Emergency services who were low in fuel last night praised a Co Meath mechanic after he returned from delivering meals-on-wheels to open his snow-closed service station for them,
.Emergency Medical Technicians Mick Rogers and Krzysztof Makowski needed to refuel their ambulance but couldn’t find a service station in Navan that wasn’t either closed because of the weather or hit by power cuts yesterday evening.
As things started to look desperate, Mick thought of contacting Martin Curran, who works with the local voluntary group Meath River Rescue.
Martin had closed his service station at Garlow Cross, outside Navan, because of the Status Red weather alert issued and was out with Meath River Rescue delivering meals-on-wheels to the elderly.
The group also spent yesterday providing a shuttle service to the doctors, nurses and staff of Our Lady’s Hospital in Navan to get them to and from work duty.
Martin quickly returned to not only open and provide fuel for the ambulance but also to make sure the EMTs could fill their stocks of tea and biscuits.
“This is why we should support local businesses,” said Mick last night.
“There was no fuel to be got in Navan at 6pm because all the service stations were either closed because of the weather or had no power because of the outages.
“We tried absolutely everywhere before contacting Martin as we didn’t like asking him to open up especially for us.
“Fair play to Martin though, who came back and opened up for the ambulance crew and even gave us tea and coffee on the house too.
“He was even helping other people too by delivering meals-on-wheels with Meath River Rescue.
“Martin said he’d open for the emergency services at any time of the day or night – that’s real community spirit.”
A humble Martin dismissed his kind actions this morning as he was collecting a doctor to bring him to work at Navan hospital.
“I was happy to help them out,” he said.
“They were stuck at the time and I wasn’t going to say no.
“The roads were passable last night but this morning, I had to dig myself out of the house and one of the Meath River Rescue got stranded outside Navan last night.”