The second explosion hit minutes later.
One man was killed, eight firefighters were injured and 125 people sought medical treatment. Black smoke filled the sky. More than 30 emergency agencies responded to the chaos. But when the first call for help went out, the New Windsor Volunteer Ambulance Corps' two on-duty crews were both responding to other calls.
Chief Michael Bigg recalls the challenge of rallying the manpower, largely volunteer, needed to handle the disaster.
"There was 150 people who were injured in there, who we told, 'We have four ambulances,' " he said. "But calling in mutual aid took us a long time to find agencies, and the county (dispatcher) was like, 'Uh, we're trying to find ambulances, we're trying, we're trying.' "
Over the course of the day, 30 New Windsor volunteer emergency medical technicians reported for duty. Some helped at the Verla scene on Temple Hill Road. Others covered the rest of the district, freeing up the four paid paramedics who were on duty.
Brendan Quinn, a volunteer EMT, had just left a class at Mount Saint Mary College and was going to get a haircut when he heard Bigg calling for help on the radio.
Quinn made two runs to St. Luke's Cornwall Hospital that morning, transporting four Verla employees each time.
"After I dropped off the group of four, I had to respond to a house in the town for abdominal pain," Quinn said. "So I was away from the fire, and then I went back for another group ... all our ambulances were flying around town trying to cover the calls and the Verla fire."
Bigg asked the Verla employees who felt well enough to drive themselves to St. Luke's.
Eventually, eight ambulances responded, including crews from the Cornwall, Blooming Grove and Goshen ambulance corps, Bigg said.
A disaster like the Verla fire puts unusual demands on ambulance corps, many of which rely heavily on volunteers. But many communities in the mid-Hudson are struggling to find enough EMTs to handle routine calls - heart attacks, falls, overdoses. The shortage of EMTs, paid or volunteer, has only become more acute in recent years with an ever-increasing number of calls.
'Volunteers needed'
In New Windsor, the EMTs who respond to calls are often volunteers, and more are always needed to serve the district's 36-square-mile district and 35,000 residents, Bigg said. At least one two-person crew is on duty at all times.
The corps includes 20 paid paramedics, four paid emergency medical technicians and 65 volunteer EMTs. Last year, volunteers logged more than 20,000 hours.
In November, New Windsor EMTs posted a sign at the intersection of routes 207 and 300 and another at the corner of Route 9W and Union Avenue.
"Volunteers needed: save a life."
The response has been heartening: 25 new applications.
A similar sign graces Route 17A in the Village of Florida, calling for volunteers for Warwick Community Ambulance Services.
Those who can find time to volunteer often sacrifice parts of their own lives.
"It has a lot to do with people having two jobs, children," Cassanite said. "It's harder and harder for volunteers to volunteer."
Quinn, who is also the chair of New Windsor's New Member Orientation Committee, volunteers an average of 12 hours a week, in addition to his two jobs and taking college classes. He's made a trade-off, losing time with family and friends to volunteer.
"I still manage to have a life outside, but I know if I wasn't volunteering, I would have more of a social life," he said. "I've left the Thanksgiving table with my family to go help somebody, so you definitely make sacrifices to volunteer, but I feel like the reward is bigger."
Lona Olejniczak is a member of the all-volunteer Warwick Community Ambulance Service, and works in an obstetrics and gynecology office in Monroe.
She often can't respond to calls because she's at work. Olejniczak, an EMT, said most people don't realize that calling 911 doesn't mean an ambulance is a guarantee.
"Be thankful that you have an ambulance coming in," she said.
If there are no EMTs available, an ambulance corps then has to turn the call over to the next closest service and hope it can respond.
For instance, MobileLife steps in when the Town of Montgomery Ambulance Company's 15 paid EMTs and 25 volunteers can't make a call, said Montgomery Captain Eric Shorette.
Montgomery EMTs responded to about 67 percent of their 1,900 calls in 2017.
"If we don't make it to calls, it's because we don't have any people," Shorette said.
According to the Journal of Emergency Medical Services, the shortage of EMTs plagues communities across the country and dates back at least a decade.
There are about 60,000 EMTs and paramedics in New York, virtually unchanged from 2010, according to the state Department of Health.
State data also shows the decline in the number of private and public EMS organizations since 2008. That year, the state had more than 1,100 ambulance organizations and about 110 advanced life support services, which provide a higher level of care typically delivered by paramedics rather than EMTs.
As of early 2018, those numbers dropped to roughly 1,030 and 85, respectively.
An uphill battle
The Florida Volunteer Fire Department stopped staffing its own ambulance corps at the end of 2014. The fire commissioners said at the time that they didn't have enough volunteers.
In January 2015, the all-volunteer Warwick corps took over Florida's territory. Warwick Chief Frank Cassanite knew then that it would be an uphill battle to staff the Florida area, and it still is.
His volunteer push is focused on Florida. The service has about 50 volunteers, but Cassanite would prefer to see 60, with 10 based at the Florida station.
There are currently about four volunteers based in Florida, he said. Olejniczak is one of them, a holdover from the old Florida department. She remembers occasions when she couldn't respond to calls because there wasn't a second volunteer to drive.
"It was hard," she said. "There was a time there where I put in 700 hours in a year."
The Warwick corps still responds to all of its calls, Cassanite said. Some volunteers take ambulances home, so they can respond more quickly to emergencies.
Cassanite, who is also Orange County's deputy commissioner of emergency services, said the personnel issue boils down to finding people who have the time and who can remain dedicated. Warwick has seen about 12 people come and go in the past five years.
"They usually don't stay ... they'll be a member for a couple years or so," he said.
Some people don't understand the commitment until they're already an EMT. Others realize they don't like the sight of blood. Some become too busy, or major life changes interfere.
"This is not an Orange County issue. This is a state issue. This is definitely national," Cassanite said. "... And it's getting worse as times goes on."
Money talks
Shorette said the personnel shortage is really a pay problem.
There are plenty of certified EMTs and paramedics, but there are not enough paid positions, and positions that do pay typically don't pay well, Shorette said.
In some areas, the starting pay for EMTs is about $12 per hour, making retention almost impossible, he added.
"It's why people don't stick with EMS," he said.
When those workers can't make ends meet, they turn to other jobs and often reduce their involvement as volunteers.
Bigg has seen similar turnover, saying many EMTs use the certification and experience as a stepping stone for another career in the medical or emergency-management fields. Those people may remain with the corps, but volunteer only when their schedules allow.
"We have a lot of people who join here and become cops, firefighters, paramedics someplace else," Bigg said.
In New Windsor, about 75 percent of the volunteers have full-time jobs in the medical or emergency fields, Bigg said. Those volunteers can only log so many hours.
Quinn puts in about 12 hours a week as a volunteer at New Windsor, but he knows people who have logged 40 or even 60 volunteer hours in a week.
"How they do that is beyond me," he said.
After spending hours at the Verla scene in November, Quinn headed to Rockland County, where he works as a paid EMT for Rockland Mobile Care.
He needed to clock in for his overnight shift.
aspadaro@th-record.com
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