The Associated Press
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ANTWERP (AP) — The deaths of three volunteer paramedics, killed when their ambulance collided with a truck, have shaken this small farming community.
It seems everyone knew them.
“It sure has brought our village to its knees,” said Police Chief George Clemens. “We’ll move on, but it will never be the same.”
The ambulance was headed to a hospital Friday night when it was broadsided at a rural intersection next to a cornfield. Both vehicles caught fire, killing the three medical technicians and two patients.
Investigators say the ambulance driver slowed down at a stop sign but didn’t see the truck, which had the right of way.
A funeral for the three paramedics will be Friday at the village’s high school gymnasium, the only place in town big enough to accommodate the large crowd that is expected.
About a dozen volunteer paramedics who make runs for the northwest Ohio village and its 1,700 residents will remain off duty for awhile.
“They think they’re ready, but once they get to a scene and are on their way to the hospital, I don’t think they’re going to be ready,” Mayor Margaret Womack said.
“It’s not like a big city. We know these people,” she said.
For now, paramedics from two nearby villages will take care of the medical runs.
The accident happened about 10 miles from the Ohio-Indiana state line in Paulding County, the fifth-smallest in the state with about 20,000 people.
Randy Shaffer, director of county’s emergency management agency, said the accident has touched everyone who works in public service.
“We know it could happen at any time,” he said. “We just don’t think it’s going to happen to us.”
Killed were the ambulance driver Sammy Smith, 64, and paramedics Heidi McDougall, 31, and Kelly Rager, 25. The two patients inside the ambulance were identified as Robert Wells, 64, and Armelda Wells, 60, a married couple from Hicksville.
McDougall’s husband, Matt, also is a paramedic and survived the crash. He was released from a hospital Monday.
Clemens said he and wife shared school carpooling with the McDougalls, who have five children.
Rager had two young children and was on just her third trip as a paramedic. She graduated from Antwerp High School in 2000.
Smith, a retired factory worker, also volunteered with the fire department. “He was the first one there and the last to go home,” said Antwerp Fire Chief Ray Friend. “That was the way he was.
“They were doing what they loved — all of them,” Friend said. “When you’re a volunteer, you’re doing this because you want to help someone.”