Syracuse Sutphen Aerial Towers

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Over the years, I have had fire service professionals from throughout the country ask me why Syracuse had such an attachment for Sutphen Aerial Towers. A fair question. Here's one reason . . . in mid-1995, I was the newly-promoted Captain of SFD Truck Company 3. Our apparatus at that time was a 1976 90' Sutphen (HS-1176), which was slated for replacement - in fact, the new truck was already on order. I had gone home after the night shift, and during the day a multiple-alarm fire was reported on Syracuse's near north side, one of the oldest sections of commercial buildings in the city. Truck 3 had found a great position in the parking lot behind the building, and the scrub area of the extended boom could cover just about all of the C side of the structure (or "Side 3" as we old-timers still call it. At the time, that was still correct.) The fire was under control and one of the Deputy Chiefs had asked T3 to take him up to inspect the structure. As the basket approached the center section of the rear wall, the top story suddenly peeled away from the building and most of the brick & mortar fell directly on T3's bucket. We have all heard about being "Hit like a ton of bricks" . . . well, The Deputy and Truck 3's Lieutenant actually experienced it. As the weight of the bucket suddenly increased exponentially, the boom slowly bent and the basket descended to the roof of the one-story addition on the rear of the building . . . buried under a pile of bricks. Rescue operations commenced immediately, and the two brothers were dug out and transported to the hospital - where, due to good protective gear and just enough time to duck, they both remarkably suffered fairly minor injuries. As the comapny Captain, I was notified at home and arrived on the scene as the members were leaving for the hospital. Once the fire was officially out, the issue became: What do we do with Truck 3 now? A quick call to Sutphen in Ohio put one of their engineers on a plane to Syracuse, and within a day, a plan developed. Both the Sutphen engineer and our own Division of Maintenance personnel looked the downed vehicle over long and hard, and then they fired it up, raised the now-empty bucket, retracted the boom, and bedded it. The Sutphen engineer drove it back to Ohio under its own power, and it was taken in trade on the new unit being completed to replace it.  We made do at Truck 3 with a spare tower for a few months, and then the new 1995 truck arrived.

 

That is one tough truck, folks. Not only did it stand up amazingly well to a horrific situation, but the response by the manufacturer justified all the faith we have had for so many years in what they build and how they back it.  Sutphen sold a lot more than a new 1995 tower that day. Here's what the scene looked like when I arrived:

 

 





 

There were some awful grinding noises as the boom was retracted - I won't pretend there weren't - and how much (if any) of that boom was eventually salvaged II don't know. I do know that the truck itself had (as far as I know) a different boom attached to it, and acted as a Sutphen Corporation "loaner" for a few years after we had traded it in. That truck didn't owe anybody a dime, and a couple of my brother firefighters owe it a good deal more than that.

 

And THAT's why we like Sutphens in Syracuse.