NEWBURYPORT — As toddlers and young children wrapped up Tuesday’s firefighter story time at the Newburyport Public Library, they all erupted with excitement when they were surprised by the appearance of three of the heroes they had just been reading about.
Newburyport firefighters Terry Leary, Brian Padellaro and Kevin Parseghian arrived at the library at around 11:20 a.m., as the children’s librarians were wrapping up a singalong.
Padellaro introduced himself and his colleagues to the group of nearly two dozen children, who all began inching closer to get a better look.
“So, there’s three of us that drive a fire truck. We go to all sorts of emergencies—someone slips and falls, we can help them. Someone has a fire—we can help them. There’s a lot of different stuff we do,” Padellaro said.
Crouching down to eye level with the kids, Padellaro was quickly swarmed as they eagerly began asking him questions, the first of which was “when would you use the hose?”
“If we know that we have a fire in either a house, or the woods, or whatever it might be, we pull the hoses out. Firefighter Terry, who’s driving the fire engine today, he pulls off the knobs and sends water to the hose. Then I would be the guy to hold the hose and put the fire out,” Padellaro said.
Another question was when they last had to extinguish a fire.
“We actually had a fire two days ago at a laundromat in Salisbury. Someone put something in the dryer that shouldn’t have been in there. It got going and caught the ceiling,” Padellaro said, referring to the fire.
Eventually Leary, who had snuck out of the room, returned in nearly full gear while holding his helmet, mask and oxygen tank.
“Terry’s got his boots on, his pants, and his jacket. All of this protects his skin, his upper body, legs, and feet, so they don’t get burned, and he’s also protected from the smoke,” Padellaro said.
Leary then put on the rest of his gear, much to the delight of the children.
“Now, Terry is going to put on his SCBA. That’s his air pack. So when you put your air pack on and also the mask, this is what lets firefighters breathe through the heat and smoke so they don’t choke or get bad booboos on the inside,” Padellaro said.
On his knees in full gear, Leary held his hands up as kids rushed up to high-five him.
After they were done with the presentation inside, everyone lined up and followed the firefighters out to the firetruck outside the library.
“It carries 750 gallons of water,” Leary said.
With the fire engine parked next to a hydrant, firefighters explained how they use the yellow hose on the truck to connect to the hydrant
“Sometimes we don’t have enough water in the truck, so we connect to this for even more water,” Padellaro said.
Next they showed off the Jaws of Life used to extract those trapped in cars.
“This can lift over 10,000 pounds” Leary said.
Standing beside some of the parents, children’s librarian Sienna Willis said it is always “awesome” to collaborate with another city department.
“I mean, the kids love story time, but it’s exciting to have a guest that can come and present, kind of get them to come to the fire department,” Willis said.
Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: mpetry@northofboston.com.