In a response statement, the Board of Trustees for Barrington Countryside Fire Protection District said a new fire station would significantly improve fire and medical services in the district’s 48-square-mile jurisdiction.

The statement also said a new facility would “substantially improv[e] our response times to residents and businesses in our southern and eastern areas.”  

Keith Hanson, board president of the fire protection district, was unavailable for additional comment.

According to Bentley, the three firefighters were on their way to a fire at an apartment complex off Habitat Circle, less than a mile from where the crash happened. Initially, officials said only one of them had to be transported, but later clarified that all three were taken to the hospital.   

Bentley identified the firefighters as Capt. Terance Wilkes, Matthew Bradshaw and Marq Morgan. 

Wilkes, who has been with the department for 18 years, and Bradshaw, who has been there for two, are both still in the hospital recovering. Morgan was treated and released.

The woman suffered injuries in the 6 a.m. crash and was taken to the hospital for evaluation, said Ryan Walsh. Police will seek a criminal complaint against her in Springfield District Court for operating under the influence of alcohol.

 

He said Springfield firefighters spotted her asleep behind the wheel on Chestnut Street. When firefighters knocked on her car window, the woman woke up startled and gunned the engine.

She smashed into a fire engine, and two unoccupied parked cars before turning from Chestnut onto Pearl Street. On Pearl, she shot past a police cruiser, went off the road and took out multiple light poles before slamming into 82-86 Pearl St., an apartment at Spring and Pearl.

The truck is outfitted with technology that the department has never had including a mobile data terminal to give firefighters "instant information at their fingertips."  

The fire engine was ordered last October by the Bellmead City Council at a cost of just more than $600,000.