Fourth of July parades are synonymous with the American flag, bagpipes, baton twirlers and a long line of fire trucks from decades past. An antique fire engine caused a brief delay to festivities on Long Island.
Excited parade-goers broke routine and stepped into the street to help the Coram Fire Department push the ladder truck to the curb, including WSHU's J.D. Allen.
Allen: The weirdest thing just happened to me. I'm at the Independence Day Parade in Port Jefferson Village on Long Island. When my wife and I are standing there and this 1930s Ford fire truck stalls right in front of us. And I decide I'm going to help push with the firefighters to get this thing on the side of the road so the rest of the parade can continue.
This is Coram Fire Department Captain Raymond. So, tell me about this truck. How old is it?
Raymond: This truck is a 1930s Ford. This is part of history. It's one of the first trucks that they got for the fire department. And it was running ran beautiful years ago.
We also had this truck in the back of us. That was the second truck that we had gotten.
And the history of that is that it originally this thing was sent out to some other town. And it really went down the drain. So we refurbished the whole truck. And this is what it looks like right now.
Allen: Now, this is radio. What does it look like?
Raymond: It looks beautiful. Come on. You can't be you can't beat this truck. The only thing is we've got a little problem — it overheats. And that's about it. Put out a lot of fires with this truck years ago.
That one was a brush truck — The 1942 Ford. That was a brush truck that we used to use wood fires. So the history of that it was down the drain, ready to be junked and decided to put it back together. And that's how it came back.
Allen: I never thought I would push a fire truck fire truck but that was pretty cool. Also, I just moved to Coram, so you guys are my [fire] truck!
Raymond: Oh, well! That... [engine starts up]
Allen: That's a good sign!
Raymond: We got it going. We got it going!
