Maryland: Firefighter ticketed after injuries to St. Mary’s sheriff

A mishap Wednesday morning at an accident scene sent St. Mary’s Sheriff Tim Cameron to a hospital with a leg injury. A review of the incident by a prosecutor led to citations issued against a Leonardtown firefighter, according to the sheriff’s office.

Cameron was treated at MedStar St. Mary’s Hospital in Leonardtown and released, the sheriff’s office reports, after the 7:36 a.m. incident on Pin Cushion Road near Clements.

Sheriff’s deputies responding to the accident scene found a Chevrolet S-10 pickup truck that left the road and struck a tree, the sheriff’s office reports, and the truck’s driver was suffering from a leg injury. She was placed on the tailgate of her vehicle to elevate her leg while law officers waited for emergency medical crews to get there.

Cameron arrived to assist the deputies and was standing to the rear of the pickup truck, speaking to the injured driver, the sheriff’s office reports, when a fire truck approached, driven by 61-year-old Kenneth Scully of the Leonardtown Volunteer Fire Department. The fire truck “was maneuvering into position,” according to the sheriff’s office, when Cameron was hit.

“Sheriff Cameron was struck by the fire truck and was pinned between the fire truck and tailgate of the wrecked vehicle,” according to a statement posted that afternoon by sheriff’s office spokesperson Jennifer Stone. “As the fire truck continued to move forward, Sheriff Cameron was thrown to the ground.”

Stone reported that the facts of the case were reviewed with Assistant State’s Attorney Laura Caspar, and that “based on the facts, the operator of the fire truck has been charged via citations [with] negligent driving, failure to control speed to avoid a collision, and driver failure to exercise due care to avoid [a] pedestrian collision.”

Caspar said Wednesday afternoon that the investigation has been completed, and that those citations will not be followed by any additional charges.

“What was indicated was that the driver was acting in good faith,” the prosecutor said, “but he failed to recognize that he was too close to the vehicle involved in the accident. He failed to control his speed.”

Scully, a life member and past chief of the fire department, is the father of the current chief, Jonathan Scully.

“I think some of those charges are a little excessive,” the chief said Wednesday afternoon. “They were maneuvering through the accident scene, ... through all the debris.”

Caspar also said of the fire truck’s driver, “This is a volunteer who is dedicated to the safety of others. He made a mistake, ... just simply an error.”

The chief said his father was driving the vehicle used by firefighters responding to car accidents. The firefighting vehicle, larger than a standard fire engine, is described in the fire department’s website as a 1996 Salisbury Simon-Duplex Heavy Rescue model.

A Maryland State Police helicopter crew joined the fire and rescue volunteers responding to the pickup truck crash, and Stone reported that its injured driver, whose name was no released, was flown to Prince George’s Hospital Center.

The sheriff suffered no broken bones from the mishap, and was released from the hospital in Leonardtown after undergoing X-rays and other tests, and being treated for abrasions, according to the sheriff’s office. The injury was described by a senior lawman as a hard “rub” from the contact with the firefighting vehicle as the sheriff was helping the injured motorist.

“He’s a working sheriff,” Capt. Steven Hall said Wednesday morning outside the hospital’s emergency room. “He was out there, doing his thing.”

Cameron (R) first was elected in 2006 and faced no opponent in his re-election in 2010 and last year.

The fire chief said Thursday that he did not foresee that the incident will cause any issues between the county’s volunteer emergency services and law enforcement.

“I don’t think it would,” he said.