Memoirs by the Longtime Host of TV’s “One Tank Trips”

By Neil Zurcher

Freelancing for WJW-TV while reporting full-time for WEOL, I joined Walt Glendenning and Ray Goll, another photographer friend who lived in Vermilion and was a freelance photographer for Channel 3, as unofficial photographers for the Lorain County Sheriff’s Department, which did not, at the time, have an official police photographer.

All of us had police monitors in our homes, and the sheriff had our home phone numbers. We would be notified whenever there was a serious crime or accident where photos would be needed, and at least one of us would respond, no matter what day or time of night it might be. This gave us entry into some of the worst crimes and accident scenes in the county, and we could also take video and pictures for our respective TV stations while shooting official photos.

One of the first calls I responded to was a traffic accident near the state prison on Route 83 in Grafton. Two men and a woman had smashed their car into a tree across from the prison. The impact froze the speedometer at 104 miles per hour and decapitated the young woman, whose head flew from the front seat to the rear window ledge. They had not yet removed the bodies when I got there. When I turned on the big movie lights for our cameras, I found myself looking at the woman’s head. The sheriff used the grisly film for months afterward in driver safety classes ordered by local courts.

I hated traffic accidents. Another night I heard the report of a bad accident less than a mile from my home in Henrietta. I ran out the door and reached the scene before any rescue workers or police. I left my camera in the car and ran to the wreckage to see if I could help any victims. A neighbor and I pulled the smashed door to the first car open and found that the violent impact had sheared off the backs of the front seats, leaving bodies piled one on top of another in the backseat. Climbing into the wreckage, we sadly discovered, one by one, that all four occupants, two men and two women, were dead. Since there was nothing we could do for them, I went back to my car, grabbed a still camera, and started taking pictures of the cars and bodies for the police before anything was disturbed. Several motorists who stopped to ogle the accident became irritated that I was taking pictures. Even when I explained that it was not for the news media but the sheriff’s department, one man continued to berate and follow me around, trying to step in front of the camera each time I would try to take a photo. Luckily, a deputy arrived and ordered the man to stop bothering me, informing him that the pictures were for the investigation.

I did take pictures later for the TV station, but they were shots of the wrecked cars. The only shots of the bodies showed them covered by sheets and being loaded into an ambulance.

One of my stranger calls came at home late one afternoon from the sheriff’s office. A man in South Amherst had reportedly just committed suicide by shooting himself, and the sheriff would probably need some pictures. I jumped in my car and beat the ambulance and police to the scene. A woman was crying on the front porch as I walked up to the house. I asked where the victim was, and she just pointed to the back of the home. I walked around the building to a back porch, where I saw a man lying on his back, a small pistol still gripped in his right hand. A pool of blood surrounded his head, and I could see what appeared to be a bullet entry wound between his eyes.

I ran to his side, knelt down, and felt for a pulse. Feeling none, I placed my hand on his throat, feeling for any sign that his heart was still beating. Nothing. I sighed, stood up, took my still camera from its bag, and began to shoot pictures. I heard sirens out in front, and two ambulance attendants and a deputy came around the side of the house.

“He’s dead,” I told the deputy as I moved to get another photo from a different angle.

The deputy motioned the ambulance attendants to hold up while I finished shooting.

Just then, the dead man gave a groan and moved.

I jumped. The ambulance personnel leaped onto the porch and started examining him.

“He’s alive!” one of them shouted as they quickly scooped him onto a stretcher and hurried him to the ambulance. Moments later they went screaming off towards the hospital.

The deputy stood staring at me. All I could say was, “He looked dead. There was no pulse.”

I got a call from the sheriff’s office later that evening, telling me that, unbelievably, not only was the man still alive, but he had been treated at the hospital, released, and was now back home.

As it was explained by the doctors at the hospital, the man had purchased a small-caliber gun that day with the intention of shooting himself. But he pressed the barrel so hard against his head that when he pulled the trigger, the bullet couldn’t exert its full force. It pierced the skin but not his skull. He cut the back of his head on the porch when he fell, a wound that was not serious but bled a great deal. The doctor said the bullet wound was about the equivalent of being punched in a fight, right between the eyes. It gave him nothing more than a bad headache. They put a bandage over the bullet wound and two stitches in the back of his head, gave him some painkillers, and sent him home.

Anytime I was called to a homicide or suicide scene after that, deputies would tease me by calling me “Dr. Death.”

In his new book of memoirs, Tales From the Road, veteran reporter and travel guru Neil Zurcher recalls his formative years growing up in Henrietta, Ohio and his adventures from over thirty years of broadcasting. In this story, Neil begins his television career when he purchases a camera and is assigned to photograph some of Cleveland’s most atrocious crimes and accidents. This book will be available online from Amazon.com and from NE Ohio book stores in late May. For more information, call the publisher at 1-800-915-3609 or visit their web site: www.grayco.com