Hamilton, VA – Late Friday night/early Saturday morning, a Loudoun County Sheriff’s Deputy was heading westbound on Route 704 when he met up with a fire truck, which was–as these vehicles are wont to do–traveling at a high rate of speed.
Uncharacteristically, the officer was forced to veer off into a ditch to avoid a collision with the weaving pumper truck. He then checked for fire calls (there weren’t any), turned his cruiser around, and pulled the truck over. Inside were five volunteer firefighters for the Loudoun County Fire-Rescue system–all of whom had been drinking.
Only the driver–27-year-old Sean Swanson–was arrested. Having failed a field sobriety test, he was taken to the Loudoun Adult Detention Center, where he was charged with DUI and Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle. Swanson ultimately was released on his own recognizance and later resigned from his position, and two of the other firefighters that were in the truck have done so as well.
I wanted to post this partly because (considering there were no collisions, no one was hurt, and this was NOT a truck that was “on duty” at the time) it appeals a bit to that hidden rebel/former adolescent in me: “HELL, YEAH, IT’S NOT GETTING USED! LET’S DRIVE IT DOWN SOME BACK ROADS!”
Another reason was that some of the reporters have been having a pretty good time with the story. For example, Martin Weil at The Washington Post started his article with “The age-old question that police ask when a motorist seems to be in a hurry is: ‘Where’s the fire?’ When a Loudoun County sheriff’s deputy learned Saturday that there wasn’t any fire, he made a traffic stop–of a firetruck.”
Alas, the original article I read–which featured an even more clever starting sentence that I absolutely cannot recall because handing over extra brain cells dedicated to memory to Morbid was part of the deal in getting this D’D gig–is gone or edited, and most of the hundreds of entries you will find now start with the AP’s dull “Authorities in Virginia…”
Hm. I live less than a block away from a fire department…
Tags: Drunk Driving, firefighter, Hamilton, Virginia
