Just two days before Christmas 1952, a truck struck and killed Anthony Denardo as he crossed a street on his way to a grocery store.
The 65-year-old Pittston area Italian immigrant suffered massive injuries, but people who aided him insisted he died at least partly because no ambulance arrived for 45 minutes, according to newspaper accounts.
“Meanwhile, the injured man was suffering and bleeding,” a Dec. 28, 1952, Pittston Sunday Dispatch account reported.
Denardo’s death birthed a permanent ambulance service for the Pittston area, where the city’s existing but faltering service lacked a driver the day Denardo died.
On Thursday, officials of Luzerne County’s third-largest city and the Greater Pittston Regional Ambulance celebrated another chapter in what they hope will continue a history of consistently saving lives since.
They ceremonially broke ground on a new headquarters on Plank Street, once the home of the Triangle Motel & Restaurant. Attorney Michael Lombardo, the ambulance service board vice president and legal counsel, nodded to its roots.
“We're not going to be here someday,” Lombardo said. “So, my call is to everyone in this community to recognize how important a good, functioning (ambulance) service is to our community ... It's up to everyone, everyone that's here today, everyone that you know, to ensure that this ambulance continues to thrive and to flourish.”
A bigger headquarters
They plan for it to flourish in a pre-fabricated 11,200-square-foot building that will cost about $8 million by the time it’s complete, said Pittston Mayor Michael Lombardo, a cousin of the ambulance board vice president.
Luzerne County officials — including the Lombardos’ relative County Council Chairman John Lombardo — delivered a ceremonial $2 million check from the county’s American Rescue Plan Act funds. The real money behind the check will help pay for the construction.
Other local, state and federal grants will cover the rest, Mayor Lombardo said.
The new building's first phase will include about 7,000 square feet in parking bays for 10 to 12 ambulances and emergency support vehicles and must be done by the end of the year, Mayor Lombardo said. The second phase will add sleeping quarters and a room for meetings and community events.
The round-the-clock ambulance, staffed by full- and part-time personnel, will also move administrative offices from its current headquarters at South Main and Market streets. That houses three ambulances and a support vehicle, which will move to the new building, ambulance chief Edward Szafran said.
Overall, the service has eight ambulances, two emergency squad units, a support vehicle and a special operations trailer, according to its website.
A growing operation
Besides the downtown Pittston headquarters, the service has maintained an Exeter station since merging with the ambulance company there in 2018. The Exeter station has room for only two of the ambulances stationed there, Szafran said.
“So, this will help us have a primary base of operations,” Szafran said. “We will still maintain our presence in Exeter borough. We have a station over there. And we also have a substation, hopefully in the next couple weeks, up at the Avoca Fire Department ... to service the northern part of our coverage area.”
The service provides the primary emergency medical services for Pittston City, Yatesville, Exeter, Wyoming, West Wyoming, West Pittston, Laflin and Avoca boroughs, and Jenkins Township.
It also provides advanced life support ambulances that supplement basic life support ambulances in Dupont, Duryea and Hughestown boroughs and Exeter and Pittston townships.
Denardo's legacy
Denardo lived in Hughestown and operated a grocery store there for 35 years. The accident happened near his home.
“We need to continue to focus on what it is we're supposed to be doing, because if we get lost in the politics of us and them, we forget about the real people we've been elected to represent,” Mayor Lombardo said. “This project is a great testament to not forgetting about those people.”
