Engine 6 Pushes Through The Snow

The call came in to the Dixwell Fire Station at 3:43 p.m.: a box alarm at 55 Lock St.

“Let’s go,” Captain Wayne Ricks, Jr. said as he and a team of four fellow New Haven firefighters rushed from the station’s office into the cavernous garage that looks out onto Goffe Street and Webster Street.

They pulled on their boots, jackets and the rest of their gear, and piled into Engine 6.

It was their sixth call so far on what promised to be a busy, and chilly, day of helping people stuck in place during the year’s first blizzard.

Through the glass panels of the garage doors, Webster Street was white with snow. Though the morning’s snowfall had already been plowed to either side of the street, snow was still coming down at roughly an inch-and-a-half every hour. The roads were once again white and slick.

With John Delfino behind the wheel and Nick Ortelle, Ronald Deline and Jerrad Pullen in the back of the truck, Ricks and his team pulled out of the station and onto Webster Street. Siren blaring and red lights flashing, the engine pushed its way through the snowy streets towards the source of the call.

As the rest of New Haven weathered the ​“bomb cyclone” snowstorm that battered the East Coast on Thursday with heavy snowfall, high winds and rapidly plunging temperatures, the 11 firefighters at Engine 6 spent their day traveling from Dixwell to Fair Haven to Westville, responding to a range of medical and fire alarm (or ​“box”) calls.

One box alarm had taken them to a nearby high-rise where smoke had triggered an apartment’s fire alarm. The source of the smoke wound up being burnt food, and not a fire.

The medical calls included a woman who had taken too much of her medication and was in a mind-altered state (her nurse had brought her two doses, one for today and one for tomorrow, and the patient had accidentally taken both); a young woman with heart palpitations; a man with chest pain; and another man with shortness of breath.

“I’ve noticed that when people are struggling economically and don’t have health insurance, 9 – 1‑1 often becomes their first medical call,” Kenneth Oliver, Jr. said as he and New Haven firefighter and paramedic Nicole Sampietro reflected on their day’s worth of medical calls.

Oliver runs the New Haven Fire Department’s emergency units and oversees 336 EMTs and 91 paramedics. According to Oliver, upwards of 80 percent of the fire department’s calls over the course of the year are medical, and not fire-related.

In between calls, the firefighters at the Dixwell Station took off their gear and relaxed. In the kitchen, they filled paper cups with homemade cheddar-cheese chili and cornbread. They watched the Tennessee Titans play the Buffalo Bills, and chatted about the Music City Miracle and Dunkaccinos. They spoke about a long day that had started for many at 7 a.m. and would stretch for some until 7 a.m. on Friday.

Back on the truck, Delfino drove up Webster Street and turned right on Dixwell, shouting at a car ahead that was taking its time in pulling to the side to let the engine pass. Many of the firefighters on duty said that they were surprised by how many cars they had seen on the road during the snowstorm.

Sitting up front, Ricks directed Delfino to take Lake Place instead of Bristol Street to get to Ashmun Street, even though that added an extra block between the engine and 55 Lock St. Sure enough, by the time the engine got to Ashmun Street, they saw that the entire intersection at Bristol was blocked off due to construction. If they had taken Bristol, the engine would have had to turn around, return to Dixwell, and go down to Lake Place anyway.

“That’s why they put you in charge,” Pullen told Ricks with a smile.

At 55 Lock St., which is the home of the Yale Health Plan, Ricks, Deline and Ortelle jumped out of the truck. Pullen, the fifth member of the team, stayed on board.

Usually New Haven fire trucks run with four firefighters: a driver, a captain, someone who carries the hose and someone who deals with the fire hydrant. Because of the storm, every truck in the city, including Engine 6, was ​“riding heavy” with an extra, fifth member (in this case, Pullen), who was responsible for shoveling snow if a hydrant was blocked.

Deline unpacked the hose, threw it over his shoulder, and headed towards the building’s sliding doors.

Inside the building, the three firefighters joined a Yale fire marshal and several Yale police officers in the lobby, piled into an elevator, and headed to the fourth floor.

The source of the call wound up just being a malfunctioning fire alarm. Ricks made sure that the Yale fire marshal had the situation under control, and the team returned outside into the snow, where Delfino was waiting with Engine 6.

Back at the Dixwell station, Fire Chief John Alston, Jr. and Newhallville alder Delphine Clyburn were in the garage. Alston and Clyburn had spent the afternoon driving around her neighborhood, keeping their eyes out for people who may be in need of the fire department’s help.

Alston said that there were 83 firefighters on duty throughout the city on Thursday, up from the 72-person daily minimum the department usually has on call.

When Alston saw Engine 6 pull back into the station, he shook hands with the firefighters and caught up with Ricks on how the Dixwell station’s day had been going.

Heading back to the kitchen and the station’s office, the firefighters tried to relax and stay warm — until next call.