May Incidents 2019

Just after 8 AM on the very first day of the month, more specifically Wednesday May first, and a horrific motor vehicle accident on Verona Avenue would summon forth JFRD units to render emergency care and transport for 5 adult patients, two of which classified as 'Trauma Alerts' and thus evaluated as having sustained serious injuries. The multiple vehicle accident, incorporating two ejections from one of the vehicles involved, not only shut down that stretch of road for several hours but also resulted in a loss of power to over 800 residential dwellings in the Ortega area due to a power pole being toppled in the process.  
The first weekend of the month proved to be both quite exciting and challenging for JFRD personnel: aside from the annual 3 day 'Welcome to Rockville' music festival, this year unfortunately subjected to poor weather conditions that nevertheless failed to prevent nearly 31,000 spectators from participating each day, emergency responders would also be confronted by several incidents related to the words 'sky,' 'air' and 'flight.' The first exposure to the aforementioned trio occurred just after 9:30 PM Friday, 3 May, when Naval Air Station JAX requested assistance under the mutual aide protocol for an on base incident involving a commercial aircraft that had skidded off the runway, coming to rest in approxiamtely 4 feet of water in the nearby St. John's River. The aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 "Miami Air" charter flight from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was carrying 136 passengers along with 7 crew members when, somehow, the plane failed to safely land at NAS JAX: thankfully the nearly 90-odd JFRD members responding to this emergency found everyone safe and accounted for, with ONLY 21 people aboard that plane requiring subsequent transport to area hospitals and with injuries described as 'non-serious' across the board. Tragically, however, one dog and two cats in the cargo area below did not survive the ordeal. The weekend issues with 'planes' and other 'flying' related narratives continued when on Sunday, the 5th of May and shortly after the noon hour, a report reached JFRD dispatch that indicated a single prop seaplane had been forced to land in the St.John's River near the Dames Point Bridge, flipping over and resting on its back: thankfully a kayaker witnessed the event and helped bring the pilot, unhurt, safely to shore. A few hours later that very same day, the JFRD Special Operations Team was summoned to a park near Greenland Road where a paraglider had crashed into the treeline, subsequently dangling and suspended some 80 feet above the ground. Although it took several hours, the highly skilled team of high angle rescue specialists from the JFRD successfully rescued the adult male, uninjured, and thus brought to a close a weekend of activity memorable for the word-association of 'flight.' Well done by all!