WESTERN BUREAU – Six firefighters, responding to an emergency yesterday, were themselves hospitalised for injuries after their fire unit overturned on the Granville main road in Trelawny.

The wounded firemen are District Officer Earle Haye, Sergeant Noel Campbell, Corporal Lawrence Pottinger, Lance Corporal Antonio Robinson, Fire Fighter De Yen Smith and Fire Fighter Sullivan Hensley.

Their injuries were not considered life-threatening.

The fire crew were on their way to Drommily, Trelawny at about 10:30 am, in response to a fire call, according to the reports of the incident. The unit was forced to brake suddenly to avoid an oncoming vehicle, while it was attempting to overtake a car.

The truck swerved left and hit the embankment then overturned, injuring all its occupants.

The men, who received chest, back and head injuries, were taken to the Falmouth Hospital.

Three of them, Haye, Henry and Pottinger, were subsequently transferred to the Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay.

The fire unit, which is the only one in the parish, suffered irreparable damage.

The fire to which it was responding was eventually put out by a crew from the Ironshore fire station on the outskirts of Montego Bay.

According to Assistant Superintendent Witchsean Lamont of the Falmouth Fire Department, the injuries to the fire fighters were serious but not life-threatening.

Trelawny, which stretches into the hills of the Cockpits down to the sea along the north coast, has a population of some 73,400, making it the island’s second smallest of 14 parishes.

A difficult task, he said, has become even more so with no unit in the parish.

“It is going to be difficult but we will have to ask for assistance from neighbouring parishes – that is, St James and St Ann – which we always do when we are actually out of a fire unit,” Lamont said.

North Trelawny Member of Parliament Dr Patrick Harris offered his sympathy to the injured firemen and their families, but also voiced his own concern about the lack of equipment in a cane belt where fires are the norm.

“There have been a few problems with the fire unit in Falmouth in recent times. But in light of the upcoming sugar crop that is soon to commence, it must be replaced in a timely manner,” Harris said.