By KIM SMITH DEDAM
Staff Writer
DUANE —
When Jonathon Foster went off Route 30 in Duane, he was discovered by luck.
Pinned and critically injured, the 19-year-old was jammed inside his crashed truck for nearly 50 minutes on Aug. 17 before three forest rangers driving by with the windows down heard his screams.
With similar incidents mounting like a grisly tally, emergency-services personnel are troubled with the length of time it takes for people needing help here to reach it.
There is no cellular telephone service on that 35-mile stretch of Route 30, crossing through wetlands, ponds and forest between Gabriels and Malone.
It's a main thoroughfare for commerce, workers and tourists alike.
PINNED FOR 50 MINUTES
Duane Fire Company Vice President F. Gil Paddock said this was the fifth such incident since June 2009 to occur on Route 30.
"A young lad (Foster) who works at the Price Chopper in Lake Placid was coming home and fell asleep. He went off just north of the Lake Meacham outlet."
The crash tore the driver's side door right off, Paddock said, and the bent dashboard pinned Foster to the seat.
"It was about 5 p.m. when he went off the road. But cars going by couldn't see him. It was a group of three forest rangers from Lake Meacham with their windows down who heard him screaming.
"The family figures he was stuck there for about 50 minutes. We needed two sets of Jaws (of Life) to get him out."
NO COVERAGE
"In the 40 years I've been in the fire service, I have never seen an incident response go more smoothly," Paddock said of the serendipitous chain of events that started once Foster was discovered.
Nobody had cell service. But luck filled in.
"The guys that found him ran up to the road and sent cars north and south to make a 911 call going eight to 12 miles depending on the direction. The one going south stopped at an EMT's house, someone he knew.
"And our chief, Ned Lemeuix, was on Route 30 going home when he heard the call on his fire radio. We were able to reach LifeFlight through county dispatch, and within a couple minutes they said the helicopter would be taking off. We landed them right in the road right below the accident scene. Twenty minutes later, he (Jonathon) was in Burlington at Fletcher Allen.
"This was extremely life threatening," Paddock said. "The EMS people are doing a great job. But we need to get to people sooner. Had those guys not been driving with their windows down and heard him, Lord knows."
TOWER PERMIT
Last week, the Town of Duane issued a building permit for the 80-foot Verizon Wireless cell-phone tower approved by the Adirondack Park Agency in February.
But even that tower's signal wouldn't have helped Foster or any of the four previous victims.
The proposed cell-coverage area does not even reach far enough south to cover Lake Meacham, a busy state camping area with 224 campsites.
"The most desolate section of Route 30 from the north entrance of Lake Meacham to the Visitors Interpretive Center still will not have any coverage," Paddock explained.
"Engineers' propagation maps show that at least a 160-foot tower would be needed to provide coverage to Route 30 in Duane."
TALLER TOWER
Verizon Wireless has asked for a permit modification to make the Duane tower taller.
"They were planning to put a base in for a larger tower and then the first sections up to 80 feet. It would be able to be extended," Paddock said.
Verizon Wireless spokesman John O'Malley said they are doing internal work to prepare to add the site to their construction schedule.
"I don't have a timeline for when that will happen yet."
But at 80 feet, the Duane Fire Company can't even put an antenna on it.
"We can't place our antenna at the height we're licensed for because it will interfere with theirs and we need 10 feet between the two," Paddock said.
With frustration mounting, firefighters say the effort to protect a forest view shed by making a tower shorter is ludicrous.
"What will it take?" Paddock said.
"Human life is worth more than somebody's uninhibited view."
RADIO SERVICE
Franklin County Emergency Services has been awarded $775,000 from the Department of Homeland Security to make emergency-communication improvements.
"We have to update a few things, and then the county will have to accept the award," Emergency Services Director Ricky Provost said Thursday. "I would say we're six to eight months away from starting."
Improvements will help fire and EMS dispatching agencies, Provost said.
"It doesn't have anything to do with the cell service, though."
E-mail Kim Smith Dedam at: kdedam@pressrepublican.com
