VftSW: PVFD

Years ago I was a member of the Petersburg Volunteer Fire Department.  I remember some big fires downtown where everyone in the department was on the fireline for days.  Here the community jumped out to help move hoses when asked and then stepped back from the scene until their help was asked for again.  (The new police chief from down south was shocked that there was no need for crowd control.)

 I remember stopping at the fire hall during those events to change out of my soaked bunker gear into something drier.  On the tables were enormous bowls of finger food and civilians feverishly refilling air tanks so we could stay on scene.

I remember working with Search and Rescue.  I was hiking home from Hammer Slough.  At that moment many people in the department and many in the community were doing the same.  My bibs and boots were covered in that slick brown mud.  My wife met me at the front door with the biggest beaming smile. She’d heard the news: we’d found the toddler.

And I worked with the Emergency Medical Technicians in so many capacities over the years: flying them out to patients too close to death to move, hoisting them over our heads to get them into the back seat of the helicopter with their patient and send them into town; holding the fire hose on the EMTs while they stabilized a patient in a wrecked car reeking of electrical fire; of them working on a fellow firefighter who had collapsed during one of those big downtown fires. But, the EMTs weren’t on their own the doctors and nurses in the community along with a dentist, as I recall, came to help those nights too.

We had, still have and are part of a great emergency services team.  I couldn’t be prouder or feel luckier to live here and be part of it.