At 5:35 PM, The Paterson Fire Department was responding to a possible fire at 141 Main St in Downtown Paterson. Engine 1 & Engine 5 were responding to the fire. Engine 1 was Responding On Broadway & Engine 5 was responding on Straight Street. At the intersection of Broadway & Street both engines collided while responding urgently to the confirmed fire. Engine 5 T-boned Engine 1. The second before impact Engine 1 swerved to the left before it got hit, causing the Engine 1 to go crash straight into the side of the Golden Mango Supermarket. I ran up to the scene to check if everyone was ok. I went up to an injured firefighter on the ground who had a leg injury and asked if he was ok. I had to back out because this is when I was seeing smoke from the confirmed fire. There were two major scenes going on at the same time. I ran down to the fire on Main St which ended up being a 3rd Alarm Fire. I got some quick footage and I ran back up to the accident. By the time I got there mutual aid was on scene. I had phone storage problems so I missed several code 3 responses. I went back home to get some water and take some deep breaths as I was very shook, broken, and overcome with sadness; seeing two beautiful fire trucks, wrecked, totaled, destroyed, and seeing brave firefighters injured. I went back to the scene at around 8:05 and still more units on scene & responding. I wanted to speak to crews on scene as a witness to show them my video of the crash. I was then interviewed by news members, detectives, police officers, firefighters and other people at the scene. I showed the video to Chief McDermott of the Paterson Fire Department. I then started taking some pictures of the wrecked fire trucks. A total of 8 Paterson firefighters were injured, 3 of those firefighters were critically injured, and one firefighter had life threatening injuries. Hoping a speedy recovery to all firefighters involved in this horrific accident.
10 сен 2022
