By Tom Dalton and Julie Manganis
Staff writers
March 07, 2008 07:07 am SALEM — Steven Dion will not soon forget last week. On Wednesday, he and his wife, Brandi, held a ribbon-cutting for their new business, B&S Sports Science on Canal Street. It was a lot of work but a lifetime dream. They held the grand opening, though, with heavy hearts. In the days leading up to it, the mothers of two close friends had died. And just four days before the event, Dion's father, retired FBI agent William Dion, also died. Last Friday, Steve Dion was on his way to the Staples store in Vinnin Square to buy poster board to display photos of his father at the funeral. Sitting in traffic waiting to turn into the Staples parking lot, Dion heard sirens and glanced in his rearview mirror to see an ambulance approaching at a high rate of speed. He had no way of knowing, but a man had stolen the ambulance at Beverly Hospital and was leading police on a wild chase that would end in a crash in Lynn. The ambulance had already smashed into two police cruisers and parked cars in Salem and wasn't stopping for anything. "The faster and closer it got, I said, 'I think that guy's going to hit me,'" recalled Dion, 35, who is on the faculty at Salem State College. The ambulance plowed into the rear of Dion's 1998 Toyota Camry and pushed it across the road. Fortunately, the quick-thinking Dion accelerated just before the ambulance hit, cushioning the blow. The car was totaled, but Dion escaped without serious injury. "It was almost a straight-ahead shot," he said. "What was fortunate is no cars were coming from the opposite direction. If they were, it would have been a horrific accident." After getting a free hot chocolate at the Dunkin' Donuts in Vinnin Square, Dion and his wife bought the poster board and later put together the photo display. The funeral was held — without incident — Sunday at Tabernacle Church. Two cruisers down It will also be a long time before the Police Department forgets the ambulance chase. They lost two brand-new cruisers and almost one officer. After escaping from police on Winter Island, the man who stole the ambulance raced recklessly down Fort Avenue. Patrolman Ryan Davis, who had stepped out of his cruiser, was waiting for him near the head of Derby Street. "He initially aimed for the officer," Chief Robert St. Pierre said, "and then, all of a sudden, he veered and took out the entire back side of the cruiser." Kudos, by the way, go to Sgt. Richard Gagnon, who ordered his officers to "back off" the chase and follow in slow but steady pursuit. The ambulance driver was out of control, and Salem police did everything they could to make a dangerous situation a little safer. The ambulance, it turns out, had a GPS inside and was being tracked by Lyons Ambulance. Lost and found There was an intriguing classified advertisement in our Lost & Found section this week. So intriguing that it prompted a call to Salem police. It read as follows: "FOUND: 2 original paintings of Joan Crawford by famed artist Roy Lichtenstein and many other personal items. Found Downtown North Salem, MA." The advertisement included a phone number, which we called. The man who answered identified himself as Rory Emerald. He said he was 41 and an artist living in Los Angeles. He said he had never been to Salem and, believe it or not, had not found two original Joan Crawford paintings by Roy Lichtenstein, a prominent American pop artist who died in 1997. "I'm like a famous prankster," said Emerald — if that's his real name. Emerald said he has placed ads just like this in newspapers all over the country. He has claimed to have found a prosthetic nose near Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch, a baby panda near the San Diego Zoo, a gold cigarette case belonging to Laura Bush, Leonardo da Vinci's original paintbrushes and an ice sculpture of SpongeBob SquarePants. "So far, I've received close to like 30 calls," he said of the Joan Crawford prank. The best ads, he said, juxtapose two items that make strange bedfellows. He said most people think he's funny, or even creative. Only a few get mad, he said. "I haven't gotten into any trouble for any of them, but I have gotten (calls) from the police," he said. His next classified ad? "I'll give you a hint," he said. It will have something to do with "Barbara Walters ... and chimichangas" (i.e., a kind of Mexican food). A sobering experience Salem State students lined up Monday to test-drive an apparatus billed as the world's most realistic drunken-driving simulator. Totally sober — we assume — college students stepped inside a trailer and sat down at a steering wheel and screen to experience what it feels like to drive drunk. The experience was sponsored by the college's Alcohol Drug Education Preparation and Training program. A dog attack Did you see the story about the Saint Bernard attacking a Seeing Eye dog near Orne Street last Friday? The blind woman knocked to the ground in the attack was Tina Luce, a home missionary for Wesley United Methodist Church and former teacher at Collins Middle School. She's apparently OK. Salt, Mr. Buso? Salem police Lt. Conrad Prosniewski wants to know where to send the salt. Last July, Salem Patrolmen Dennis Gaudet and Marc Berube stopped a black Mercedes that had cut them off on Leavitt Street. They wound up finding a bottle that contained cocaine and arrested the driver. During the suspect's arraignment, Salem defense lawyer Ray Buso argued that police had no basis to stop the car or search it and announced, "If this search is any good, I will eat this police report." So, when Judge Robert Brennan recently upheld the stop and search, Prosniewski was delighted. "I'll send him the police report and a salt shaker," he quipped. But don't count on Buso chowing down just yet. "There will be a trial, and if I don't win at trial there will be an appeal," he vowed.
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