Dedicated Rockhill rescue volunteers face transition to new station

A fellow rescue chief recently asked Jean Helmandollar how Rockhill Volunteer Rescue Squad has been able to staff a full volunteer crew, every weekend for the last 30 years.

"We're friends," Helmandollar responded. "That's our secret."

Stafford County officials hope that formula for success will continue when Rockhill rescue is combined with Rockhill fire department into a brand new building. By summer 2027, the county hopes to open Station 8, Rockhill Fire and Rescue Station, along Mountain View Road near Willowmere Park.

The 17,000-square-foot facility with three drive-thru bays is estimated to cost almost $17 million. It will be the first time Stafford has consolidated existing departments into a new building, said Fire Chief Joseph Cardello.

For Helmandollar and others who've run calls from Rockhill over the decades, the rescue station has become a second home. The building even looks like a house from the outside with its screened-in porch and front yard big enough to land a medevac helicopter.

That's happened in the past along with an assortment of other activities. In the 1990s, volunteers rolled up the curtains in the bay and hung a disco ball from the ceiling so teenagers could dance to their heart's content and the squad could raise funds on ticket sales. The volunteers also have climbed atop the roofs of ambulances to do their own construction work in the living quarters.

They've stuck together because they like each other, said Chuck Matheson.

"We come here to hang out," he said.

Sometimes, the group even vacations together, said George Terrell. During a trip to Iceland, Stafford residents put their beer in the room of Steve Brown, who's retired from running calls but still works around the building, because everyone knows how cold he likes to keep the temperature.

Likewise, they know that Steve Cohen snores and that Terry Chauncey has turned an old squad he purchased into a "camp-ulance." That's a vehicle for the Aquia Harbour resident to camp in during the week when he works in Norfolk.

Matheson came to Rockhill from another department where there were younger volunteers and too much drama. Before joining Rockhill, he asked Helmandollar about its environment.

"She said we're all old," Matheson said. "There's no drama."

'Really dedicated'

The regular Rockhill call-runners are a throwback to another time when locally run organizations raised the funds to buy new ambulances or firetrucks and produced the volunteers to operate them. Work schedules and attitudes toward volunteerism changed, and localities were forced to put paid personnel into buildings to make sure calls were answered.

Friction almost always followed when volunteers and career people found themselves under the same roof.

The Rockhill association — which spells its name as one word while the voting district is two words — owns both the rescue station and fire department, 2 miles away. The fire station is manned by career employees, but there are no paid people at Rockhill rescue.

"They're 100% volunteer, no career help," said Stafford County Fire Chief Joseph Cardello. "That does make them unusual in the county, on the rescue side."

Rockhill consistently has one or two members on the county's list of top 10 volunteers who have staffed the most hours each month, said Robert Eaby, Stafford's volunteer coordinator.

Helmandollar has been on the list every month in 2024, compiling an amazing 1,620 hours from January to September. That's time on calls, not hours spent sitting behind a desk in a station. Cohen, Terrell and Matheson also made the top-10 total several times.

"We're very proud of them," Eaby said.

"Like a lot of volunteers," Cardello added, "they're really dedicated to serving the community."

They "have been unwavering in their commitment," said Crystal Vanuch, the Board of Supervisors member from Rock Hill District.

'More central location'

Vanuch said she and Helmandollar worked together to make sure the current fire station stayed open while the county worked to get funding, and a location, for the new joint station. The rescue chief welcomed career firefighters into their "home" when repairs needed to be made at the fire station.

"Without the partnership of the Rock Hill rescue volunteers ... that fire station would have closed and our district would have had no coverage," Vanuch said.

The supervisor is excited about the new building and location. Both Rockhill departments currently sit across Garrisonville Road from Marine Corps Base Quantico in North Stafford, but the new, "more central location of the station will allow more effective access to the station's response area," according to a news release from Stafford.

It should improve response times, lower property insurance for Rock Hill residents and save lives with both career and volunteers staffing it, Vanuch said.

An adjustment

Helmandollar and her crew are anxious about the upcoming transition as they prepare to enter the county domain. In the new building, they'll lose all the say-so they've had over the years and will be under Stafford rules, down to pets not being allowed at the station.

They fear the loss of autonomy and their way of life. Even though they've remained volunteers, they have gone to the unusual step of setting duty schedules for every weekend, and make sure they were filled.

Brown predicts the change will bring about the death of the volunteer component of Rockhill rescue. Others plan to take a wait-and-see attitude, hoping regulars will continue to volunteer.

But knowing each other as they do, they wonder.

"Jean really is a creature of habit," Matheson said, and others, including the rescue chief, nodded their heads in agreement.

"I have a very big mouth," Helmandollar said, noting that if something is being done unfairly, "you're gonna hear about it."

She's not sure how that will fly in an organization that's owned and operated by "white shirts," the volunteers' description of fire and rescue management.

"It's going to be an adjustment," she said, "and I don't know that I'll make it."

Cathy Dyson:

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