeting, the Joint Legislative Fiscal Committee voted unanimously to table the federally funded request, asking for the department to return with more details ahead of the next meeting in May.
The department had asked to spend $188,314 in federal “pass-through” funds to buy unmanned aircraft system (UAS) platforms, also known as drones, to be used in disaster response efforts to augment the state’s existing helicopters and planes.
The department currently has two larger unmanned aircraft, purchased in 2018. The 25 drones would be smaller and better for quick operations, said Sgt. Chris Storm, special enforcement unit commander for the aviation unit of the State Police, in remarks to lawmakers.
Storm said the purchase would help in the aftermath of vehicle accidents because the drones could fly closer to the ground than manned aircraft.
— Wire reports