Montville's Person of the Week: Chesterfield Fire Chief Truex and His Firefighters

We have resuscitated the Person of the Week!  It took a hiatus, but it’s back!

This week, while we know many, many folks are deserving for their tireless efforts in helping their family, friends and neighbors though the recent blizzard, we heard about one story that made us go, hmmm – sounds like we’ve got our 2013 inaugural POTW -- Chesterfield Fire Chief Keith Truex and his team!

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On the Saturday the blizzard of 2013 was still roaring and wreaking havoc on Montville, an elderly woman on Beckwith Road, without power, cold and perhaps even a bit frightened, found herself trapped in her home. The house has a very long driveway and she was, quite literally, snowed in. (Several attempts to reach the woman, who we’ll not name, for comment on this story were unsuccessful.)

Meanwhile, as the storm continued its fury, a neighbor called for help.

From here, we’ll let Chesterfield Fire Chief Keith Truex take over:

 “It was about 7 p.m. on Saturday. The neighbor called because they were concerned about their elderly neighbor who was home alone. She had no heat, no power. And the driveway hadn’t been shoveled or plowed at all since the fist snowflake Friday. We came and she was crying and very cold. She just couldn’t take that kind of cold. Her power had been out since Friday. 

We came and tried to see if we could get a plow in there; it’s a long, long up-sloping driveway. We talked to Don (Bourdeau, public works chief) and eh said maybe with a pay loader but it was on the other side of town, busy and there was no way to get it there in a timely manner. We drove our service truck up as far as possible and walked the rest of the way up. This was like what we call a well-being check – we needed to find out if she really even wanted to go. She did. She wanted to leave. But the snow was way above my knees and there was no way she’d be ale to walk out. So we had to get manpower. We had the rescue truck and we had to figure out a way to get her out.  What ended up working better was the Stokes rescue basket (also known as a rescue stretcher) because ours is plastic and it worked just like a sled. We put her and her dog in it and attached a rope and we pulled her out carefully down that long driveway.  It was something.”

Something, indeed!  And so, we salute Chief Truex and his team for this awesome – and enterprising – rescue during the blizzard! 

Who do you think should be our next Person of the Week?  Email me at ellyn.santiago@patch.com or share in the comments!

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