At the North Windham Fire Station on Tuesday, county and state officials met to commemorate a new Cumberland County work boat in the honor of Lt. Nat Berry and retired Lt. Bill Allen of the Maine Warden Service. Berry and Allen had advocated that the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department purchase the boat so as to heighten response to incidents on the lakes.
“Lt. Berry and I had felt that they should have a good boat down here,” Allen said. “It’s just a matter of time before this boat saves lives.”
Allen, former head of the dive team for the Maine Warden Service, said the aluminum boat is specifically outfitted for search and rescue operations with custom-built air tank holders and a dive door. He hopes the boat will “add safety to the Lakes Region.”
Both wardens said they felt honored to have the boat commissioned in their name.
“I’m flabbergasted,” Berry said. “It’s kind of a humbling experience.”
Though Berry is flattered by the honor, he says he advocated out of necessity that the Sheriff’s office buy the boat due to the restricted resources of the Maine Warden Service.
Prior to the boat’s purchase, the county sheriff’s department and local rescue teams had no boat of their own to perform rescue dives in the Lakes Region, said Berry. Instead, they had to rely on wardens to come and assist them if a boater or a swimmer were in trouble.
While it is still standard protocol for the Maine Warden Service to assist in all search and rescue operations, now the Sheriffs and local rescue teams at least have a vessel at their disposal to perform dives themselves.
“We need to look at law enforcement as working together for a common cause,” Berry said.
That common cause of safety on the lakes is further supported by the boat’s location at the North Windham Fire Station. Its centralized location at the station allows for a wide range of coverage in addition to being a tool available to Windham’s rescue in case of emergency, says Cumberland County Chief Deputy Kevin Joyce.
“This works out perfectly because this is the crossroads of where we work,” Joyce said.
Joyce said he plans to use the boat this fall to train county law enforcement and local rescue teams in dive operations on surrounding lakes.
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