As Police Week winds down in the Virgin Islands, first responders in the St. Thomas-St. John District paid their respects to one of their own. The funeral service for Capt. Carl Fleming, Sr., who served with St. Thomas Rescue, was underway in the auditorium at the Bertha C. Boschulte Middle School on Saturday.
Fleming died April 8 at the age of 58.
As the viewing ended and the service began, uniformed EMTs, rescue responders, and firefighters marched silently past the casket. They took their seats in the back of the hall as the services began.
Outside the auditorium doors, members of the squad Fleming called his “A Team” spoke quietly among themselves. Rescue groups in service on St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John are volunteer organizations sometimes called community first responders.
Across the United States, some community responders are affiliated with ambulance services; others are not. The number of active groups is unclear, according to the National Institutes of Health.
And like rescue groups in other areas, local volunteers often have full-time duties as first responders. Victor Adams is one of them.
“I came into contact with Bigley — or Carl Fleming — approximately 18 years ago when I joined the EMS system,” Adams said, “and from the time I joined, he’s been like a big brother to me — mentoring, showing me the ropes.”
Former rescue volunteer Michael Wheatley became a fire captain in West Palm Beach, Fla. Outside the venue where the funeral took place, he described Fleming as “a family man, a community man — a rescue man.”
St. Thomas Rescue founder and President Patrick Benjamin described the group’s contribution to emergency response as “very good.” A veteran volunteer of 40 years, Benjamin said he and Fleming spent years working side by side.
“St. Thomas Rescue is highly trained. We started with first aid — basic first aid. We had to learn CPR, EMS – paramedics,” the president said, adding that some former volunteers are now in the States working as fire chiefs, nurses, and in emergency rooms.
Since he first joined the St. Thomas squad in 1996, Fleming trained and gained expertise at vehicle extractions — pulling victims out of the wreckage at auto accidents. Keridon Williams, a 20-year veteran, said the chief promoted training opportunities for all volunteers.
Today, the organization has about 50 active members.
“St. Thomas Rescue — it still is — a volunteer organization where back in the day, we would have only heavy rescue operations. So, any type of motor vehicle accident, it was rescue who was being called out in the middle of the night … to rappel off the side of the mountains, or to cut people out of cars. Biggs was effective – he was an extrication expert, so he passed on all of those training and all of those tips and techniques to us and on to the younger generation,” Williams said.
Many on the squad said their work as volunteer responders gave their lives a sense of purpose. They credited Fleming for setting an example they could easily follow.
“You mentioned about which call he was on. The question is, which call he wasn’t on. He was always on call; if there was a call for service, he was there,” Adams said.
Appreciation for the community service of V.I. rescue groups was shown later in the day on Saturday as the Prayer House of Faith held an appreciation day for police, firefighters, and members of St. John Rescue. About two dozen first responders joined the Cruz Bay event held to mark the church’s 16th anniversary.
