David R. Chew Jr.
David R. Chew Jr., 30, of
Parksley, a Bloxom Fire Co. volunteer who worked as a medic with the
Northampton County Department of Emergency Medical Services and also was
a United Methodist minister, died in a July 16, 2012, fire truck crash
on Nelsonia Road about a half mile west of U. S. Route 13.
The firefighters were on their way to respond to an accident on U. S. Route 13 in Gargatha when the fatal crash happened.
A
second firefighter was transported from the scene to Riverside Shore
Memorial Hospital with minor injuries, a witness at the scene said. That
victim’s identity was not immediately released by police.
Chew
served as chaplain of the Bloxom Volunteer Fire Company and was a rescue
lieutenant and a member of the company’s board of directors. He had
been involved in fire and EMS work since 2001, according to his profile
on the Northampton County Department of EMS website.
Chew, who
was married and the father of a 3-year-old son, had just become pastor
of Hallwood United Methodist Church — his first Sunday there was July 1.
William Harold “Hal” Clark
William
Harold “Hal” Clark, 54, died in the line of duty Sept. 24, 2010. Clark
was president of the Atlantic Volunteer Fire and Rescue Co. when he
passed away at a Maryland hospital after falling ill while battling a
woods fire near New Church.
Upward of 450 people, including
scores of firefighters and rescue workers from Virginia, Maryland and
Delaware and some three dozen American Legion Riders, gathered Friday at
Union Baptist Church on Chincoteague for funeral services for Clark.
Clark
was president of Atlantic Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company and was a
lifetime member of both Atlantic and Chincoteague volunteer fire
companies.
Clark was remembered as one of “a very special breed
of people” — firefighters — who “charge in where angels fear to tread”
in a eulogy given by the Rev. Bob Reese, who officiated along with the
Rev. Maurice Enright.
“Hal died liked he lived — loving, helping others,” Reese said.
Ken Miller
Cape
Charles firefighter Ken Miller, 65, died on Oct. 16, 2000, of an
apparent heart attack he suffered while fighting a fire allegedly set by
an arsonist at an abandoned structure on Seaside Road near Townsend. He
was helping another firefighter hold a hose aimed at the blaze when he
collapsed.
Miller was a former Cape Charles Town Council member
and past president of the fire company and was captain at the time he
died. He also was a lieutenant in the rescue squad.
Miller was a
Korean War veteran and had retired from C&P Telephone Co. after more
than 30 years with the company. He had moved to Cape Charles 18 years
before, where he started Miller Electric Co.
Fire engines and
rescue vehicles from all over the Eastern Shore as well as from Virginia
Beach, Maryland and Delaware paid tribute to Miller at a memorial
service attended by over 400 people, held at the Cape Charles Rescue
Service building in Cheriton.
Steven Colona
Steven A.
Colona, a volunteer with the Melfa Volunteer Fire and Rescue Co., was
only 18 when he died on Dec. 27, 1994, from injuries suffered when the
tanker truck he was driving to a reported poultry house fire ran off
Airport Road in Melfa and flipped twice, after its load of water
apparently shifted going around a curve.
The fire turned out to be a controlled burn.
Colona,
who signed on as a volunteer the day he turned 16, had recently
completed shock trauma emergency medical technician training and was
chief engineer for Melfa at the time he died.
More than 500
firefighters and 90 emergency vehicles from three states participated in
his funeral procession through Onancock on New Year’s Day, 1995.
Page Outten
Page
O. Outten, a charter member and treasurer of the Cheriton Volunteer
Fire Company, died on Oct. 8, 1992, at Sentara Norfolk General Hospital
after falling ill with an apparent aneurysm while responding to an
automobile accident.
“He drove the truck to the wreck,” said
Robben Outten, his son and himself a 39-year member of the Cheriton fire
company. “It hit him going to the wreck. He stuck it out.”
Outten,
71 at the time of his death, was well-known in Cheriton. At one time,
he and fellow firefighter Lawrence West owned stores in the town and
both would fill the fire trucks with fuel without ever charging the fire
company for it.
Thomas Griffin
Onley Volunteer Fire and
Rescue Co. also suffered the loss of one of its members in the line of
duty on April 30, 1976, when Thomas W. Griffin Jr. died of a heart
attack at age 49 after responding to an ambulance call.
Griffin
had performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on a victim during the long
ambulance ride from Cashville to the hospital, according to Jimmy
Rowley, chaplain of the Delmarva Firemen’s Association and a 40-year
member of Parksley Volunteer Fire Company.
Griffin was a World War II veteran and an employee of NOAA.
Milton Taylor
Milton
Eugene Taylor of Hopeton, a volunteer with the Parksley Volunteer Fire
Company who died on Oct. 11, 1954, after suffering a heart attack on the
way to a nine-alarm blaze that leveled a dance hall and home and
damaged two other houses on U. S. Route 13 in Nassawadox.
Taylor worked as a salesman for Duncan Brothers, a car dealership in Pocomoke City, Md.
On
that Monday evening, he fell ill en route to the Nassawadox fire, which
was called in around 7 p.m. He was taken to the office of Dr. Burleigh
Mears, who sent him to Northampton-Accomack Memorial Hospital where he
died at about 9:25 p.m., according to a report in the Peninsula
Enterprise newspaper.
Taylor was only 34 years old when he died. He left behind a wife, Elizabeth, and three children.
Taylor
was described in his obituary as “a highly esteemed citizen of Hopeton”
and a large crowd attended his funeral at Hallwood Methodist Church two
days later.
