Very icy road conditions proved to be a major challenge for first responders on Monday morning when they were called out to handle various emergencies.

In rural Anthony Township, conditions were so hazardous on Chapel Hill Road that a paramedic reportedly fell on the ice as he was getting out of an emergency vehicle, according to officials.

The parmedic had been dispatched to a home where a resident had fallen outside on the ice about 5:40 a.m.

Woodward Township Fire Capt. Maynard Green also responded to the home and had to walk 200 yards to the house, where the fall victim had since been moved inside by family members.

“I stopped my truck at the top of the hill and walked in on the grass, not the road. If I had come down the hill in my vehicle, I very likely would have skidded right into the emergency vehicle that was stuck on the icy,” Green said.

Once the paramedic fell on the ice, Green ordered that no more emergency vehicles attempt to drive on Chapel Hill Road.

“It was raining and freezing on contact (with the road)” Green said.

“Emergency responders were shuttled in on our fire company’s UTV (utility task vehicle) or they walked in until a township maintenance truck arrived and put down cinders,” Green said.

Anthony Township’s maintenance truck arrived on the scene within the hour and applied material on the road that made it a lot less slippery, he added.

Once that was done, the initial fall victim was transported by ambulance to an area hospital as was the injured parmedic, who was taken in a second ambulance.

Conditions were not much better on Route 442 in Moreland Township, where the driver of a pickup truck lost control of his vehicle on the ice and overturned on its roof in the middle of the road about 5:45 a.m., according to Muncy Area Fire Chief Scott Delany.

“It was real icy. You could have ice-skated on the road,” he said. The driver was not injured.

A tow truck crew arrived to remove the wreckage, but a state Department of Transportation truck had to first put down cinders to make it safe for the crew to do their job, Delany said.

North of Tivoli, it wasn’t so much icy roads, “but likely ice on a tree” on Route 220 that caused the tree to come down and take with it two powerlines about 9:40 a.m., knocking out power to numerous PPL customers for much of the day, Picture Rocks Fire Chief Al Little said.

Route 220 was closed for a while, but eventually re-opened to one lane, Little said.