www.breakawaybrazil.com

Richard Swanson was killed after being hit by a vehicle while trekking from Seattle to Brazil.

A Seattle man who felt “destined” to go on a 10,000-mile fundraising journey to soccer’s World Cup in Brazil, dribbling a soccer ball along the way, has died just two weeks into his journey.

Richard Swanson, 42, was hit by a pickup truck in Lincoln City, Ore., on Tuesday morning, along Highway 101, Lincoln City police said. Swanson left May 1 on a trip that would have taken him through 11 countries before he reached Sao Paolo, Brazil, the site of soccer tournament.

Swanson, a Seattle resident, was documenting his adventure on his website, BreakAwayBrazil.com, where he was also asking for donations for the One World Futbol Project – an organization that donates sturdy soccer balls to youth in developing countries.

“We are extremely saddened to hear the news about Richard. He was a very inspiring man, our thoughts are with his family,” One World Futbol tweeted on Tuesday after learning of Swanson’s death.

Swanson was a private investigator for years, and then a graphic designer. A father of two grown sons, he got laid off from his job last year and was looking for an adventure.

“I felt destined that I should go on this trip,” Swanson, who five years ago discovered a love for soccer, told the Longview, Wash., Daily News on May 7.

In a YouTube video he recorded of himself on his website, Swanson addressed how wild the idea of walking from Seattle to Brazil sounded – but he said he’s always wanted to go to the World Cup.

“Screw what happens. I don’t even care, I should just take off, out the door, and start hoofing it and head south,” he said he found himself thinking, with little disposal income after getting laid off.

Then he took the idea further.

“Since I’m going to the World Cup, I should honor it by dribbling a soccer ball, which makes the trip even more crazy. Of course I batted the idea around a little and thought, 'This is lunacy.'”

What convinced him was running the idea by a friend, who told him about the One World Futbol project. The part-adventure, part-fundraiser was born.

“Part of the trip was for myself, but part of it was for all the people who can’t do things like this,” he said in the video. “They have their responsibilities. They can’t leave their jobs they’ve been at for 10-plus years. They have mortgages, they have young kids.”

The trip came to a tragic end on Tuesday when Swanson was hit on the shoulder of the highway at around 10 a.m., Lincoln City Police Lt. Jerry Palmer said. Swanson was seriously injured and died at the hospital, Palmer said.

“He had his backpack that he was living out of, his cell phone, and his little soccer ball that he was working his way south with,” Palmer said.

No charges have been filed. Palmer said a district attorney will determine in the next couple of days whether charges are necessary.

Kristi Schwesinger, a friend of Swanson’s in Seattle, told The Associated Press that Swanson had started out his trek in flip-flops. After 13 nights, he switched to hiking sandals, she said. He spent two of his nights in Vancouver, Wash., with his son, Devin, and spent the other nights sleeping on strangers’ couches.

"It was all by word of mouth, Facebook, media contacts, friends and family who put the word out," Schwesinger told The AP.

He spent Monday night in Lincoln City, where he got to take a soak in a hot tub. Schwesinger  said he was headed to Newport, Ore., next, and didn’t know where he was going to stay.

"The hardest thing is he was so young," Schwesinger told The AP. "Just today we were planning his surprise birthday party for Sunday. He was so young, so full of life, so excited by the journey he was on. To be taken from us so soon is really heartbreaking."

This story was originally published on Wed May 15, 2013 4:19 AM EDT

A man who was pinned by his overturned tractor and losing breath with each scream says he was saved by his two teenage daughters, who found the strength to lift the ton-and-a-half machine.

Jeff Smith of Lebanon, Ore., was trying to pull a stump out of his garden last Monday when his muddy boot slipped off the clutch. The tractor flipped, and the steering wheel pinned his chest to the ground.

The daughters, 16-year-old Hannah and 14-year-old Haylee, heard him screaming and ran to help. They reportedly lifted the tractor enough to free his torso and give him room to breathe.

“It’s amazing. You hear about this kind of stuff — this adrenaline rush, being able to pick cars up and slide people out,” Smith told KGW, the NBC affiliate in Portland. “You never realize it’s really there until you actually witness it.”

