Any call a risk for firefighters – Delaware

With horns honking, motorists careened past lit flares that firefighters placed Sunday beside a parked emergency vehicle along South Du Pont Highway near New Castle.

It was similar to the scene across from New Castle Airport on Dec. 20, when Michelle L. Smith, a Delaware City volunteer firefighter helping a man who had fallen from a motorcycle, was struck by a car and killed.

"He drove past all of our apparatus as we were heading to the scene," said Jim Barlow, president of Wilmington Manor Fire Company. "That could have been any one of us. There was nothing that could have been done to prevent Michelle from getting hit, or anyone helping with that vehicle."

Barlow was among company members who returned to the scene Sunday, where flowers were placed as a makeshift memorial to Smith, 29, the Middletown mother of a 12-year-old daughter.

Also at the scene were red markings that show where a New Castle County Police officer stopped his cruiser and tried to keep traffic from getting near the accident.

There also were red-and- green markings that show where Smith stopped to help Edward Reiss, 30, of New Castle. They indicate where Delaware State Police say Smith and Reiss were hit by a BMW driven by Joseph M. Taye, 28, of Bear.

Smith died Dec. 22 at Christiana Hospital, where Reiss remained Sunday.

Taye, a paraplegic, was charged with manslaughter and four other offenses and was released from Young Correctional Institution on $37,500 bail.

Volunteer firefighters from Wilmington Manor are especially saddened by Smith’s death because she was covering a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift so they could attend a swearing-in ceremony for new firefighters.

"Michelle was killed in our fire district," said Chief Ronald T. Hopkins III. "She wasn’t a member of our fire company, but we’re looking at it in a different way because it happened here."

The accident also is testing the confidence of some emergency workers, Barlow said.

"Everybody is upset about the situation and nervous that if we go back on the highway it could happen again," he said.

Volunteer firefighters hope the public will be more cautious when driving past emergency scenes, Hopkins and Barlow said.

"You get all kinds of stuff out here," Barlow said. "They get mad at you and curse at you. They throw their ashtrays at you."

Motorists also create hazards by speeding while talking on cell phones or sending text messages, he said while shaking his head.

"We get accidents at accident scenes because of nosy people."

John Farrell, public information officer for Aetna Hose, Hook & Ladder Company of Newark, also said that accidents such as the one that killed Smith have a continuing impact on volunteers.

"We are trained how to set up blocking, how to protect people, but that won’t stop people from winging through that and getting you," Farrell said. "It’s always in the back of your mind."

Contact Ira Porter at 324-2890 or [email protected].