When news happens, we rush to cover it. What we see is often unexpected, shocking and sometimes tragic. We searched through our News Center 7 archives to find some of our most amazing stories from the last 20 years.
January 1, 2011 was one of the worst days in the history of the Clark County Sheriff's Department and a day that videographers Eric Higgenbotham and Marshall Gorby will never forget. A man holed up in a trailer at Enon Beach shot and killed Deputy Suzanne Hopper when she arrived on scene to investigate reports of shots fired.
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"I heard a call on the scanner that shots had been fired at Enon Beach, and I had a hunch it would be something because it was New Year's Day, " said Gorby, who rushed to the scene. "I saw Deputy Hopper pull up and I waved, but she didn't see me."
Gorby said he was on his way back to Springfield when he heard the next call.
"69 is down. Shots fired. The dispatcher said 69 is down and they had a shooter in a trailer," said Gorby.
He knew that number 69 was Deputy Hopper’s number so he turned the car around and rushed back to the scene. News Center 7 videographer Eric Higgenbotham had also arrived.
"When I pulled up in my news car, there were popping noises," said Higgenbotham. "I grabbed my camera and started running in and I saw where the deputies were hanging back. Then I worked my way around a building and I could see Deputy Hopper's body on the ground. She wasn't moving and in my mind, I thought that she might be playing dead, just injured and not wanting to move. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case."
He remembers hearing former Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly order the gunman to come out of the trailer with a bullhorn. Next, he heard a gunshot and watched as Deputy Jeremy Blume fell to the ground.
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"All of a sudden Jeremy moved up on the trailer and shots were firing and the next thing I know he's screaming and trying to crawl back to cover," Gorby said.
"The most heroic thing that I have ever seen was Sheriff Kelly going right into the crossfire and pulling Jeremy back, " said Higgenbotham. "He was not even wearing a bullet proof vest and he just grabbed Jeremy and pulled him out of the line of fire. Once Jeremy was safe, deputies just opened up on the trailer and I could hear bullets flying over my head."
By the time the gunfire ended, the shooter, Michael Ferryman, was dead. Deputy Blume survived his injuries but Deputy Hopper died at the scene.
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Both photographers won numerous awards for the video and photos they took that day, and a Gorby’s photo that captured the shooting of Deputy Blume, was published in "Life Magazine" as one of the top 100 photos of the year.
However, it is the tragic loss of Deputy Hopper that these photographers will never forget.
"I was glad that she didn't wave to me that day," Gorby said. "It didn't hit me until later that she had passed. I cry about it sometimes and when Ii talk about this now, I can still cry to this day."
Another new story in Clark County also gave us some shocking moments as our cameras rolled on the planned implosion of the Ohio Edison smoke stack went terribly wrong in 2010.
"I was standing with the demolition crew and company officials and I jokingly said to the man next to me, 'what if this fell the wrong way?'" Higgenbotham said. "His words to me were, 'If this fell, we would probably all be dead.’”
"So they were counting it down and you hear boom, boom!," said Gorby. "The smoke stack took a little turn and you hear someone scream, 'wrong way!'"
"We all started running," said Higgenbotham. "It seemed like slow motion at first, but once the smoke stack hit the power lines, the lines started whipping the ground as we ran for our lives."
Luckily, no one was hurt.
St. Patrick's Day 2013, was a night many people won't forget at the University of Dayton. Students swarmed the streets of campus as the celebration got out of control. Our camera captured students jumping through the fire of burning debris and crowds of people shouting at police.
“When I arrived on UD’s campus it was clear the situation was escalating,” said WHIO first responder Drew Simon. “Several students were running across vehicles, causing significant damage. It was one of the most chaotic scenes I had seen in my career.”
The chaos ended when officers from 12 other jurisdictions rushed to campus and made multiple arrests.
A driver going the wrong way on I-75 North was killed when he hit a tanker truck head-on in 2016. The impact caused an explosion that was captured by an ODOT traffic camera. Witnesses who called 9-1-1 said it appeared that the driver was aiming for the truck on purpose.
An attempted getaway ended for a young couple when their car crashed and flipped out. They were trying to outrun the police after allegedly stealing items from the Englewood Walmart.
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"Don't move. Don't you move. The ambulance is coming," said the officer on scene. "You should have topped when we told you to."
While the male driver continued to wrestle with officers, the woman with him yelled, "I love you baby."
"I love you too," said the boyfriend as he was handcuffed and placed in a cruiser. The woman started to cry but, these two lovebirds were not going to be apart long.
"That's okay," said the officer. "You're going where he's going."
Animals often give us some of our most amazing video. In Medway, neighbors found a raccoon up in a tree with its head stuck in a peanut butter jar and photographer Marshall Gorby again heard the call on his scanner.
"A couple of neighbor guys climbed a tree and cut the branch off and a guy underneath caught the raccoon and it was so funny," said Gorby. "They started wrestling with the raccoon and i heard the jar pop off its head."
The raccoon was put into a cage and released back into the wild. Gorby's amazing video was aired on "Animal Planet."
Click below to watch this video and 4 others from our News Center 7 archives, but we warn you, some of the video may be too graphic for young.
