Block Island Times

Rescue Captain: This summer Block Island is ‘scary and dangerous’

UPDATE: First Warden Ken Lacoste has scheduled a meeting with the island’s first responders on Wednesday, July 29 to seek solutions on how to manage crowd control on Block Island.
Another unquiet weekend for the Block Island Volunteer Rescue Squad.
A man walking with this family on High Street near Ebbet’s Hollow was hit by a moped on Sunday and injured so badly he had to be flown off island, along with two other people involved in that one crash. There were four life flights on Sunday.
Rescue Squad Capt. Tracy Fredericks told The Block Island Times that she continues to be “concerned and worried” about the sheer number of people coming to the island and behaving badly.
Her small group of volunteer EMTs is “exhausted. There’s no way to get a break.” By the time the crew has washed down and sanitized an ambulance after a call they’re out on another.
The kinds of calls the rescue squad sees runs the gamut from people injuring themselves by jumping off the piers in Old Harbor to overdrinking to accidents. The town ambulances were “going all day long” over the weekend, she said.
“It’s the sheer number of people

Block Island Times – Read More>>