The Car Crash That Pushed My Volunteer Firefighter Skills to the Limit by Mark Edgington

I served as a volunteer firefighter with the Westmoreland Volunteer Fire Department in New Hampshire from about 2008 to 2020. It was a rewarding, sometimes intense experience that showed me how vital local volunteers are in emergency services.

Hudson Fire Department

One night, our pager (called the “Minotaur”) went off with an emergency call: a single-car accident just a quarter mile down the road from my house. I was the first to arrive.

The scene was chaotic. The car was so wrecked I barely understood what I was seeing. It had crashed near gas pumps, and steam was rising. I thought it might explode at any moment.

Despite the danger, I moved closer. Then the chief arrived and shouted, “Mark, get outta there!” in his thick New England accent.

Later, we cut the driver out of the wreckage. I used my knife to free his seat belt, and it was lucky I had one on me. He was a big guy, around 230 pounds. The story was grim: he’d taken some pills and crashed while driving around 130 mph in a 35 mph zone. His Ford

Focus hit a 700-pound rock, which smashed into a 500-pound rock. The wheel was launched 17 feet in the air and landed on top of the gas station canopy. We found it weeks later.

The driver survived but did some jail time afterward. We stayed until 4 a.m., watching cops mark pills in the road.

Being a volunteer firefighter means being ready for anything. These calls don’t just test your skills, they remind you why community service matters.

Looking back now, it was a great decade of my life. I’ll never forget stories like these that kept me up all night.

— Mark Edgington

This article also appears on https://medium.com/@markedgington, where you can learn more about Mark Edgington’s ongoing work.