NEW YORK CITY – Surly street vendor Lance Orton, who alerted police to the suspicious SUV that contained a home-made bomb in Times Square, was also the first to alert authorities about suspicious activity in the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland just before the eruption.
He is also believed to have been the first passenger on the Christmas Day flight to Detroit to notice the fire started by the underwear bomber.
For each of the incidents, Orton explained: “When the smoke started, I realized there might be more to this than meets the eye.”
Officials in New York and Iceland praised Orton, but acquaintances called him a “damn busybody who’s always noticing things that are none of his business.”
