From the time he was seven years old, Lou Santosus never tired of watching the Mineola Fire Department trucks would roll out of the Washington Avenue firehouse.
“I only lived the next block over on Jefferson Avenue and when the fire alarm went off, I would run out to the fence and watch the trucks roll out,” Santosus said. “It got into my blood.”
Santosus, 68, observed his 50th anniversary with the Mineola Fire Department last week and will be honored for his service at a dinner at the Swan Club in Roslyn Harbor on March 16.
Santosus credits his wife, Patricia, for giving him the support to enable him to continue responding to fire calls all these years.
“I had a great wife,” he said. “If you have a great wife who supports you, that’s how you make 50 years.”
And, he said, his impulse to respond to emergency calls hasn’t diminished over the years.
Last year, he said, he responded to approximately 450 of 600 calls the fire department received – the highest percentage of any active volunteer.
“Once it gets in your blood, it never leaves you. I consider myself a fire horse,” Santosus said. “You just keep doing it. If you’re not sick, you’re going. If not you, who?”
During his time with the Mineola Fire Department, Santosus has served as president and line officer of his engine company before entering the line of succession to become chief. He served as chief of the department from 1981 to 1983 after serving as second and first assistant chief over the two years prior to taking over the reins.
Santosus’s commitment to service also has included serving as a trustee and deputy mayor for the Village of Mineola, as president of the Mineola Athletic Club, booster for Mineola High School athletics, and a member of the Mineola Music Parents, a booster organization for the high school’s music groups.
“Not only has he helped out as a trustee and deputy mayor, he was incredibly active with the fire department,” said Village of Mineola Mayor Scott Strauss. “His sense of duty to the community is stunning. He’s an incredible role model for everybody.”
That sense of service has been passed on to his children.
His sons Brian and Gary are part of his fire service legacy as current members of the New York City Fire Department and Brian is an active volunteer in Mineola and an ex-captain of the fire department.
One of his daughters, Bonnie Parente, currently serves as deputy mayor of the East Williston Village Board.
“Following my dad’s lead wasn’t difficult because he was such a wonderful man. He set a great example all my life,” Parente said, adding her father was the first one she called when she was appointed deputy mayor.
Santosus recalls applying to become a member of the department when he was still in high school.
But he had to wait until he graduated to become a member of Engine Co. 1 at 18 year old with whom his uncle, Carmine Santosus, had already served for many years.
After joining the Mineola volunteers, he said he would drop whatever he was doing at his father’s shoe shop down the street from the firehouse on Jericho Turnpike whenever the fire alarms would go off.
“I remember running from my dad’s shop and jumping on the running board of truck 169,” he said. “We had no heat on the trucks and no covers on them.”
The years that in served as chief were particularly active ones, Santosus said.
On the night he was sworn in, he recalled, the Mineola volunteers responded to a mutual aid call to assist the New Hyde Park Fire Department at a serious fire in that village. A few weeks later, a major lumber yard fire occurred on Sagamore Avenue. He recalled boarding a helicopter for the first time in his life to get a bird’s eye view on the lumber yard fire.
“And it never stopped,” Santosus said. “In those days, we had real fires.”
He said smoke detectors and fire suppression systems have gradually dampened the frequency of major fires in the intervening years.
Santosus said his strongest recollection from that time are the early morning hours on March 14, 1982 when a call came into headquarters about an accident at what was then the Herricks Road railroad crossing.
“One of my worst accidents was when those nine kids were struck on the railroad tracks,” he said. Only one of the teenagers, he said, survived.
Santosus became fire warden in 1983, but had to give that post for another form of civic service, when he was elected a trustee of the Village of Mineola in 1983, a position he held until 1989. He was subsequently appointed to serve on the village board again in 1994 after former Village of Mineola Mayor Bob Hinck stepped down. He won re-election as trustee and served as deputy mayor from 2002 to 2004, concluding his service as village trustee in 2005.
Apart from his volunteer community service, Santosus worked as manager for New York Telephone – now Verizon – for 25 years, retiring in 1994, which eased his transition back onto the village board.
“I enjoyed working on various committees with different community groups. Among other responsibilities he took on as village trustee, he was the board’s liaison to the Mineola Athletic Association, which he served as a coach and umpire when his two sons played.
Reflecting on 50 years of service in the fire department brings to mind the changes in the fire service over that time.
Firemen, he noted, no longer ride to fires hanging on the outside of the trucks and there were no walkie talkies or air tanks in those early days.
The lack of air tanks led to his most serious injury at a fire in a bar called Chet’s Place, formerly at Mineola Boulevard and Jefferson Avenue, when he sustained smoke inhalation.
He said he’s responded to thousands of fire calls over the years, but the only difference now is that Santosus drives an engine and no longer enters the scene of active fires.
