As is the case with most fire departments, medical calls comprise the vast majority of dispatches that send Hanceville fire fighters into the field.

“I’d say medical calls are in the upper 80 percent range of the call response volume that our fire department handles,” said mayor Kenneth Nail. When things get especially hectic, the high call volume places a premium on both manpower and available equipment. “Hanceville runs a lot of fire and medical calls, and sometimes we can have two or even three of those taking place at one time,” said Nail.

The Alabama Attorney General’s office can’t do much to address a municipal manpower shortage, of course — but thanks to a recent environmental settlement, it can help out with equipment. As part of a lawsuit settlement in the wake of a 2019 Black Warrior River discharge of wastewater from the nearby Tyson Foods plant, the AG’s office apportioned a piece of the settlement payout to aid the city in obtaining a new medical response truck.

“We appreciate the attorney general and the [Restitution Fund Oversight] committee in thinking of Hanceville and our need. What this will do is give us a secondary truck, because we were operating with only a single rescue truck before.”

At last month’s meeting of the Hanceville City Council, assistant fire chief Bart Absher noted it’s been a busy year for the city’s fire department. Through the first nine months of 2022, the department had responded to 1,124 calls (including close to 100 calls through the first two weeks of October). Because of the department’s first-response role in the community, the majority of calls the department handles are medical in nature.

The new crew cab pickup truck is expected to help reduce the department’s response times, especially during active periods when it fields multiple emergency calls at once. The new vehicle comes at an opportune time: Hanceville’s fire department is currently in the process of stepping up a number of its responders’ medical qualifications, which will allow credentialed fire fighters to administer IV drips and take other first-response steps after arriving at the scene of an emergency.

“The paperwork for that process is supposed to be sent to the state this week,” said Nail, “and as soon as we get that inspection — hopefully very quickly, within the next two or three weeks — we’ll be able to begin taking those measures, when they’re necessary, when our fire fighters are first in responding to medical emergency calls.”

The illegal 2019 wastewater discharge that led to the lawsuit and subsequent settlement payout killed an estimated 175,000 fish and damaged the ecosystem of the Black Warrior River, Attorney General Steve Marshall said in a press release. Following the incident, Marshall sued Tyson Foods on behalf of the State of Alabama for violating the Alabama Water Pollution Control Act and the Environmental Management Act.

Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Deputy Commissioner Ed Poolos serves as chairman of the resulting Restitution Fund Oversight Committee, which selected the projects that were funded through the settlement. Cullman County native James Fields also serves on the committee. “Hanceville is a city that’s always taken care of its citizens, and this gives them another way to assist people,” said Fields via the release.

Hanceville was among the first three recipients the committee revealed in an announcement of settlement funding earlier this year. “Those projects — in Colony and Garden City in Cullman County and the Forks in the River site near the Walker County town of Sipsey — provide recreational boaters, paddlers and anglers better access to the Mulberry and Sipsey Forks of the Black Warrior River,” the AG’s office said in its announcement.

Alabama Senator Garlan Gudger (R-Cullman) also serves on the Restitution Fund Oversight Committee. “This is what I call ‘Montgomery money,’” he said in the AG’s announcement. “It’s not the taxpayers here who paid for this. It’s a different way for us to fund them. This is a way to draw money into this municipality to help the city deliver a crucial service with the funds provided to us by the attorney general. This is a way we can support and help the citizens right here who were affected by the tragic accident that occurred.”

Nail said he’s grateful that Hanceville, whose extended fire response area encompasses the Tyson facility, was included among the settlement’s earliest beneficiaries.

“We do run a lot of response calls to Tyson for medical and, on occasion, for fire,” said Nail. “I would add that, outside of this incident, Tyson has been good about helping out in our community. They typically fund our annual Kids’ Night Out event, and they just contributed $50,000 toward the new Tucker Park in downtown Hanceville that will hopefully be ready for a grand opening soon.”