She retired from the squad at the same time as her father. Harper was a lifetime member squad, serving for 10 years starting in 1975. “We were worn out if we ran three calls,” his oldest daughter, Sandy Harper, 65, said. “If we had two calls a day, we thought we were doing something,” he said. Other than the wrecks that gradually became more frequent, Senger said, the squad wasn’t kept too busy at first. “Nothing bothered that fella no matter what.” Rinker, 77, fondly remembers taking rescue calls alongside Senger. I jumped out and ran and saw it had white seats and knew it wasn’t mine.” “The only thing is it had white seats and mine had red seats. “It just so happened that the car was a red Cadillac convertible just like mine,” he added. “I pulled up,” he said, “and they said it’s (his kids) Sandy and Sunny Senger all there in the Cadillac dead. While Carson Rinker, a member of the squad from the 1950s to ‘80s, took the squad’s GMC panel truck, Senger hopped into an ambulance and drove to the scene.
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11 north of Harrisonburg to get something to eat around midnight, Senger said, and a drunken driver plowed into it at about 90 mph in a head-on collision. “The most scary thing,” he said, “was that wreck down there at Bar-B-Q Ranch that killed eight people.”Ī driver had pulled into the center lane on U.S. It was one of these calls, Senger said, “that really got to me.” Not long after the squad was formed, Senger said, a horn “you could hear all over town” would sound from the station alerting members it was time to respond to an emergency call. Out of those men, Senger, who was 22 when he signed up, is the last one living. Dellinger, Warren Denton, Warren Early, Fred Earman, Harry Earman, Boyd Garber, Bill Humes, Roy Leach, Buddy McInturff, Lawrence Long, Ormand Lorentz and John Stearn.
The catalyst for the squad’s creation is traced back to two incidents: a fatal explosion in July 1947 that demolished the Masters Building on South Main Street, and floods that ravaged the Harrisonburg area two years later.įrom those disasters, a handful of the city’s volunteer firemen joined together to form a group that was dedicated to emergency medical response.Ĭharter members of the squad included Senger and his father Dewey and William Bowman, Lawrence Bryan, H.K. Senger, a life member with the organization after serving for 35 years, was one of the 17 volunteer firemen who formed the rescue squad in September 1949. “That was pretty scary because Mom knew all the codes - she knew what those things meant - but she didn’t hear Dad’s voice and that terrified her.” “She said, ‘I heard your dad on the radio, but I don’t hear him anymore,’” Luddy said. She had been staying at a friend’s house when her mother called and told her to come home.
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