THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 2, 1995 TAG: 9501020053
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ONANCOCK LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
One by one, Melfa's volunteer firefighters put evergreens on Steven Colona's casket, then saluted. They weren't alone. Nearly 850 people had gathered Sunday to honor the 18-year-old, who died last Tuesday in the twisted wreckage of the fire truck he was driving.
Colona was the first Eastern Shore firefighter known to have died in the line of duty. About 500 firefighters and rescue workers from Hampton Roads, the Eastern Shore, Maryland and Delaware came to honor him. Ninety firetrucks and ambulances - draped in black and decorated with flowers - had followed Colona's casket through the streets of Onancock.
Yet the crowded cemetery was strangely quiet. Colona's parents clung to each other, weeping. Then, as the funeral ended, a Nightingale rescue helicopter flew overhead. The wail of its siren pierced the silence.
Sirens usually warn of danger. At Sunday's funeral, it was the sound of mourning.
``He was our future,'' said Dick Surran after the ceremony, tears streaming down his face. ``He was a man, and he died doing what men do.''
Surran, who is president of Melfa Volunteer Fire and Rescue Company, was the first medic on the scene after Colona's accident, and was the first to know Colona was dead.
Experts aren't sure what caused Tuesday's tragedy. Someone reported a fire in a chicken house near Cashville. Three companies responded. Colona and Charles Nash, another volunteer firefighter, drove a 2,000-gallon water tanker toward the fire. But the tanker flipped on a back-road curve.
It took 45 minutes to cut Colona from the wreckage. He was declared dead at the scene. Nash was taken to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and is recovering from fractures and lacerations.
The chicken house fire turned out to be a false alarm.
Colona joined the volunteer fire and rescue company the day he turned 16. He was chief engineer for Melfa, maintaining all of the squad's vehicles. He recently had completed shock-trauma emergency medical technician training, and worked part time as a 911 dispatcher.
``He was what youth are supposed to be,'' said Surran. ILLUSTRATION: L. TODD SPENCER/
Staff
Ninety firetrucks and ambulances followed the casket of volunteer
firefighter Steven Colona through the streets of Onancock on
Sunday.
Steven Colona was the first Eastern Shore firefighter known to have
died in the line of duty. He joined the Melfa Volunteer Fire and
Rescue Company on his 16th birthday.
by CNB