Summer Festival heats up

Published 1:36 am Sunday, June 12, 2011

Firefighters/EMTs Alan McCutcheon (left) and Zachary Moricle aboard Gator 1, the newest equipment addition at the Washington Fire-Rescue-EMS Department. (WDN Photo/Mike Voss)

A Gator was loose at the Summer Festival.
No, not an alligator, but Gator 1, the newest vehicle at the Washington Fire-Rescue-EMS Department. Gator 1 responded to an EMS call during the Summer Festival on Friday night. Gator 1 did not transport the patient to a waiting EMS unit because the patient refused transport to Beaufort County Medical Center.
“This is going to be a great asset for us with the ever-growing number of festivals they have down here,” said fire Chief Robbie Rose during a brief interview on Washington’s waterfront during the festival Saturday. “It seems like the city is adding more and more festivals. It will be something that will allow us to come into these large crowds, extract people out of a crowd and bring them right straight into an EMS unit.”
Rose said Gator 1 is attracting attention, including that of the organizers of the upcoming July 4 festivities in Washington. Gator 1 could come in handy if someone chokes during the hot-dog eating contest slated for those festivities, he said.
Rose said the department has needed Gator 1 for several years.
“It’s going great. It’s good to have one of our own. You know, Williamston (Fire Department) has been real good lending theirs to us for, gosh, a lot of years now,” Rose said.
The department’s auxiliary purchased the John Deere Gator from East Coast Equipment Co. The custom-built patient-transport unit was built and installed by TWS Inc. The auxiliary raised funds for Gator 1 with its recent portrait promotional campaign.
In addition to working festivals, Gator 1 will respond to areas where a standard EMS unit cannot respond, such as wooded areas, wetlands and other remote areas.
Catherine Glover, executive director of the Washington-Beaufort County Chamber of Commerce, which organizes and plans the festival, was pleased with turnout for the festival.
“It’s going well. We’ve got a good crowd, and it’s beautiful weather, which we always love,” Glover said during a brief interview Saturday morning. “There’s a good breeze coming off the river, which makes it tolerable because it’s been so hot.”
Asked what made this festival different from previous festivals, Glover said, “Of course, we brought in a new band (Saturday night), the Love Tribe, but we kept Craig Woolard for Friday night because he brings out such a great crowd and everybody loves to be around him. We’ve tried to do the basic festival we’ve been doing the past couple of years. It seems the people enjoy that, and it seems to something — that consistency — that brings people back each year.”

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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