SWOYERSVILLE -- Members of the Swoyersville Ambulance Company claim the borough's street department would not plow a path for its ambulance to rescue people in an emergency. As a result, the borough's mayor plans to launch an investigation.
Swoyersville's ambulance is back in service and on the road, but at the height of the storm on Tuesday, its members asked the mayor to get road crews to clear a simple path from its building to the street.
Mayor Christopher Concert says borough road crews didn't follow his orders.
"I don't think this should have happened. When I gave the order to go down and plow them out, it should have just been done," Concert said.
The mayor said he called the department three times.
"I notified them and told them they have to get the ambulance out."
The mayor says that when the street department finally cleared a path for the ambulance, a call came in to take a child bitten by a dog to the hospital.
At the height of the storm at about noon, Swoyersville Ambulance got stuck on a call on Watkins Street.
"All the neighbors pitched together to help the ambulance and the ambulance always helped us," said Krista Connolloy of Swoyersville.
Connolloy calls her neighbors heroic for leaving their homes and helping dig out the stuck ambulance.
A picture shows a member of the road crew parked and doing nothing while neighbors tried to help the ambulance dig out.
"From my porch and my view, it looked like he was just standing there, didn't even get out of the truck to help them, and I thought that was kind of odd," said Connolloy.
Workers from the street department are not commenting on what happened. Mayor Concert said he is going to let crews finish clearing the streets before he begins his investigation.