Eric Hurst, the public information officer for South Metro Fire Rescue Authority, says since he can remember, he's always wanted to be a firefighter.

"I was infatuated with the fire department, Castlewood was always the trucks that I had seen so I visited the fire station a lot with my parents," Hurst said. 

If you're not from around here, Castlewood is now South Metro Fire Rescue.For a kid growing up in Littleton, there was just something about those trucks, but the bright-red one always stood out.

"I remember how big the steering wheel felt and how the front-seat kind of felt like a couch because it was so big," Hurst said. "It was one of the unique ones because it was specifically designed to respond to airline crashes at the airport so it's very much a one of a kind."

The 1970's Imperial was taken out of service in 2000. In that time, Hurst started working for South Metro and he lost track of his favorite truck.

Then one day - more than two decades after he first sat in it he saw the truck for sale online.

"Immediately I had a flash back, back to when I was a kid on the front seat of that and I can't, you know, explain how big the steering wheel felt as a child looking at it," said Hurst. "It didn't have the labels on it, it didn't have the old lights on it, but I could identify it immediately.

"So I called the dealership and told them that I needed to get it," he said.

And he did for the 13,000 dollars. Hurst had the old Castlewood Fire Department decals made for it and he slapped them back on.

Deputies say a landing zone for a medical transport helicopter had been set up by the fire department for transport of a patient from a separate crash on Navajo route 1149, when the reported drunk driver went around the barricade on Highway 566 crashing into the helicopter and fire truck.

The helicopter was unoccupied, not running and rotors were not spinning, according to McKinely County Sheriff’s Office.

McKinley County sheriff’s say the suspected drunk driver, now identified as 26-year-old Glenn Livingston of Gallup, has been arrested and is charged with aggravated DWI, resisting, evading and or obstructing an officer among other charges.

No injuries were reported at the time of the crash.

It is one of seven stations the district operates in its coverage area, which includes Menlo Park, Atherton, East Palo Alto and unincorporated portions of San Mateo County.

The station’s current firefighters have already moved out of the station and into a residence behind the station on Hoover Street. That residential property is part of the expansion and will give the district “the ability to build a two-story, partial drive-through station that would be able to accommodate its largest piece of fire equipment with the ability to add additional apparatus and personnel,” according to a news release.

Fire Chief Harold Schapelhouman said the expansion is needed to deal with all the potential development in the Downtown Specific Plan, which was approved in June 2012 and allows for new development of 680 housing units and 474,000 square feet of nonresidential space.

“The fact that (Station) 6 was the second busiest amongst all emergency units in the entire district last year and based upon increased roadway congestion, it’s a no-brainer to rebuild in this location,” Schapelhouman said in the release.

The project has been in the works since 2007, the chief said, but he said the plan was left out of the city’s Specific Plan, though the district requested it, which caused delays and additional environmental analysis costs.

“I’ll be happy to see us tear down the old station and start construction by the end of the year,” he said. “It’s been a long, rough road to get to this point.”

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