The call came into the Thompsonville Fire Department at a change of shift on a Monday evening in November — an unresponsive 52-year-old male on Russell Street.
Firefighters arrived at the home, and said there was some initial confusion. Then, firefighter Tom O'Brien saw a familiar person standing in the driveway — fellow Thompsonville firefighter Ernie Bouthiette's 16-year-old son.
"It's Dad," the teen told O'Brien.
Ernie Bouthiette, 52, has worked with the department since 1987.
Bouthiette was in cardiac arrest.
"He was pale as a ghost, sitting in a chair, head back, he didn't have a pulse," O'Brien said. "We took him to the ground, started chest compression and shocked him once."
Capt. Michael Forsyth said he walked into the station and heard that there was a call on Russell Street, and that the responding crew was performing CPR. When he realized it was Bouthiette's parents' house, he got into a ladder truck with his crew and arrived at the same time Enfield EMS did, he said.
Forsyth called acting Fire Chief William Provencher. "He said, 'Chief, it's Ernie, its Ernie, we're doing CPR,'" Provencher said. "My reaction was, 'You're kidding me,' and he said, 'No, would I kid you about something like that?'"
Provencher said he left and made his way to Russell Street. When he got there the medics had just left. with Bouthiette.