By Susan Braden
Journal Inquirer
OLD SAYBROOK, Conn. — An off-duty firefighter, working for Sea Tow, was just leaving North Cove on the Connecticut River when his pager went off notifying him of the deadly Labor Day boat crash that killed three men and injured several others.
“He was at the scene before our boat left the dock, which was just incredible,” said past Old Saybrook Fire Chief J.T. Dunn.
From the Sea Tow vessel, OSFD Lt. Thomas H Heinssen Jr. pulled six injured people out of the water that night. They were then transferred to the OSFD fire boat, the Gordon B. Smith, named for the first fire chief in 1924, and brought to safety, Dunn said.
The fatal nighttime crash into the jetty killed Christopher Hallahan, 34, of Westbrook, Ian Duchemin, 25, of Oakdale, and Ryan Britagna, 24, of Waterford.
“We actually notified the Coast Guard of the incident because the people called 911 on their phones,” Dunn said, adding the boat had sunk so they couldn’t call on the marine channel.
That rescue is a far cry from when the 100-year-old fire company relied on a WWII duck boat for rescues and graduated to inflatable Zodiac boats, followed by donated pleasure boats.
It’s the latest in the long-storied past of the all-volunteer Old Saybrook Fire Company No. 1, which just marked its 100th year with a parade two weeks before.
The boating accident reminded Dunn, the OSFD’s unofficial historian, of the fire department’s decades-long plea for a proper fire boat, which fire officials said was urgently needed and finally got in 2010. The department pressed the town and finally got a " Moose Boat ,” a catamaran specially built for emergency response that shoots 1,000 gallons of water per minute.
Dunn noted in the last 20 years or so there have been more fatalities in the water than on land, about half a dozen. The OSFD is most often the first responder on the scene because the Coast Guard stations are miles from Old Saybrook — with one in New London and the other in New Haven.
In 1988, Fire Chief Coleman Bushnell told the town the department would refuse to go out on emergency calls on the Sound in the Zodiacs, which made rescues unmanageable in treacherous seas. But town officials told him no and said it was the federal government’s responsibility, according to Dunn.
After that standoff, the fire department then relied on a series of pleasure crafts that were retrofitted, until its last cast-off vessel sank, two decades later.
The 2010 purchase was for $370,000 and paid for in half by insurance with the town making up the difference, Dunn said.
The professional fire boat is called out for rescues as far as the waters right off Long Island, Dunn said, noting those small fire departments often rely on the OSFD to come to their aid. The fire ship is equipped for firefighting and rescue with a medical treatment area.
Dunn noted the police and Old Saybrook Ambulance Association are first on the scene for medical emergencies.
The fire boat’s powerful pump also helps douse blazes in the Chalker Beach community, where four have happened since the 1980s since high winds off the water can set a conflagration among the clustered cottages, he said.
Dunn, who calls himself a history buff, has worked to meticulously document the history of the fire company, which is independent of the town.
He began with a loose-leaf binder filled with fire department meeting minutes, started by an OSFD secretary in the 1990s. He set to do his homework, combing 29,000 pages of the defunct New Era newspaper, which he procured digitally from the Deep River Library in addition to delving into other newspapers’ digital libraries.
Working on it for four years, Dunn gave himself the goal to finish by his 55th birthday. He completed it the day before, Dunn said with a grin. He hopes someday to turn it into a book.
Highlights from the archive on the fire department website include tales of heroics and local lore.
There is the 1928 fire, set off when an illegal, “secret” still blew up in the Fenwick Barns, which stored an entire fleet of yachts that were wiped out. Stables were also burned to the ground, Dunn said.
Then there is the story of a heroic homemaker Ethel Heiny whose neighbor’s house was ablaze on Saybrook Point in 1949. Heiny dragged her neighbor out of the burning building after Mrs. Walter Hirschfeld had gone back into her home to save her cats and dogs, according to the archive.
Dunn notes that Heiny is a big name in the fire department as six of Ethel’s relatives joined its ranks.
“We’ve had three generations of Heineys,” Dunn recalled, adding Ed Heiney, who died in 2008, was assistant chief; and his late son David served as fire chief. His twin sons William and David Jr . both served as officers and William is deputy chief now.
Many felt the call to join the fire department back then, Dunn said, adding the company had 33 members in 1928, compared to the 82 today.
“Being in the fire service years ago, they would say it’s like the poor man’s country club,” Dunn joked when belonging to the department promoted camaraderie among members. He noted there are a number of female volunteer firefighters now.
“And because all of the members are residents of the town, and that’s been the case from the beginning, they really are invested in the success of the town,” he said.
Other locally famous names in the fire department include the Bushnels, with three generations; four generations of the Rochettes and three generations of the LaMays.
The archive has a treasure trove of vintage black and white photos and videos of fires past, antique fire apparatus from the early to late 20th century and parades over the years.
Its first fire truck, a 1924 American La France Chemical Engine, was thought to be moldering in an old town dump, but the department happily learned it was in the hands of a private owner. The restored antique, originally sold to another fire department in the 1940s, made it to the parade last month after it was discovered on social media.
Probate Judge Charles S. Gates, called the “father of the Old Saybrook Fire Department,” asked his old friend, railroad executive, Finley J. Shepard of New York to donate the apparatus. The two men had gone to school together and played on the Old Saybrook Baseball team. Shepard, who married the heiress of a railroad magnate, gave it to the town, so long as the town formed a fire company with a garage for the vehicle and install fire alarms, Dunn said.
Dunn said he gained renewed respect for the department’s predecessors while doing research into the OSFD’s history,
“I really appreciate the work that people did before us to get us to where we are today,” Dunn said. “It amazes me ... they couldn’t have computers, there was no cell phones, everything went through the town operator.
“They made do with what they had,” Dunn said. “And it’s very impressive. It’s an impressive thing.”
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