fire services

Among the highlights of Friday's installation dinner for the Darien Volunteer Fire Department was the recognition of William Brunea for his 60 years of dedicated service to the department. Joining Brunea was his wife of 65 years, Irene.

Jeffrey Luker was named Firefighter of the Year.

Becca Neeland received the department's annual scholarship, which was presented by Cheryl Furlong.

The line officers sworn in Friday were Joseph "China" Marino Jr., chief; Jeffrey Luker, 1st assistant chief, David McGreevy, 2nd assistant chief, Mark Starczewski, 3rd assistant chief, Kenneth Fisher, fire captain, Paul Redden, fire lieutenant, William Brunea, fire police captain, and McGreevy, mechanic.

The department responded to 308 calls in 2014.

It currently has 39 active members, three probationary active members, 14 associate members, two active life members and 19 retired life members, for 77 total membership.

Every fire department in Genesee County was represented at a mandatory briefing Monday evening by Dr. Sara Connolly, the incoming medical director for the county.

Connolly briefed the chiefs and department representatives on protocols for dealing with Ebola patients.

It's a long shot that there will ever be a person carrying the Ebola virus in Genesee County, but county and state officials agree it's better to be prepared, trained at thinking ahead than to be caught off guard.

Such briefings are mandated for all first responders by the NYS Department of Health.

Connolly said she addressed triage and isolation issues and answered questions. EMS responders are instructed to ask patients at emergency scenes if they've traveled to West Africa within the previous 30 days. 

If the answer is yes, then first responders need to find out if the patient has had any of the symptoms of Ebola, such as high fever, diarrhea or vomiting. If yes, then the patient needs to be isolated as quickly as possible and the first responders need to avoid further contact with the patient.

Some misunderstandings were cleared up during the Q&A session at the end of the talk, Connolly said. For example, not everybody who gets Ebola dies, and we don't even have any idea how lethal, or not, it would be in the U.S. since there's been only one case of a person in this country who has died from it.

"We don't know what it's mortality rate would be in this country, with a good sanitation system and developed healthcare system," Connolly said.

Connolly is not yet officially the new county health director. That appointment could be finalized as soon as today.  

She is a physician at UMMC and specializes in emergency department medicine. She's a graduate of Princeton University with a medical degree from the University at Buffalo.

Every county is required to have at least one medical director, accounting to Emergency Management Coordinator Tim Yaeger, who overseas emergency response medical personnel. The position is responsible for training and ensuring that policies and protocols from the Department of Health are implemented and properly followed.

The director works closely with the Emergency Management Office and the county's Department of Health.

The Ebola briefing was required by the state, but Yaeger said it is a wise thing to ensure all emergency responders are prepared to deal with an Ebola patient, no matter how remote the possibility.

"We want to be prepared," Yaeger said. "Hopefully, nothing occurs here, but if it does, we want the public to know that we are prepared and ready to respond, and primarily to make sure those first responders are safe."

This morning at UMMC there were men in funny looking suits and teens getting sprayed with water, but that doesn't mean it wasn't serious business.

Local firefighters who comprise the county's hazmat team and hospital workers came together for a decontamination drill aimed at both practicing roles should some serious chemical ever get spilled in the county, but also served as a chance for evaluators to grade and critique how emergency responders handled their roles.

Typically -- we would expect -- if there was an event that required a number of people to be decontaminated it would happen somewhere out in the county, not in the hospital's parking lot, but for drill purposes the first decontamination tent (this stage is called "gross decontamination") was set up not far from UMMC's emergency room.

Patients were brought in either standing or on gurneys and sprayed down. 

The purpose is to remove as much of whatever is on them before transport in an ambulance.

Once they arrive at the hospital, hospital staff begins find decontamination -- scrubbing down each patient.  

From there, they pass into ER where a triage team determines what treatment is needed and who gets treated first based on the severity of their medical condition.

A good description for how it went would be managed chaos.  

There were some unexpected glitches -- such as gurneys not going through one of the side doors without volunteer firefighters to lift them because of a step -- but also everybody seemed to have a clear idea of their roles and patients were moved through the chain of treatment quickly.

The Byron-Bergen students who volunteered to be patients seemed to have fun. Several of them completed the decontamination process and then went back through it again.

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Over the weekend, firefighters from seven counties in New York, including departments in Genesee County, were in Le Roy for a training class on rescusing people from accidents involving large vehicles.

The Heavy Metal Extrication Class was organized by Tim Hogle, an assistant chief with the Le Roy Fire Department.

"As you can see from some of the scenarios, if something tips over, they're learning what they need to do and what they need to use to get people out of the cars," Hogle said.