The girls tried to dig their father’s arm out but struck compacted dirt. Hannah got on her four-wheeler and found a neighbor, who brought his own tractor and used its shovel to finish freeing Smith, the Albany Democrat-Herald newspaper reported.

Jesse Skoubo / Mid-Valley Sunday

Jeff Smith sits astride his tractor alongside his daughters Hannah, 16, and Haylee, 14 at his Oregon home Saturday afternoon.

Smith was treated at the hospital for a broken wrist and other injuries. Hannah said she called her mother before the ambulance ride. The mother thought it was an April Fool’s joke.

“I just can’t believe it happened, honestly,” Hannah told the newspaper. “We were supposed to go to a friend’s house. I don’t know why we didn’t.”

Since the ordeal, neighbors have finished tilling the garden, and the family has nicknamed the tractor Satan.

This story was originally published on Wed Apr 10, 2013 12:11 PM EDT

PORTLAND -- A local teen says he was sideswiped, and punched in the face. He then learned the stranger accused of attacking him is a local special-needs teacher. 

The encounter happened Thursday afternoon at Southwest Johnson Street and Southwest 200th Court in Aloha. 

Alexander Hoang, 17, was driving home from school Thursday when he said someone started tailgating him in a 25 mph zone. He says the driver tried to make an illegal pass and then sideswiped him. 

Then the two pulled over at the side of the road. 

“He yelled at me ‘Are you trying to effing play games with me?’ Before I could say anything, he landed a couple punches to my face.

The first hard punch was to my lip and then to my eye, right here,” Hoang said. 

Police arrested Liberty High School teacher Bruce Clevenger after he left the scene. He’s facing hit-and-run and assault, among other charges. 

A witness followed the 62-year-old man home from the scene of the attack. 

Hoang went to the hospital with a busted lip and a black eye. He said he’s never been in a fight in his life. The biggest shock wasn’t getting punched; it was finding out who punched him. 

“I was really shocked to hear that. Really, a teacher? A teacher should be a good example to his students. I don’t know what got into him—unbelievable,’” he said. 

Hoang and Clevenger are in the same district but not the same school and never met until yesterday. The teacher is now on administrative paid leave. 

KGW reporter Reggie Aqui contributed to this report. 

Don Ryan / AP

The body of a skier was found Sunday near Mount Hood, seen in this Dec. 14, 2009 photo.

The body of a 23-year-old man who skied off into the night after he apparently drank alcohol in a hut on Oregon’s Mount Hood was found submerged in a creek late Sunday, officials said.

Clackamas County Sheriff's Office said it was “sad to report” the body had been found at about 7:15 p.m. local time (10:15 p.m. ET) Sunday near Highway 26 west of the Ski Bowl Resort.

“Searchers learned that a group of experienced skiers left the boundary of Ski Bowl's west side last night. The group gathered at a hut that is just outside the boundary,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. 

“Investigators learned from a member of the group that alcohol was being consumed and the subject appeared intoxicated,” it said. “The subject decided to head down the mountain alone but became disorientated when he left.”

“He had been in contact with a member of the group via cell phone but was still unable to find his way,” it added.

In a previous statement, the sheriff’s office said the man was last seen at 9 p.m. local time Saturday by campers at Mirror Lake and was reported missing at 11 a.m. Sunday.

It said the man “had left the group he was with to ski down the mountain. The group made plans to meet up later but the subject did not show up.”

The campers “had only been in contact with him from across the lake.  The campers attempted to direct him to their location but he never arrived,” the earlier statement said.

Pacific Northwest Search and Rescue, Mountain Wave Search and Rescue, American Medical Response Reach and Treat Team, and the Oregon National Guard were involved in the search along with a helicopter.

Related:

Woman who vanished while hiking Mt. Hood found alive, officials say

GOVERNMENT CAMP, Ore. -- Mary Owen, a 23-year-old woman who disappeared after going hiking alone on Mount Hood, was found alive on Sandy Glacier by a National Guard Helicopter Saturday morning, officials said.

Owen was reportedly taken by helicopter to Legacy Emanuel Hospital with some injuries and frostbite, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office. 

Owen was found after a second day of searching by rescue teams from around the area. She was reported missing at 8:15 p.m. Thursday, according to Deputy Bryon O'Neil of the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office. She had written in an email to a friend Sunday that she planned to go hiking, but had not been heard from since then. 

