A quartet of Barrington volunteer firefighters with nearly a century of service among them have retired, remembering how, among other things, they helped turn around people’s lives.
John Matlachwski, Tim Tuffy, Brian McCarthy and Eric Jopp answered their final call Sept. 13 in front of the Public Safety Building, but will remain engaged in other careers. Matlachwski, 60, said he has a had a lot of good experiences in his 37 years with the department, including the first 17 as a paid on-call or volunteer firefighter. “You can make a person’s bad day into a good day,” Matlachwski said. “You find a person not breathing, you do CPR and they start breathing again. Their bad day just became a good day.” While he retired as a full-time firefighter, the other three answered their final call because the department is eliminating the paid on-call program where part-timers are paid for the shift they work.