The Department of Fire Services presented 16 awards to 76 firefighters as part of the 31st Annual Firefighter of the Year awards. Rockland, Hanover, and Hanson firefighters were honored during the virtual ceremony.
Rockland Captain Jason Fricker and Firefighter Michael Tracy were awarded the Medal of Valor. Firefighter Richard Furlong, Sr. was awarded a Governor’s Citation for Meritorious Conduct. The three-man crew rescued a woman from a five-alarm fire on East Water Street on January 2, 2020.
With other members of the six-man shift on a medical call, Fricker, Tracy, and Furlong were the first to the blaze.
Once inside, Fricker and Tracy found heavy smoke on the second-floor landing. They were about to enter an apartment where the fire was heaviest, but heard a person moaning above them.
Tracy went upstairs and found an unconscious woman. With Fricker holding back the flames, Tracy brought her downstairs. Furlong and Rockland Police Officers Sergeant Jim Simpson and Officer Michael Byers gave the woman oxygen and started providing emergency care.
Exhausted from the rescue, Fricker and Tracy re-entered the building to search for other victims. They were forced out due to heavy fire conditions. Twenty people were displaced from the fire, but there were no other injuries reported. The woman was released from the hospital hours later and made a full recovery.
Mutual aid from over 12 towns and cities responded to the fire in Rockland. Photo credit: Lenny Rowe.
The Hanover Fire Department received the Norman Knight Community Service award. The department created a mobile integrated health program to bring COVID-19 testing to vulnerable residents early on during the pandemic. Over 1,000 tests were conducted from March to September.
Deputy Chief Jason Cavallaro, Captain Fred Freeman, and Firefighter/Paramedics Shayne Blakeman, Joseph Centeio, Joseph Pacella, Sebastian Rivas, Richard Salvucci, and Kyle Stetler developed the program.
“As the pandemic was still emerging, this group of firefighters developed a mobile testing concept in collaboration with several other departments in their town, obtained the training necessary to conduct testing, applied successfully for a grant that provided equipment needed to deliver testing, and received a license to conduct the program from the MA Department of Public Health,” said the Department of Fire Services.
The Hanson Fire Department received a Governor’s Citation for Group Meritorious Conduct for an icy rescue of two people on Maquan Pond on New Year’s Eve 2019.
Around 10:40 p.m., two people fell out of a kayak, and were clinging to the edge of the ice, about 100 yards from the shore.
Firefighters Gary Somers and Thomas White donned rescue suits. Chief Jerry Thompson and Firefighter Timothy Royer grabbed a rescue boat. The ice was too thick for the boat, but too thin for Somers and White to stand on. The victims said there were not able to hold on, and began to slip underwater.
Somers and White crawled and used their elbows to break a path out to the two men.
They got one man to a rescue sled, and grabbed the second man after he slipped underwater. Lieutenant Keith Wilson and members of the police department assisted in bringing them to shore.
The 31st Annual Firefighter of the Year ceremony can be viewed here.
