News from Apex. They’ve added a second, fully-staffed ladder company, effective April 6. On that date, Ladder 34 (at Station 4) and Ladder 35 (at Station 5) were both in service. This followed the graduation of a recruit academy, which added sixteen firefighters to the full-time ranks. The backstory on the second ladder company is …
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Long before COVID crashed out shores, our fire departments and rescue squads assisted with another national health crisis. During the polio outbreaks of the 1940s and 1950s, they added iron lungs to their emergency equipment. Here’s the Durham Fire Department receiving one, as photographed by Charles Cooper for the Durham Morning Herald and/or Sun on …
These notes were originally posted on Facebook, after a trench rescue incident on Wednesday, January 15, 2020. See more photos from Mike Legeros in this SmugMug album. Incident Dispatched 11:03 a.m. Gas station construction site at 4209 Corners Parkway, near intersection of Glenwood Avenue and TW Alexander Drive. Below grade earth collapse trapping four …
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Here’s a surprise historical find, newly discovered audio recording of the 911 call, the dispatch, and the first 13 minutes of radio traffic, of fire units responding to the commuter plane crash in Morrisville on December 13, 1994. Listen to the recording at www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwV4H5GVK_Y. It was contributed by David Ferrell, a Morrisville Fire Captain and …
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For your Friday enjoyment, here’s a vintage picture of Durham’s early rescue trucks. Left is the city-county rescue squad’s second truck, a late 1960s GMC van procured after the original late 1950s Civil Defense rescue truck was wrecked in November 1966. Right is the squad’s third and newly repaired rescue truck, with a new Ford …
This content has been moved to a dedicated web page at legeros.com/history/stories/durham-rescue.
Let’s build a timeline. Histories of rescue services in Orange County. To be updated over the coming days and weeks. Based on this Facebook posting. See also this Google drive folder of research documents. 1963 to 1969 1963, Apr – Class project started by UNC Air Force ROTC cadets, for a civilian defense “operational survival …
For your Monday enjoyment, vintage images of Greenville and Pitt County rescue trucks, as photographed by the Daily Reflector in the 1950s and 1960s, via Joyner Library at East Carolina University, via their Digital Collections. See individual images on the Facebook side, in this photo album.
https://legeros.com/history/library/ Let’s add a vintage manual to our ever-expanding digital history library. The original Jaws of Life and their 32-page manual, undated. Maybe… late 1970s or early 1980s?
For your Friday reading, here’s a bit of Forsyth County rescue history. Found on eBay a year or two ago. Vintage, 24-page “yearbook” of the (all-black!) Air King Rescue Squad. https://www.legeros.com/history/library/ They operated from 1962 to 1981, previously as Citizens Radio Club, and subsequently as Southeast Winston Rescue Squad. They ceased operation in 1993. Some …
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