All of us — you, me, everybody who lives in this region and beyond — need to know that we have heroes among us, and in most every community in fact, and they don’t wear capes or have special abilities like flying, or cool costumes with a bat or spider theme.
Our heroes are more common-place maybe, but they are nonetheless real heroes who are out there every day saving lives and making this a better place to live.
I refer to our emergency responders, which means our police officers, ambulance EMTs and paramedics, fire fighters and First Responders, and anyone else who fits into this category.
I think we saw many examples of their work with the coverage of the huge storms to hit the U.S., like Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, with a new hurricane now moving into the Caribbean that will require their services in many places to help many people.
Over the weekend, Weyburn hosted the Provincial Fall Fire School, and volunteer fire fighters from around the province converged here to take a variety of courses and training exercises to upgrade and improve their knowledge and techniques in responding to all sorts of emergencies.
Those involving fire are just a part of what they respond to, but even with fires, there are so many different situations that can arise, as was demonstrated in several practical hands-on exercises for the fire fighters, at the Public Works Yard, and over at the former Weyburn Inn.
I’m not a fire fighter, but as an observer, it was very interesting to listen and watch, and to talk to various fire fighters about what they’re doing and learning about. For example, the danger of flash-overs is one I would never have known about as an untrained civilian. If a person opens the door to a room where there’s a fire, you may cause a flash-over, and if you’re standing up, those flames will engulf you and you won’t have a chance.
One tip a fire fighter told me is that you never feel a door with the palm of your hand, but with the back, because if the door is extremely hot, it will burn your hand and it will clench up, limiting your ability to use it.
Of course, fire fighters often respond to many other emergency scenarios, such as motor vehicle accidents, and at this Fire School (and apparently, for the first time at any Fire School), there was a big rig rescue scenario involving a transport truck and a car crushed under its rear wheels. One firefighter, from Colonsay, said such training is very useful to him because they see a lot of accidents on Highway 16 (near Saskatoon) and was glad for this training.
All I can say is, to all of you men and women who serve the public: THANK YOU very much!
