TROY, NY - On August 3rd at 7:29 A.M., the city of Troy‘s dispatcher transmitted a water rescue call in the area of 691 River Street for a truck that took down a power pole and went airborne into the river. Firefighters from Engine four, only being across the street from the incident and in the middle of shift change, immediately made their way across the street where they discovered a power pole that had been sheared off at the top with multiple large transformers down on the ground and signs of a vehicle that had gone into the river.

Members of the rescue squad immediately went down to man Marine one and made their way to the scene. Firefighters ran down the hill and saw the vehicle beginning to submerge and jumped into the river. Two firefighters swam out to where the vehicle had sunk and began to make multiple attempts to rescue the individual trapped inside of the truck. After multiple attempts with no success due to the depth of the river, firefighters swam back to the shoreline. While this was going on, the transformers that were down on the ground originally smoking exploded into flames, sending a massive column of smoke into the morning sky. National grid was requested to expedite to the scene. Firefighters grabbed multiple dry chemical extinguishers and attempted to knock down the fire, but the fire was too large. With an exposure issue, command transmitted the box alarm, bringing additional units to the scene.

Marine one was able to locate the truck in 25 to 30 feet of water off the shore of the river. Command requested the New York State Police dive team to the scene to get access to the truck, as it was too deep for firefighters to be able to reach. While this was going on, two massive arcs from the downed power poles occurred, sending voltage traveling up the line, visible with the naked eye, across the pole to the next transformer where it blew out the fuses. National grid arrived on scene and began to secure the power. Firefighters then began to knock down the heavy fire condition with a mist from the nozzle, being extremely careful not to spread the toxic transformer oil. After the fire was out, firefighters put down a significant amount of speedy dry on the oil to absorb it.

The subject inside of the vehicle unfortunately did not survive the accident. One witness to the incident stated the vehicle came down Middleburg at an extremely high rate of speed, missing all of the vehicles in its way, and came through the parking lot riding the grass area, hitting the guide wire attached to the pole, sending the vehicle airborne into the river. At this time, the accident was determined to be from a medical issue. The operator of the vehicle was Mike Paglia, age 89, a retired Troy Firefighter from the 1980's. No firefighters were injured during the rescue attempts. Police remained on scene for an extended period of time while removing the vehicle from the river. Power to the area was restored later the next day.