PEABODY — As he prepares to head into his 19th straight Boston Marathon as a volunteer, 80-year-old Peabody resident Ed Gustat only has one piece of advice.
“Be prepared for anything, because every year brings something new,” he said.
That’s surely been the case for Gustat, who says he’s seen almost every scenario under the sun in his time as a volunteer for the Marathon.
“I’ve seen years where there’s snow and hail, years where we needed to get buses to warm up all the runners because it was so cold and years where we had kiddie pools full of water to cool down runners because it was so hot,” said Gustat. “The one thing I’ve learned is that you have to be ready for anything to happen. I’ve always got to be on my toes.”
Gustat, who was trained in communications work by the U.S. Army and then ran a heavy equipment rental business for 30 years, decided to start dedicating more time to volunteering at the Marathon as he began to approach his retirement in the early 2000s. He worked in a number of capacities during those early years, moving everywhere from the starting line in Hopkinton to some of the many medical and hydration stations based along the route.
But, as someone who has held an amateur radio license for the past 50 years, Gustat really found his niche about 12 years ago when he was moved into the emergency operations center as a radio dispatcher.
And it turns out, that move came just in time.
In 2013, Gustat ended up right in the middle of the response to the Boston Marathon bombing. While working in the emergency operations center, he was dispatching an ambulance to come help a spectator who fell trying to climb a fence to get a better view of the race. Then the bombs went off.
“The spectator was obviously the top priority right before the bombs went off, but we realized right away that we had to do everything possible to get those people help at the finish line,” said Gustat.
He had been in charge of all radio reports and transmissions for a section of the race that ran from mile 13.1 to mile 19.6. But when his fellow radio operator — who was in charge of mile 19.7 to mile 26.2 — lost all communications, it ended up falling on Gustat to help dispatch fire trucks, ambulances and other first responders to the finish line.
“I had pretty much half of the course under my control all at once,” said Gustat.
It wasn’t the first time that Gustat jumped in and helped out when he felt it was needed. His ham radio experience once again came in handy back during the Great Chelsea Fire of 1973, when he helped dispatch fire departments to the blaze that destroyed 18 city blocks and more than 300 buildings. Nearly 30 years later, after the events of September, 11, 2001, Gustat sent six 48-ton trailer loads full of equipment to Ground Zero.
“They actually asked me to help dispatch for that too, but I just wanted to help in any way that I could,” Gustat said.
The last two years of the Marathon have also brought new challenges, mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2020 edition of the race was run completely virtual, while the 2021 version was run in October instead of the normal Patriots’ Day date.
But now the Marathon is back and running at its full capacity again, meaning that Gustat will have to, in his words, “be on my toes.”
And he’s been rewarded for his work by the Boston Athletic Association, as Gustat is one of a relatively small group of volunteers who has been honored in the association’s “Vol of Fame” — reserved only for those who have dedicated 15 or more years of service to the Marathon.
