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Buckland Fire ramps up training, lobbies SGI for more funding

Mar 4, 2015 | 8:40 AM

Members of Buckland Fire and Rescue came together on Tuesday for further their training in dealing with emergency situations.

Fire Chief Jim Miller hopes to have more session like this one with the group in the future. This sort of training only used to run on a monthly basis, according to Captain George Shand.

“It wasn’t nearly frequent enough, so we’ve moved it to once a week,” said Shand. “It keeps the guys more engaged in a better frame of mind, and it keeps our techniques and habits good.”

“There’s a lot of equipment in this building and you don’t remember where that is by accident, you have to use it regularly and keep it fresh.”

On Tuesday night, the firefighters broke into groups of three to deal with a staged scenario of a t-bone accident and separate rollover, with one person trapped in the vehicle that had been hit.

Shand said that scenarios like this are too often what the real situation is like.

“Obviously, with the bad weather we can get a real rash of them, we can have five or six in a weekend,” he said. “There’s different peaks for animal strikes in a year, we could probably [have] 60 or 70 vehicle accidents a year.”

And this means there can be a number of accident scenes that are hard to erase from the memory. Shand said debriefing can help first responders deal with what they’ve seen or experienced.

“We are getting more involved with the debriefings and de-stressings with the guys, PTSD [post-traumatic stress disorder] is becoming a more real scenario in volunteer firefighting,” said Shand. “We do a lot of talking, and unfortunately when it comes to issues of fatalities on the highway where we’re in a rush now to get a person out of a vehicle, we will ask newer guys if they want to be part of this extrication, because they want to do that.”

But another problem the fire fighters have to deal with is drivers or pedestrians who take photos and videos at the accident scene.

“It could be your parent or your child in that vehicle and people just don’t want others to see that,” said Shand. “We see lots of people as the sole occupant of the vehicle and the driver is videotaping as he goes past us.”

Buckland Fire and Rescue’s needs

In a statement about Tuesday’s training exercise, Miller said that much of the demand on a rural fire station in the past were due to structure, grass and forest fires.

“This is not the case in present times,” wrote Miller. “Highway rescue is one of the most frequent calls that we respond to. When a call comes to 911, if it does not require Police or EMS response, the Fire Departments are the ones that everything else falls into their category.”

Miller went on to say that this puts a stress on the need for more equipment for the fire department.

“It is difficult to acquire and raise the monies needed to purchase equipment to provide the service,” wrote Miller. He added that the cost for certain kinds of new equipment with resources such as hydraulic spreaders, or a set of airbags and controls, can easily reach $50,000.

During the training exercise, Miller said he is working hard to try and lobby SGI to pay for second units responding to scenes, since at this point they have only paid for the one unit to respond to every scene.

“We consider this a safety issue for ourselves and the people that are involved at the accident scene.”

Calls for service can come from as far as Waskesiu, according to Miller.

Recognizing the members of Buckland Fire and Rescue

Miller feels Buckland Fire and Rescue is just not getting enough recognition for the amount of service it’s providing for such a large area.

“A group of firefighters need to be on call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. They need to respond on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day. Emergencies happen on weekends and at all times of the day or night.”

But many still continue to come in everyday and help make a difference, some of the firefighters having between 10-15 years of service under their belts.

“It’s a very good core group of people,” said Shand. “It takes a rare person to want to run into a burning house or fight a grass fire in the spring or cut somebody out of a car.”

They include Dave Hudak, a proud father of successful Paralympian Brittany, and a 14-year veteran of Buckland Fire and Rescue.

“[I] just want to help, I’m kind of an action junkie I guess, love fighting fire,” said Hudak. “If guys like us don’t do it, who’s going to protect my family on the highway?”

There’s Lanette Enst, who, according to her colleagues, isn’t a woman, she’s a firefighter.

“I’ve always wanted to help people and it was a way to give back to my community,” said Enst. “It was very easy when I started, I first started on Weyburn Fire Department, and then I came to Buckland and very easy transition, I’m just one of the guys.”

And there’s also newer recruit Kelly Giles, who’s been on the job about eight months, and is a husband and father to three.

“I live in the area, live in the community so might as well help out,” said Giles.

During the day, Giles works as a correctional officer, as do a few other volunteers with Buckland Fire and Rescue. It’s a community service that’s run by people in the community.

Miller wrote that it’s a tough job that sometimes isn’t always easy to shake off on the way out the door.

“When this is done and it is time to return home, at times the accident will follow some of us home.”

jbowler@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @journalistjim