Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory firefighter Tyler Colt presents a request Tuesday to the fire territory board to apply for a grant to purchase treadmills. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.
WARSAW — Cardiovascular and heart diseases are the leading cause of firefighter deaths, surpassing cancer, firefighter Tyler Colt told the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Board Tuesday, June 3.
To help reduce the chances of the WWFT firefighters having cardiovascular and heart issues, Colt and Fire Chief Joel Shilling presented the board with a request to apply for a reimbursement grant through the Kosciusko County Community Foundation to purchase three True Gravity Plus treadmills, one for each of the three stations.
Shilling told the board, “Back when we presented the budget, one of the uses of the levy dollars was to promote the wellness and physicals for our firefighters so they can maintain physical health, and then also some certain NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) 1582 physicals that are kind of standard for us. Most of the fire departments have been going with those as well.”
He said Colt found the grant and did all the work to apply for it.
Colt said the maximum for the reimbursement grant from the Community Foundation is $20,000. He said having the treadmills will help reduce the firefighters’ chances of heart and cardiovascular diseases. If the grant is approved, he wants to purchase three treadmills at $6,650 each plus $450 shipping from Brigadoon Fitness in Fort Wayne.
“These are for commercial grade treadmills that they would put in like an YMCA or hotel that gets used consistently all day long. Hopefully, have a better quality treadmill that will last a long time,” Colt said.
Shilling said he appreciates the work that Colt put into the grant application. Purchasing the treadmills with grant funds will allow the fire department to use their funds for other equipment or needs. There is one treadmill currently in each of the fire stations, Shilling said, but the problem becomes, “The guys, as they go to do it, they all like to work out together as a team, they do a lot of things together, and they basically have to take turns on the treadmill.”
Colt said for as busy as they are during the day — public appearances, training, calls, etc. — they have a limited window sometimes for all of the firefighters on duty to get to use the treadmill. Some days it’s pretty tough. The grant deadline is July 1.
Councilman Mike Klondaris made a motion to approve the grant application and Gordon Nash seconded the motion. It was approved unanimously.
During her report on April runs and activities to the board, Lutheran EMS Director of Operations Alicia Mediano told them one of the big things they’ll see on the report is the number of people who were taught CPR. She said it doubled, if not tripled, what it normally is.
For April, there were 333 CPR attendees, up from 155 in March; 135 in February; and 102 in January. “That’s because of, during the month of April, we were in the high school doing every sophomore student; whether they’re in a health class or in a child development class, they were taught CPR during that month at Warsaw Community Schools and then there was even more on top of this number that was actually at Tippy Valley and at Whitko. So it was a big push of CPR month for us, so you’ll see why that number is incredibly high,” she said.
Councilman Mike Klondaris asked her if there was a CPR class available to the general public.
Mediano said they offer a class on the third Saturday of every month at Lutheran Kosciusko Hospital at 9 a.m. It’s free to anyone who wants to take it. If someone wants the physical CPR card, there is a fee for that, but a lot of people just take the class because they want the knowledge and information.
“It’s always there and it’s completely free,” Mediano said.
A person doesn’t have to pre-register, but it does provide the trainers for the class a good idea of who is going to be there. A person can register at
LutheranEMS.com
.
Mediano encourages everyone to take the class every two years simply because every four years American Health Association puts out new information that they’re able to then teach.
“Typically, every two years is the certification. It’s something that isn’t a bad thing to take every year though either,” she said. The class is approximately 2 1/2 hours.
For the month of April, Shilling said in giving his report, they had 286 responses. