Ohio

Ohio hiker rescued after missing for 14 days in Kentucky’s rugged wilderness | CNN

Published

2 years ago

July 28, 2024

Ohio hiker rescued after missing for 14 days in Kentucky’s rugged wilderness | CNN

CNN
—

An Ohio man was found alive after 14 days in the rough terrain of a Kentucky forest, just as crews were starting to lose hope, rescuers said.

There was a shoe print and evidence of a walking stick in an area few people traverse, the search group said in a Facebook post on July 20.

On the last day of the search mission in the Red River Gorge, the Wolfe County Search & Rescue Team bushwacked through dense forest and up a creek when they found a sign of life.

The team of five rescuers heard a yell for help in the woods. Once they reached the voice, it turned out to be Scott Hern, the missing man.

The moment the good news came over the radio was “exhilarating,” Wolfe County Search and Rescue Chief John May told CNN.

“An inexperienced hiker in a wilderness area for 14 days without food or water, nobody really expected to find him alive like we did,” he said. “It’s really just a miracle that he survived.”

Hern, 48, was last seen in the woods off Tower Rock Trail on July 6, the rescue group said. His family in Ironton, Ohio, which is about 100 miles northeast of the gorge, hadn’t heard from him since that date.

A US Forest Service officer saw Hern’s truck on the Saturday when he went hiking in the Red River Gorge – and the same ranger saw it again when he returned to duty a week later on July 13, Wolfe County Search and Rescue Chief John May told CNN.

“When he ran his license plate, that’s what kind of triggered this whole event because there was a missing persons report filed in Ohio where he was actually missing from,” May told CNN affiliate WLEX.

The search began on July 16, when Hern’s family realized where he had gone and contacted the search group, May told CNN.

CNN reached out to Hern’s family on Thursday but has not heard back.

That night, a team searched for Hern until after midnight, but they couldn’t find him, the Wolfe County rescue group posted on Facebook. “Darkness and fog” made visibility difficult on the rugged, off-trail area, they said.

Twenty-five members from three rescue crews and two canine units tried again the next day without luck. And four dog crews tried the day after that.

Eric Wolterman said a prayer as he and the Wolfe County Search & Rescue Team headed out on Saturday, July 20, two weeks since Hern went missing. He and his teammates went into the search thinking it would be a recovery day, he wrote on Facebook.

“It was going to be the final day of searching whether we located anything or not. We were in the roughest terrain you could imagine and it’s very dangerous for anyone to even be out there,” he wrote.

Hern’s diary, provided by his family, pointed the search team to Bell Falls. The team had already searched there, but they decided to go north up a creek, the group said.

After spotting footprints, someone on the team heard a faint noise, Wolterman recalled. They shouted again, thinking it was another search team.

“Help,” Wolterman said he heard.

As the team got closer, they asked for the person’s name. “Scott Hern,” he said.

“My name is Eric, I’m with Wolfe County search and rescue, you are safe, we are going to get you out of here,” said Wolterman, who was the first one to reach Hern.

Hern looked at him and thanked him before asking for a hug, Wolterman said.

“I think it was the best hug of both of our lives,” he wrote.

Finding out Hern was alive, despite the odds, changed the tone of the operation and sent energy through the crew, May said.

“That extra boost of energy kind of kicked in when we heard that he was alive now just shifted (to) let’s figure out how to get him out of there as quickly as we can,” he said.

The area proved to be a challenge, as waterfalls with drop-offs and a narrow trail would have made carrying him out dangerous, May said. Hern was also tucked into an overgrown area.

Instead of carrying Hern out, rescuers decided it would be safer for everyone to hoist him out by air, May said. They called in the Kentucky State Police, who extracted Hern by helicopter.

“We’ve never encountered anyone that has been lost for 14 days and found alive. So, it’s definitely unusual,” May told CNN.

Hern carried six bottles of water with him that day – and there were six empty bottles in his backpack when the crew got there, May said. After July 8, Hern told rescuers he didn’t eat or drink anything, as his mouth was too dry to do so.

Hern was “extremely dehydrated” and “his feet were in really bad shape” from blisters and bug bites, May said. Hern couldn’t walk when they discovered him.

Despite being lost in the woods in rough terrain, Hern had a few advantages working in his favor, May said.

“He’s a heavier gentleman, so he had some reservoirs there. He did take in those six bottles of water with him – that helped him for the first couple of days,” May said. “Where we located Mr. Hern was under a rock shelter.”

The rock shelter up against the cliff line kept Hearn out of the direct sun and safe from the elements, he explained.

May did not know if Hern was able to retrieve water dropping into the cave, as they hadn’t spoken about it, he said.

Hern was hospitalized and was not able to walk on his own, the rescue group wrote on Facebook on July 22, two days after his rescue.

Hern beamed with a smile in his navy-blue hospital gown with his walker in a photo the family shared with the rescue group.

“I think he’s going to make a full recovery,” May said. “It’s just going to take a little time to get real food in him, rehydrate him, get his feet in better condition and we think he’ll be good to go.”

CNN’s Tanika Gray contributed to this report.

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Ohio

Ohio woman sentenced in $775,000 Medicaid scheme

Published

1 hour ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

COLUMBUS — A Lake County woman was sentenced this morning to jail time and ordered to pay $775,000 in restitution for fraudulently billing Medicaid, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost announced. “She inflated her earnings through brazen fraud, but her scheme burst wide open when our investigators got the case,” Yost said. “Cheating taxpayers comes with […]

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Ohio

‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

Published

14 hours ago

February 27, 2026

Press Room

‘Catastrophic’ Ohio farm fire kills 6,000 hogs and pigs, officials say

A wind-swept blaze at an Ohio hog farm complex caused “catastrophic” damage and left thousands of pigs dead, fire officials said, marking another devastating barn inferno contributing to the deaths of millions of animals in recent years.

The massive fire occurred on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at Fine Oak Farms in Union Township, Madison County, located west of Ohio’s capital of Columbus, according to the Central Townships Joint Fire District. Fire crews received a report of a barn fire shortly before 12 p.m. local time.

The incident was later upgraded to a commercial structure fire after Chief Brian Bennington observed a “large column of smoke visible from a distance” and requested additional resources. Multiple local fire departments, along with several other emergency agencies, were called to the scene.

“What our crews encountered upon arrival was a very difficult and heartbreaking incident,” Bennington said in a statement on Feb. 26.

The fire chief described the facility as a large farm complex used for hog production consisting of five large agricultural buildings, including four that housed about 7,500 hogs. When crews arrived at the scene, they found two of the barns engulfed in flames, Bennington said.

Crews were challenged by windy conditions that significantly impacted fire suppression efforts, according to Bennington. Three barns were destroyed in the fire, and about 6,000 hogs and pigs were killed.

Firefighters saved one barn and about 1,500 hogs, the fire chief added. No injuries were reported in the incident.

Bennington highlighted the assistance of the farming community throughout Madison and Clark counties, as multiple farmers responded with water trucks to help with water supply efforts. “Rural Ohio’s agricultural community is tight-knit, and they truly step up when one of their own is in need,” he said.

The incident remains under investigation, and the Ohio State Fire Marshal’s Office will determine the fire’s cause and origin. Bennington said there is no suspicion of arson and no ongoing threat to the public at this time.

‘Rapidly changing fire behavior conditions’

Heavy smoke from the fire could be seen for miles, and Bennington said first-arriving units were met with fire conditions coming from the opposite side of the hog farm complex.

The fire chief noted that the incident required extensive water-shuttle operations due to rural water-supply limitations in the area. Crews attempted to cut the fire off by deploying multiple handlines and using an aerial device, but “faced extremely challenging conditions throughout the incident,” according to Bennington.

Sustained winds of about 20 mph with gusts up to 35 mph accelerated the fire’s spread, Bennington said. The high winds made it “extremely difficult” to contain forward fire progression and created “rapidly changing fire behavior conditions” across the agricultural complex, he added.

After about four to five hours, the fire was contained by fire personnel from four different counties, according to the fire chief.

“Unfortunately, the fire resulted in catastrophic damage to the business,” Bennington said in an earlier statement on Feb. 25. “A significant portion of the agricultural structures were destroyed.”

Latest major fire to impact an Ohio hog farm

The incident at Fine Oak Farms is the latest major fire to cause significant damage to an Ohio hog farm in recent years.

In August 2024, about 1,100 pigs were killed in Versailles, a village about 50 miles northwest of Dayton, Ohio, according to data from the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute. In March 2022, about 2,000 hogs died in a barn fire at Kenneth Scholl Hog Farm in Brown Township, just west of Columbus.

Before the fire at Fine Oak Farms, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that other barn fires in Ohio this year killed 162 sheep, horses, cows, chickens, and other animals.

Hundreds of thousands of animals killed in barn fires each year

Data from the Animal Welfare Institute shows that hundreds of thousands of animals are killed in barn fires across the country each year. Since 2013, over 9 million farm animals have been killed in barn fires, according to the organization.

As of Feb. 26, the Animal Welfare Institute reported that 118,738 farm animals have died in U.S. barn fires this year, including the incident at Fine Oak Farms. The majority of farm animals killed were chickens in separate incidents in North Carolina and Georgia in January, and another incident in Missouri earlier this month.

“Most fatal barn fires occurred in colder states, particularly the Upper Midwest and the Northeast. New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois had the highest number of barn fires, respectively,” according to the organization. “The amount of cold weather a state experienced appeared to be a greater factor in the prevalence of barn fires than the intensity of a state’s animal agriculture production.”

In an updated report on farm animal deaths due to barn fires in 2025, the Animal Welfare Institute said more than 2.53 million farm animals were killed in barn fires from 2022 to 2024. The organization noted that the high death toll was “driven primarily” by fires at large operations that housed several thousand to over 1 million farm animals.

The majority of deaths in these incidents during that period, over 98%, were farmed birds, such as chickens and turkeys, according to the Animal Welfare Institute. But in 2023, a massive fire at a west Texas dairy farm became the single deadliest event involving livestock in the state’s history and the deadliest cattle fire in America in at least a decade.

18,000 head of cattle perished in the fire at the South Fork Dairy farm near Dimmitt, Texas. At the time, Roger Malone, who is the former mayor of Dimmitt, called the incident “mind-boggling.”

“I don’t think it’s ever happened before around here. It’s a real tragedy,” Malone said.

Contributing: Rick Jervis, USA TODAY; Shahid Meighan, Columbus Dispatch

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Ohio

Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Published

1 day ago

February 26, 2026

Press Room

Ohio’s LaRose pushes back on voter fraud critics, Democrats

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose discussed voter fraud and Ohio’s efforts to prevent it during a recent radio appearance.

LaRose appeared on “The Bill Cunningham” radio show, where he defended the state’s efforts to minimize voter fraud. A clip posted on X shows audio of LaRose arguing that policies aimed at preventing voter fraud are necessary even though cases are rare.

Here’s what to know.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose says voter fraud in Ohio is rare, compares prevention efforts to TSA security

In the clip, LaRose says that Democrats claim voter fraud is rare, and should be ignored.

“The left claims that voter fraud is rare, so we should just ignore it,” he said. “Well, airplane hijackings are also rare — we don’t abolish the TSA. The reason why we keep voter fraud rare in states like Ohio because we do these very things that they’re trying to take away from me.”

LaRose announced the inaugural meeting of the new Ohio Election Integrity Commission, which replaces what he called the flawed Ohio Elections Commission, in January 2026. The new committee, he says, will be used in “enforcing Ohio’s election laws, reviewing alleged violations, and ensuring accountability in matters relating to voting.”

In October 2025, LaRose said that he forwarded more than 1,000 cases of voter fraud to the U.S. Department of Justice. The cases involved 1,084 noncitizen individuals who appear to have registered to vote unlawfully in Ohio, and 167 noncitizens who appear to have also cast a ballot in a federal election since 2018.

In February 2026, President Donald Trump said Republicans should “nationalize” elections. He also accused Democrats of bringing migrants into the United States to illegally vote, a claim that is not backed by evidence, USA TODAY reports.

Voter fraud in the U.S. is considered rare nationwide, according to NPR, but there are still debates from both political sides on how frequently it occurs.

What is voter fraud?

Electoral fraud is defined as illegally interfering with the process of an election, according to Ballotpedia. This includes in-person voter fraud, absentee or mail ballots and illegal voter suppression.

Criminal penalties can include fines or imprisonment for up to five years, according to U.S. code. In Ohio, election interference can carry a felony of the fourth degree, according to Ohio Code.

Voter fraud is often a topic of debate among Democrats and Republicans, where organizations such as the conservative Heritage Foundation maintains a database claiming to show nearly 1,500 cases of election fraud since the year 2000.

Meanwhile, research by law professor Justin Leavitt published in 2014 found 31 cases of in-person voter fraud among billions of ballots cast from 2000–2014, according to Ballotpedia.

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