On Friday, participants sat through a full day of classroom instruction. On Saturday and Sunday, they were on site at Ron Coniber's shop on Randall Road dealing with rescue situations involving tractor-trailers, box cars, dump trucks, tow trucks and buses.

Locally, firefighters from Stafford, Le Roy, Town of Batavia and City of Batavia participated. Other firefighters came from as far away as Ithaca and Watertown.

"With all the highways that come thorugh Genesee County, from the Thruway to Route 19 to the 490, all of them, we have a lot of commercial traffic coming through here and sooner or later we're going have an accident," Hogle said. "We're going to need to be able to work together throughout the county, using the resources each department has, for a rescue."

If this sort of thing interests you, become a volunteer firefighter. Visit ReadyGenesee.com.

A total of 22 fire companies from four counties arrived in Pavilion at 6 a.m. to start a morning-long drill to test, learn and practice in case of a fire that requires a substantial amount of water.

The goal was to pump 5,000 gallons of water. The exercise was also a chance for the departments to work together across communication networks and to test the reverse 9-1-1 system in the area.

The location was the Griffith Oil Company storage terminal on Pearl Creek in the Town of Covington, which is in the Pavilion Fire District.

"This is a drill to move a large volume of water in a rural area," said Pavilion Chief Paul Dougherty. "Even in our downtown area here, we have a limited number of hydrants. Originally the drill was going to be at our high school because that's one of the biggest concerns in town, but in the process of planning there was that event in Mumford at their propane facility, so we decided to take the lessons learned there, good and bad, and do the same thing here."

If there was a fire at Griffith, it would take a large volume of water to keep the propane tanks cool until firefighters could get a handle on the event and Griffith workers could manage the situation.

Griffith participated in the drill, even working through its own internal notification protocols.

Daniel Stowell had the following statement from Griffith:

Griffith Energy is pleased to participate in this morning's drill. The safety of our customers, employees and communities we service is our absolute top priority. We happily partner with local officials and first responders in support of their efforts to prepare, train and learn. WE are delighted to be here today to show our support of the fire companies involved in this collaborative effort and thank everyone for their time and dedication.

Dougherty thanked all the volunteers for coming out on their Sunday morning.

In  addition to Pavilion, other participants this morning were:

Le Roy, Caledonia, Alexander, Bergen, Bethany, Stafford, York, Perry, Perry Center, Town of Batavia, Byron, South Byron, Darien, Cuylerville, Mumford, Attica, Castile, Gainesville, North Java, Silver Springs, Brockport, Wyoming, Warsaw, Geneseo, Genesee County Office of Emergency Services, Wyoming County Office of Emergency Services, dispatch centers in Genesee, Wyoming, Livingston and Monroe counties, Wyoming County Sheriffs Office, Rochester Southern Railroad, Pavilion Central School (provided buses for mass transportation), SUNY Geneseo (housekeeping) and Mercy Ambulance.

To find out how to become a volunteer firefighter, visit ReadyGenesee.com.

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About 20 firefighters from seven volunteer fire companies in the county were at the Darien Fire Hall yesterday to learn and practice how to rescue children trapped on a crashed school bus.

Extricating patients from school buses is unique, explained Jeff Luker, a coordinator with Emergency Services, because school buses are not built like other buses, or even cars.

"School buses are a lot tougher, a lot heavier, because they're handling our kids on the street," Luker said. "There's some special things we can do as fire service if there is an accident with kids to go in and take them off and deal with injuries."

While there was cutting and sawing during training, blades aren't the only tools used at a school bus accident.

"School buses are build different," Luker said. "The big cutting tools often used with a car often aren't as effective as using a screwdriver and a socket set."

Participating departments were Town of Batavia, Darien, Alabama, Byron, East Pembroke, Alexander and Le Roy.

If you think you're cut out for this kind of work, find out how to become a volunteer firefighter by visiting ReadyGenesee.com.

Yesterday, I spent some time and went through my photo archives for the past two years looking for pictures of our local firefighters -- paid and volunteer -- doing what they do, which means fighting fires, responding to accidents, training, public education, community service, fund raising and having fun.

These men and women put in a lot of time and sacrifice a lot of time away from their families to help keep all of us safe. What they deal with -- as you may see from a couple of the shots -- is often stressful, unpleasant and can leave even the strongest person feeling drained. But yet they carry on. They are dedicated to serving others, some times even at their own peril.

What happened in Webster yesterday is unthinkable, and I know it's affected many of our local firefighters.

There is no sappy music with this slide show, no solemn voice reading a sentimental poem, just some pictures. It's meant as a tribute, a thank you and a reminder of all that these men and women do for our community.

To find out about volunteer opportunities with your local fire department, visit readygenesee.com.