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08/15/2018 08:30 AMForty-seven years have passed since Donald McDougall responded to his first call as a volunteer with the Killingworth Ambulance Association.
The call came in on a Saturday—July 17, 1971 to be exact. It was for a bee sting, Donald recalls, and when he got to the house he was greeted by three children who were crying because they thought there was a trip to the hospital in their future. Everything turned out OK, no hospital visit was needed, and Donald is still friends with the family today, he says.
That call on a Saturday in 1971 may seem routine, but it marked the beginning of decades of service to the town for Donald, who, at 84 years young, shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
“I can either not volunteer, stay home, and watch TV and die, or I could do something,” Donald says.
Today, Donald is the town’s director of emergency management—a volunteer position he has held for over a decade—and is still involved with the ambulance association as a member of the organization’s Board of Directors.
That doesn’t begin to scratch the surface of Donald’s contributions to the community, though. Over the years, Donald has amassed quite a volunteering résumé, including a stint as the deputy director of emergency management from 1994 to 2004, serving as assistant scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 18, serving on the Emergency Operations Center Building Committee, helping to organize and lead the regional Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), and more.
Donald’s path to becoming a stalwart volunteer in town can be traced back to his pursuit of a better career.
A native of Caribou, Maine, Donald was living in Portland, Maine and working as a diesel mechanic for a bus company when he decided to take a better-paying job repairing machines at Pratt & Whitney. In 1963, Donald moved to New Britain to begin his life in Connecticut.
Donald worked his way up to supervisor at Pratt & Whitney, retiring from the company in 1994.
“I haven’t retired from everything else yet,” Donald is quick to point out.
Donald bought his home in Killingworth in 1969; the house was cheap and needed some work, he recalls. Two years later, there was a knock on his door.
The Killingworth Ambulance Association was just getting off the ground in 1971 and looking for volunteers. At the time, Donald worked from midnight to 7 a.m. He was asked if he would volunteer to cover during the day, which Donald says remains a difficult time to find volunteers.
Donald says he was available and the association needed the help, so he said “Yes.”
At the time, volunteers only needed CPR and first aid training, Donald says.
“They gave us a used ambulance, and we were on our way,” he says.
Over the years, Donald’s willingness to lend a helping hand whenever and wherever one is needed never waned.
When volunteers were needed to take over leadership roles locally in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, Donald, whose son was involved in scouting, stepped forward. As an assistant scoutmaster, Donald helped lead scouts for 20 or so years alongside David Doolittle, who was the scoutmaster. Together, the pair established a tradition for Troop 18 of hiking a part of The Long Trail, which runs from Massachusetts to Canada, every year.
When former director of emergency management Al Chapman asked him to be his assistant, Donald answered the call yet again. And, when Al stepped aside, Donald accepted the “promotion.”
As director of emergency management, Donald has guided the town through some powerful storms, including Tropical Storm Irene in 2011 and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Both storms left much of the town without power, leaving residents without water as well as electricity.
Donald organized relief efforts with local volunteers, the American Red Cross and the state. During both storms, Donald says, Haddam-Killingworth Middle School was open for a week as a regional shelter, giving residents a place to stay, shower, grab a bite to eat, and charge their devices.
The last bit caught Donald off guard in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, he admits. Donald says he was concerned about getting people coffee and something to eat, and he didn’t think about people wanting to charge their cellphones and laptops. The only problem, Donald says, was there were only three outlets that had power.
“I had to go scrounge up some power strips so we could charge up the toys,” he says with a smile.
All kidding aside, Donald says the assistance from other volunteers is what stands out to him when he thinks back on the aftermath of those storms.
“The cooperation I got from the CERT people,” he says. “They have families and everything, and they would volunteer to come and do a couple shifts.”
Donald isn’t one to search out the spotlight. The spotlight, however, has found him.
The Community Foundation of Middlesex County will honor Donald as an outstanding volunteer during the foundation’s 2018 Local Leaders Local Legends Celebration Wednesday, Aug. 22 in Essex.
While he’s honored by the recognition, Donald says it came as a surprise to him.
“A lot of people do a lot more than I do. Killingworth has a large number of volunteers,” says Donald, pointing to the volunteers who make up the Killingworth Volunteer Fire Company and Killingworth Ambulance Association.
Donald makes sure to add that the ambulance association always needs more volunteers, before plugging an EMT course and CERT training that are running in September. Anyone interested can call the ambulance association at 860-663-2450 for more information.
Donald—a husband, father to five children, grandfather, and great-grandfather—plans to remain active in town as long as he can.
What drives him? It isn’t personal accolades, that’s for sure.
“I learned it feels good to help people,” he says. “You do something and you help somebody, it’s a good feeling.”
For more information on the Community Foundation of Middlesex County Local Leaders Local Legends Celebration at the Essex Steam Train & Riverboat, 1 Railroad Avenue, Essex, visit middlesexcountycf.org.