In the two years William Rudnick served as chief of the Garden City Park fire department, there were two hurricanes and a mammoth nor’easter snowstorm.
Rudnick, who stepped down this week, said this experience provided some very helpful lessons to him and his successor, Roger Green, who now takes command of the fire department for a second time.
“The hurricane and the storm afterward were the busiest time in the history of the Garden City Park Fire Department,” Rudnick said. “It got so busy, we were encountering new incidents while we were out on other calls.”
The department responded to more than 100 emergency calls during and immediately after the storm including multiple calls about downed wires, trees on homes, minor house fires, numerous gas leaks and one incident in which a man blew off his hand when he lit a firework he thought was a candle.
Rudnick said members of the department removed 100 trees from roadways to allow access to call locations. Sometimes they were forced to park their vehicles five blocks away from an incident. Fortunately, he said, the department had purchased chain saws for heavy rescue situations after Hurricane Irene.
“We had some very significant storms over the past two years that made us look at what we might need,” said Rudnick, who has served as a firefighters and medical technician for the department since 1991.
Those experiences prompted department chiefs to formulate a policy on storm preparedness, including staff meetings preceding and following a storm. Throughout this fall’s crisis periods, the department’s Jericho Turnpike headquarters and its Denton Avenue firehouse were each staffed by 25 to 30 members at all times. All four chiefs of the department were also available and on duty.
“We were staffed around the clock from the day prior to the hurricane to the day after the hurricane,” Rudnick said. “The membership of the department absolutely stepped up.”
In the two weeks after Sandy struck, Rudnick said the Garden City Park department assisted the Long Beach Fire Department “numerous times” on 12-hour shifts and also assisted the Lido Fire Department.
It was a top priority for Rudnick when he took command of the department two years ago to make sure his men would be equal to any task they faced. So in collaboration with his assistant chiefs, the frequency and diversity of training exercises increased.
“We picked up the standards of our training,” he said.
The department has also added “jaws of life” equipment for removing accident victims from autos, upgraded its portable radios and replace outdated breathing apparatus during his tenure.
The department now has 30 members trained in advanced auto extrication and water rescue and 25 members are certified technicians to respond to calls for people trapped in machines in workplaces. The department has also trained its members on the fire bailout equipment it now has in place.
“You can’t have an expectation of what will happen,” Rudnick said.
Rudnick’s career in emergency medical services began with a chance encounter with Joseph Richter, a chief’s aide for the Garden City Park Fire Department, during a fire call at the local Pathmark supermarket where Rudnick was shopping that day. Richter, he said, encouraged him to join the department.
“I grew up in Queens and I had never heard of a volunteer fire department before,” he said.
As a member of the Garden City Park Fire Department, Rudnick received training as a medical technician.
He then went on to work as a medical technician for the New York City Fire Department for 10 years before taking a job with the Nassau County Police Department ambulance corps four years ago.
Prior to that, he was the head of fire safety for a large office complex in New York City.
Rudnick said he has enjoyed his years in the department and is grateful for the support his chiefs staff gave him during his two years in charge.
Now, he said, he’s looking forward to riding in the back of the truck as an active firefighter again with his brother and sister firefighters in Garden City Park.
