Firefighters Support Volunteer Accused Of Spreading Coronavirus

OAKDALE, CT — The short video shows fire apparatus from Montville’s four independent volunteer fire companies ride past the home of firefighter/EMR Sean Hawkins of the Oakdale Fire Department and Montville Fire Co. #1, in support of the volunteer who tested positive for coronavirus.

In the video taken by Steven Frischling, public information officer for the Chesterfield Fire Company, horns honk and sirens blare in solidarity.

Last week, a number of firefighters tested positive for COVID-19. And, according to a report from WTNH, Montville Mayor Ron McDaniel pointed the finger at a volunteer as being the one who spread the virus.

According to the news report, last week four full-time firefighters tested positive and while four volunteer firefighters tested negative, Hawkins positive test result had McDaniel, WTNH reported, say he believed it was Hawkins who infected other firefighters:“This is a hard lesson, that a person volunteers with all good intentions and unknowingly passes the virus along when men and women work in close environments,” McDaniel’s statement to the station read.

Hawkins was stunned.

“One thing I never expected was to discover my Mayor’s Office to be providing incorrect information about me, and my contracting the COVID-19 virus, to journalists,” he wrote.

Hawkins said the “details of my contracting COVID-19 are of little importance to my community and to the mayor’s office, other than to say it was inevitable that first responders, especially those working in emergency medical services, would eventually start to contract the virus.”

Hawkins pointed to the recent uptick in cases that led the state to declare Montville a “‘Red Alert’ area,” noting that “EMS calls are increasingly coming in contact with potentially infected patients.”

“While I quarantine at home, looking at a long two weeks away from my fire station and fire family, sidelined from serving my community, I realize there is no need to point fingers, or misstate facts, regarding myself and my fellow firefighters who have tested positive for COVID-19,” he wrote on Facebook.

“I sit here, unfazed by having contracted a potentially deadly virus, unashamed of being called out falsely by the mayor’s office in the media, and am focused on my return to serving the Oakdale and Montville fire departments, and my Montville neighbors as a firefighter and emergency medical responder.”

The parade past his house in solidarity was his fellow firefighter’s way of showing support, Frischling said.

Meanwhile, the Oakdale Fire Station transformed one of its apparatus bays into a drive-thru COVID-19 testing facility, in conjunction with United Family and Community Services Health Center.

Frischling said that, "With the uptick in COVID-19 cases throughout the region, and Montville continuing to be designated a Red Alert town, by the Connecticut Department of Public Health, due to the spike in COVID-19 cases, which has recently impacted Firefighters within Montville, the Oakdale Volunteer Fire Department partnered with UCFS Healthcare to provideCOVID-19 screening to anyone who was in need of COVID-19 testing at no charge.

This article originally appeared on the Montville Patch