The Sundre Fire Department performed a demonstration for the public during SPOG’s annual Neigbours Day Trade Fair & Expo on Friday, August 23rd.
Fire Chief Ross Clews says it was a motor vehicle incident, a rollover with a patient inside. The patient for the demo outside of the Sundre Arena was presumed to have spinal injuries. He says it was “to educate the public on what’s involved with a motor vehicle collision. How we have to get them out. How the vehicle is removed from the patient, instead of the patient removed from the vehicle. So, with the severity of the injuries – the presumed injuries – of the person, the crew removed the doors and then wanted stability access. So, with the vehicle being upside down they took the doors off. Then they segmented the roof and brought the patient out on the roof to minimize any movement to the patient whatsoever.”
He says if you look at it on a difficulty scale of 10 with 10 being the max, this one was about an 8.
Year to date, Clews says the Sundre Fire Department has completed 286 calls which he notes is a higher call volume compared to previous years. He points out that most of their calls are medical first response, so they respond as medical unit until AHS can show up on scene. He says “it depends on the month. We get high volumes, of course, during winter, stormy conditions and lower volumes throughout the year – long weekends – but probably twenty per cent of our responses could be motor vehicle collisions. Some of them we’re there just for traffic control. Some of them are deer hits to clean up fluids.”
According to Clews, the Sundre Fire Department currently has 24 active members. He says they will take recruits at any time of year. If you are interested in joining them their training is on Wednesday nights at 7:30, Clews says to stop by and introduce yourself. He says they will bring you on board and you can go through the next scheduled classes that they have arranged.
This year’s theme for SPOG’s Neighbours Day was ‘Fire & Drought’ and it focused on emergency response.