Rowan goes to the rescue

BY JENNIFER MOXLEY & BRAD A. HODGES
SALISBURY POST

CONCORD — When the pedestrian crosswalk at the Lowe’s Motor Speedway collapsedSaturday night, Rowan firefighters and rescue workers joined the effort to help the injured.

Rescue workers received a page at 11:15 that as many as 300 people were injured outside the racetrack.

“It took a minute to comprehend what the dispatcher was saying,” Rowan County Rescue Squad Chief Coyt Karriker said.

Karriker, along with several volunteers from the county, rushed to the racetrack.

“You could see all of the lights — red lights, blue lights, yellow lights — coming up the hill,” Rescue Squad Emergency Medical Technician Pat Mahaley said. Mahaley transported a couple from West Virginia and a young man who goes to school in South Carolina to Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte.

Six Salisbury firefighters and six more with Rowan County’s rural departments moved victims on boards to ambulances. Many victims were flown to hospitals from helicopters that landed at a new dirt racetrack.

The volunteers had worked inside Turn Four during The Winston race Saturday night. Armed with extinguishers, uniforms and helmets, the group responds to wrecks and fires on the track and in the pit area.

“It was a hard thing,”said Tom Lowman, a battalion chief with the Salisbury Fire Department. “We basically loaded people into the ambulances and were talking to the victims providing psychological support.”

Doug Bickerstaff, interim chief of the Cabarrus County Rescue Squad, was in charge of communications at the scene of the accident. Bickerstaff was about 300 yards away from the bridge when it fell.

“I was told to turn around and look, and I turned around,” Bickerstaff said, explaining the scene. “I saw the bridge collapsed in a V-shape.”

Once the bridge collapsed, Bickerstaff got the paramedics at the track to respond and immediately called for more help.

“There were no boundaries of, ‘you’re an EMT, you’re a paramedic, you’re a law enforcement officer.’ Everyone got down and helped,” Bickerstaff said, noting that Highway Patrol troopers put on gloves and helped the injured.

Rowan County Emergency Management Services sent three ambulances, agency director Wayne Ashworth said. The Rowan County Rescue Squad sent another five ambulances and three rescue trucks. Enochville Fire Department also sent an ambulance.

Bickerstaff said Gaston, Stanly, Lincolnton, Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties also sent rescue vehicles.

“It is greatly appreciated. I can’t say how much they are appreciated,” Bickerstaff said.C