Volunteer catches a run. Loses his car. Firehouse car thief.
One cold December night in about 1978, a few days before the new year, I had slept at the firehouse. I woke up around 6:30 AM with a bad cold and wanted to leave as soon as possible. But I was the only driver in the station until the career crew showed up.
I went outside to warm up my car knowing one of them would arrive soon. Back inside the firehouse I watched Firefighter Paul Reamy pull in the parking lot. I was about to walk out the door when a box alarm was dispatched for a garden-apartment fire on Southview Drive. Truck 21 was due.
With no one else from the career side in sight, I drove and Paul tillered. Unfortunately for me, considering how lousy I felt, it was a working fire that eventually went to three-alarms.
It was only driving back to the firehouse six-hours later that it dawned on me I had left my Chevy Nova running. I didn’t like the idea of leaving it idling for so long, but in those days I never really was concerned that someone might steal it from the firehouse parking lot (except maybe another firefighter doing it as a practical joke).
This is just the long way around to a story from Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, where a volunteer firefighter answering up from home to a call, had his car stolen at the firehouse. It happened Thursday night according to themorningcall.com:
The firefighter, Kevin McCauley of Frackville, left his keys in the vehicle after parking at the Altamont Fire Company in order to go out on the call, according to a news release from state police at Frackville.
He left at 11:20 p.m. and returned 35 minutes later to find the car was gone.
The car is a dark blue, 1999 Chevrolet Lumina with Pennsylvania registration GZZ-6210.
