Remembering firefighter lost in crash tragedy
It’s nearly 48 years since the crash that claimed the life of firefighter Malcolm Farrow.
He was one of an eight-man crew responding to a blaze in Bentlif Close, Maidstone, when their engine skidded on a wet College Road, collided with a tree near the junction with College Avenue and burst into flames.
The crew were trapped as the crash jammed all the doors and the appliance was about 6ft off the ground, having ridden up on the trunk of the tree.
The officer in charge (OiC), sitting in the front, was too injured to move and driver Roger Lynn had been knocked unconscious. The first man to get out did so by climbing through from the crew cab which was on fire, to the front and out through the front nearside door.
He then helped four of the crew already suffering from burns to their hands and faces, to struggle clear via the nearside rear door.
The last man in the rear crew cab had no choice but to fight his way through the heart of the fire to get out of the offside rear door.
The least injured men, using a ladder, managed to get the injured OiC down from the cab, and Mr Lynn was rescued by College Road resident George Stoner,who suffered burns to his own hands in the process. A second appliance, from Larkfield, was immediately ordered to the incident and the crew had to use foam to put out the fire which by then was burning furiously.
The injured men were taken to the newly created A&E at Medway Hospital where a staff nurse later said: “They were some of the worst burns injuries I saw in my 30-year career.”
Robert Higgins, also of College Road, was among the first on the scene. He said: “I saw the three men leap from the blazing cab.
“Then they went back, helped one man out by his feet. His face, arms and legs were badly burnt.”
Mr Farrow could not be saved and died three days later. Mr Lynn survived but had to have a leg amputated.
Only three of the eight-man crew are alive today. Last Friday, Peter Whent, Don Bates and Tony Bush attended the Firefighters Memorial Day at the Kent Fire and Rescue Service HQ in Straw Mill Hill, Tovil, to remember their lost colleagues. A postcard sent more than a century ago has found its way home.
The card was written by Arthur Coulter at his home in Church House, Loose, on November 10, 1913. He sent it to his brother Bert and Bert’s wife Annie, then living in Strood.
In it Mr Coulter apologises for not coming up yesterday “as our mother went away. Shall be up next Sunday. Love Arthur.” Arthur Coulter, who died a short time after, during the First World War, was Roy Hood’s uncle. Mr Hood, who died in 2013 and was “Mr Loose” to many, inherited Church House and his widow, Rita, still lives there.
Recently she was given the card by neighbour Margaret Collins who picked it up at a collector’s fair. “It’s a pleasure to have it home,” said Mrs Hood, “I can’t help but wonder what journey it’s been on in the last 100 years.”