Last Tuesday, Western Turnpike Rescue Squad volunteer Bill Teator sat on call for 12 hours. It had been a slow day, with only one call coming in early in the morning, and the clock was about to strike 6 p.m., marking the end of his shift.
At 5:45 p.m., a 91-year-old woman fell in her bathroom.
“She was on a stepstool, hanging up a shower curtain … healthy as can be, fell right on her hip. She was in some pain,” Teator said, who responded to the call. Though his shift only had 15 minutes left, the call came in on his watch. “Of course, I didn’t get out until 8 p.m.”
Teator, 72, has been working with several different emergency medical services within the Town of Colonie for more than 50 years. In between having a family and traveling across the country for work, he was able to devote the remainder of his free time to lending a helping hand to his community. He only volunteers twice a week now with the Western Turnpike Rescue Squad and infrequently volunteers as a fire policeman with Colonie’s Midway Fire Department, and Teator will officially retire from it all on May 31.
“I guess I’m burnt out,” Teator said, smiling.
Born in Watervliet, Teator attended Colonie Central High School and studied electrical engineering at Hudson Valley Community College. He decided to focus his engineering talents by working on telephone equipment.
After working a slew of jobs straight out of college, he eventually landed a spot with Western Electric Company, now known as Luca Technologies, in Utica, and stayed there until he retired 41 years later. Teator installed telephone equipment in central offices or businesses for the bell system and traveled throughout the country.
“(It was) interesting work. Not doing the same thing every day. (I liked) traveling around. I was in Georgia during the Olympics, Baton Rouge in the summer,” Teator said.
Teator married in 1963, had two sons, and settled his family in Colonie. Yet with his job, he continued to travel and called himself “The Suitcase Man.”
“Leave on Sunday night, come home on Friday night,” Teator said.
Though he spent much of his life away from home, he still found the time to begin volunteering with Colonie EMS in 1962 and shortly after, the Fire Department in West Albany on the weekends.
“You did what you could on weekends, or on your days off,” Teator said.
In 1965, he joined the Midway Fire Department and in 1978, trained as an EMT. Teator said he convinced his boss to let him stay in certain places while on the job in order to complete his training away from home.
When he eventually retired from his job in 2002, Teator continued to volunteer and began to work as a fire policeman for the Colonie Fire Department, where he will protect a scene and redirect traffic.
“You have to watch yourself, you can get hit and killed, too,” Teator said. “I’ve been pretty lucky so far. Your life is always in danger if you’re on the road, especially in this day and age.”
After working so many years in emergency services, Teator couldn’t say how many times he’s been in a situation that made him scared or nervous. A few years ago, he responded to a fire department call for students who had been burned alive in their car. The haunting image stayed in his mind.
“It bothered me just to get back to sleep for a couple of days,” Teator said. “Then I went on with my regular life. I get emotional too, but hey, you got to live. I just keep on going, that’s all. Try to get it out of your mind if you can.”
While working with the EMS, he said many times he had to perform CPR on people “almost knowing they were probably dead.” As a paramedic he isn’t legally allowed to pronounce someone dead.
“You just try to do your best to bring them back,” he said. “The hardest part is if a family comes up and says, ‘How is she/he doing?’ (I say) ‘We’re trying to do our best.’ You’re not going to say he/she’s deceased or passed away. It’s not good.”
Teator stopped working with the Colonie EMS several years ago when his wife became ill with Alzheimer’s. She died in 2012 after 48 years of marriage.
Although Teator said he’ll miss volunteering, he doesn’t plan to be hanging around his home and relaxing.
“I’m not one to sit around and watch TV, sit out in the backyard. I don’t go to the casinos or racetrack,” he said.
For the past few years, Teator has worked with the Umbrella of Colonie, a service of Colonie Senior Service Centers, where he works to help other seniors around their homes to do repairs and maintenance. Teator said he’d continue work with Umbrella and try to work on his own house.
As for the remainder of his time, Teator said he’d be visiting his eight grandchildren in other states and focusing on improving his score at the lanes with the local bowling league.
“It’s a night out with the fellas and girls,” he said. “I just always keep doing something.”