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Firefighters mourn crash victim
Member since '01, Wright remembered as happy, dedicated
Friday, Dec. 19, 2008
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Wright
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The flag at the Newburg Volunteer Rescue Squad and Fire Department flew at half staff Monday, but inside the building still hung a helmet and suit for Christopher James Wright, who died in a single-car accident last week.
The 26-year-old La Plata man had served as a volunteer firefighter with the Newburg station, Company 14, since 2001, and the station was like "his second home," according to his friends.
"Nothing could ever make that boy frown," said EMS Assistant Chief Andrew Spalding of Wright, who was also known as "Giggles" by the group.
The firefighters remembered their fellow volunteer as a man whose love of autos led him to spend hours waxing his car or polishing the rims of the fire engine. Wright's day job was at Gary Best Kustumz, an auto body shop in Waldorf, but the firefighters said he was thinking of joining the military or becoming a professional firefighter someday. At the time of his death, he was taking a certification course that would have moved him toward becoming a professional firefighter, according to Fire Assistant Chief Clifton Butler, who knew Wright since preschool.
"You never knew when he was gonna be here [at the station]. He always had cherry-red cheeks and was laughing," Butler said.
Butler said he was the one who convinced Wright to volunteer at Newburg in 2001. Wright didn't want to join the station at first, Butler said, but when he joined, he became part of the company family.
"Everybody looks out for everybody," volunteer firefighter Tim Shifflett said of the group.
Many of the firefighters were at the station Dec. 11, the night of Wright's accident and heard the call as it came in.
But they didn't know it was Wright until a phone call delivered the news that the 26-year-old had been a passenger in a Toyota Scion that hit a tree and utility pole in La Plata.
"A couple of us rode up to get his dad the morning of the tragedy, just to be with him and his family," Spalding said.
According to police, the driver of the Scion, Frank Richard Jones, 20, of Waldorf, lost control of the car on Bryantown Road, but the reason for the accident has not yet been determined.
Wright, who was thrown from the car, was pronounced dead on the scene after authorities responded at about 1:39 a.m. Jones suffered injuries that weren't life-threatening and was taken to Prince George's Hospital Center.
Wright had a fireman's funeral, and his fellow firefighters were his pallbearers in the Dec. 18 ceremony.
Butler said the station will retire Wright's gear and give it to his family.