Read original story at KGW.com

Deputies called Timberline Lodge Thursday and the manager on duty said Owen's vehicle, a white 1998 Toyota 4-Runner was parked in the lot, O'Neil said. Investigators said the vehicle looked like it had been parked there for some time. 

"Ms. Owen's backpack is still in her vehicle so she may be short on supplies," O'Neil said. "She is an experienced hiker who has in the past hiked the Pacific Coast Trail from Mexico to Canada." 

Anyone who may have seen her since Saturday was asked to call CCSO at (503) 655-8211 or send an email to Sergeant Sean Collinson. 

After an hours long standoff at an Oregon motel, police announced late Tuesday they have captured the 26-year-old ex-con accused of murdering his elderly grandparents.

Michael “Chad” Boysen had been the subject of a manhunt throughout the Pacific Northwest after his grandparents were found dead late Saturday. Thursday morning police moved in on the Westshore Oceanfront Motel in Lincoln City, Ore., after an employee recognized Boysen's face on the news.

Police spent much of the day trying to peacefully lure Boysen out of the room he was holed up in. A police spokesperson tweeted around 7:30 local time that Oregon officials had taken the suspect into custody.

Boysen had barricaded himself in his room as Oregon state police attempted to negotiate with him via a bullhorn. Police then used a water cannon to elicit a response from the suspect, the Associate Press reports.

Boysen had been described as “extremely dangerous” and has a warrant out for his arrest on suspicion of first-degree murder. 

He was staying with his grandparents in the Seattle suburb of Renton, Wash., after serving a prison sentence for robbery. The grandparents threw a welcome back party for him the night before they were found dead.

Police said the grandparents were not shot but declined to provide other details about their killings, pending autopsies.

A 4-year-old girl in Washington state pulled her little sister from the wreckage of a car crash that killed their mother, then kept the two of them warm under a blanket in the chilly rain for six hours until a passing driver found them.

State troopers said that the girls probably only survived because the older sister had the wherewithal to get them out of the car and cover them. The younger girl is 2. Both were hurt, NBC affiliate KING5 in Seattle reported.

The crash happened at about 2 a.m. Wednesday in a remote part of the state near the Pacific coast. It was after 8 when a driver noticed a fresh cut in the bark of a tree along the road — an orange gash in otherwise green and gray woods.

“I just can’t imagine what the little girls were going through,” the driver, Kraai McClure, told KING5. “It could have been a really different ending, but it is, you know, a halfway happy ending.”

The mother, 26, was on her way to pick up her husband, a fisherman, along the Washington coast, The Seattle Times reported. He told her on the phone that his boat would be coming into Portland, Ore., instead, and that she and the girls should head home, KING5 reported.

The woman, identified by troopers as Jessica Rath, apparently decided to drive to Portland anyway. Troopers said she probably fell asleep at the wheel and was killed instantly when the vehicle crashed.

“We’re lucky we had someone paying attention or we may not have found them for a long time,” Trooper Russ Winger, a spokesman for the Washington State Patrol, told The Times. “Hypothermia could have set in if they were found any later.”

Both girls were taken to a hospital in Astoria, Ore., and the 2-year-old, who troopers said was seriously injured, was later flown to Portland.

A woman died in a car crash near Naselle, Wash., early Wednesday, but her two daughters survived the accident.

An "officer-involved shooting investigation" has been launched after a suspected gunman's death at a Portland, Ore., hospital.

Officers were called to the Adventist Medical Center in south-east Portland  at 9:30 p.m. Sunday local time (0:30 a.m. ET Monday) following reports of a man with a gun on the hospital's grounds, city police spokesman Pete Simpson said in a statement.

Police encountered the suspect as they locked-down the hospital and its campus, according to Simpson.

“Shots were fired and the suspect is deceased,” the statement said. “Portland Police are now in the very early stages of an officer-involved shooting investigation.”

Judy Leach, spokeswoman for the Adventist Medical Center, said the hospital “issued a code silver as a result of a combative person on the premises.”

She added: “There were no injuries to any patients or staff. The suspect is officially deceased. Portland Police continue to investigate the incident.

“The health, security, and safety of our patients, physicians, and staff is our number one priority. The policy put into place worked. Counselors and chaplains are on hand for anyone requiring services.”