NORTHFIELD — A long-time town firefighter has died of injuries from a one-car crash, sending a wave of grief through the town’s close-knit fire department and the community.
Nathan Hutchinson, 30, of Northfield died Wednesday night from injuries resulting from a rollover on Route 5 in Bernardston shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday.
According to Northfield Fire Chief Floyd “Skip” Dunnell III, who knew Hutchinson during his years of service to the Fire Department, Hutchinson was initially transported to Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield after the crash. Due to the severity of his injuries, he was then transferred to the trauma center at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, and he died shortly after 7 p.m. Wednesday.
According to Bernardston Police Sgt. Jason Bassett and spokeswoman for the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office Mary Carey, the cause of the accident is being investigated primarily by the Massachusetts State Police Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Section, with help from the Bernardston Police Department.
Bassett said Hutchinson was the sole occupant of the vehicle.
When asked why news of the accident didn’t surface sooner, despite attempts by the Recorder to reach out to the state police, spokeswoman for the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, Mary Carey, said “I don’t think I could shed much light on that.”
Dunnell said the news of Hutchinson’s death has left the 32 members of the Fire Department reeling. He said Hutchinson first got involved as a junior firefighter from 2000 to 2004, serving then as a firefighter in Hatfield before returning to the Northfield department in 2006.
“It’s been devastating to lose somebody that’s so young, active,” Dunnell said. “It is losing one of the family, not just us, but Bernardston and the surrounding departments, too, because we all work so closely together.”
Dunnell remembers Hutchinson as having found his passion for firefighting young, and having been committed to it. He spent a lot of time training to gain experience, followed directions extremely well and was a great interior firefighter, Dunnell said.
“He was there morning, night, whenever the pager went off,” Dunnell said of Hutchinson. “He was generally on the first engine out the door.”
After family and friends learned that Hutchinson was in the hospital, multiple fundraising campaigns began to help pay his medical bills. Through CustomInk, a campaign was started selling “HutchStrong” T-shirts (http://bit.ly/2sLbfnl), and Mike Shedd of Northfield began a GoFundMe campaign Monday with a $10,000 goal (http://bit.ly/2tWLQqY). As of press time Thursday night, $1,895 had been raised by 31 donors on GoFundMe.