PITTSTON, Maine — Colleagues are mourning the loss of a longtime volunteer firefighter after he was struck and killed by a car while crossing a road near his home.
CentralMaine.com reported that Lewis “Duddy” Brown, 83, died at the scene of the accident. Sonya Marsh-Rocque, 61, who was driving the car that hit Brown, was not hurt.
The crash happened when Brown went to check the mailbox outside his home. Officials said it was dark at the time of the crash and there were no streetlights in the area.
A nurse stopped to render aid and perform CPR on Brown. He didn’t regain consciousness and was pronounced dead at the scene.
“Duddy was a very nice man,” said Hope Ricker, who worked with him on the Pittston Fair. “He tried to put across a gruff personality, but he was a very nice man.”
Brown served on the department from 1962 to 2013, including a stint as chief from 1985 to 1991.
“He was a wealth of knowledge,” Chief Jason Farris said. “He probably knew as much about fire pumps as anybody I knew. I’d always be grateful when I looked up on the pump panel and saw Duddy there. I knew I didn’t have to worry about what was going on.”
Brown volunteered for the department until two years ago.
“He was active right to the very end,” Farris said. “He showed up to a lot of calls, a lot of trainings. You just assumed he was going to be there.”
Farris has arranged a critical stress debriefing for his firefighters who responded to the scene. Brown is the third Pittston firefighter to die this year, according to the report.