Charleston Gazette
Tuesday, October 13, 1998
Black ribbons hung in the truck bays
and the flag flew at half-staff Monday at the Hurricane fire station.
Paramedic Tom Spalding was not coming back.
Spalding, 25, was
killed early Monday while responding to an emergency call near Pliny.
Friends and acquaintances were taking the news hard Monday afternoon in
the tightly knit community of firefighters and paramedics. "He was a
big, tenderhearted teddy bear," said Frank Stover, chief of the
Hurricane Volunteer Fire Department and one of Spalding's best friends.
Stover said Spalding had been with the volunteer fire department
about 11 months, but had worked as an emergency medical technician and
paramedic in Putnam County for about six years. He said the burly
paramedic - Spalding was well over 6 feet tall and weighed about 400
pounds - was well-liked. "The kids around the station are just
devastated," Stover said. "When kids were around, if they were 4 years
old he'd act like he was 4 years old. "He was just a big kid."
Spalding left the Poca fire station a few minutes past 2 a.m. with
50-year-old Barton "Pedro" Gibson to to back up another ambulance in
Pliny. Gibson was driving. The ambulance was racing down U.S. 35 in a
thick fog when a tractor-trailer pulled out of a truck stop just north
of the W.Va. 34 interchange. In the fog, Gibson didn't see the truck in
time, and slammed into the rear of the flatbed. Gibson was in serious
but stable condition in the intensive care unit at General Division,
CAMC on Monday, according to hospital spokesman Gary Chernenko. "It's
going to be a couple of days before he gets out," he said.
Stover said he was listening to the emergency radio at his home in
Hurricane when he first heard about the wreck. As soon as he found out
who was involved, he left to see if he could help. Stover said the fog
was so thick it took 45 minutes to drive the nine or 10 miles to the
scene of the crash. Putnam County sheriff's deputies doubt the driver of
the tractor -trailer, Brian Boggess of Winfield, will be cited in the
accident. Stover said the fog was so thick he doubts the wreck could
have been avoided.
Spalding lived in Hurricane and spent a lot of
time with Stover's family, who had unofficially adopted the paramedic.
"He called me dad and my wife mom," Stover said. Spalding was married
Sept. 4. "I was his best man," Stover said.
Like many medical
technicians and paramedics, Spalding volunteered as a firefighter and
worked through the ranks part time, building experience to become a
full-time paramedic. Stover said he worked at the Poca fire station, the
station in Hurricane and the station in Winfield, wherever he was
needed. "This was his life," Stover said. "Anything to save someone
else's life was what he was into."
Thomas Kevin Spalding III was
a volunteer firefighter in Glasgow before moving to Putnam County. He
was a 1992 graduate of DuPont High School and had an associate degree in
fire science from West Virginia Tech.
Surviving: wife,
Catherine, at home; father, Kevin Spalding Jr. of Ward; mother, Jeanie
Beard Salyer of Brownstown, Ind.; stepfather, Mike Salyer of Brownstown,
Ind.; stepmother, Sue Spalding of Ward; sister, Shelley Atkinson of
Hurricane; stepbrother, Joe Allen of Ward; maternal grandmother, Cora
Beard of Cedar Grove; paternal grandmother, Patsy Spalding of Ohio.
Visitation will be 4 to 9 p.m. Wednesday at Cooke Funeral Home,
Cedar Grove.
Funeral arrangements are incomplete.
Charleston Gazette
Wednesday, October 14, 1998
SPALDING, Tom -
Service will be 1 p.m. Thursday at the Nitro Community Center with the
Rev. Philip Bowles officiating. Burial will be in Cunningham Memorial
Park, St. Albans.
Friends may call from 4 to 9 p.m. today at
Cooke Funeral Home, Cedar Grove.
Spalding, 25, of Hurricane died
Oct. 12, 1998, of injuries received when the ambulance he was in crashed
into the back of a tractor-trailer in dense fog on U.S. 35, according to
the emergency services director for for Putnam County.
