VIDEO: Every year, hundreds of people from across Rhode Island visit Westerly for the annual Smokey Bear Parade.
The parade has become a summertime staple, with fire trucks and ambulances from several surrounding communities blasting their horns and flashing their sirens for cheering crowds.
But one of those trucks is not like the others. Instead of battling flames, this bright gold fire truck is dedicated to battling pediatric cancer.
The truck’s owner, Sandi Pulchalski, is a cancer survivor herself.“As a grown up with cancer, it’s hard to imagine when you meet children … like, how do they do it?” she said. It was a child she met 10 years ago that inspired it all.
Even though Brennan Daigle was battling cancer 1,500 miles away in Louisiana, Pulchalski caught wind of his story and became one of his 40,000 Facebook fans.