An Old Bus Sacrificed For Safety

To the Editor,

Recently, the Sandy Hook Volunteer Fire & Rescue Co. Inc. has received an old school bus to practice some of our rescue evolutions on. Without the help of the following people, this would have been almost impossible. First, I would like to thank Mary Kelly, the director of Newtown’s bus transportation, for assisting us in finding the bus. This took a lot of time to call around and find one that a company was willing to discard and we appreciate all of her help. Second, we would like to thank Patty Caroll of Ryder Transportation in Bristol, Connecticut for donating one of their old school buses to the fire department and for helping in us in any way that we needed. And last but not least, we would like to thank Paul of Hilario’s towing company for organizing the towing of the bus from Bristol back to the firehouse and Eric for completing the actual towing.

We get a lot of things donated to the fire department, such as cars, for us to continue our training on and to keep our skills up to date. A school bus is something that we have not had a training session on in a long time and unfortunately a bus accident could happen at any time in this town. Having this drill will allow us to keep our skills fresh and be prepared for an actual accident. This will allow us to ensure the safe and rapid rescue of victims in this type of crash. Again, we would like to thank all of those mentioned above for assisting us in receiving this school bus.

Sincerely,

BJ Halstead

 Sandy Hook Vol. Fire & Rescue Co. Inc.

18-20 Riverside Road                       January 2, 2000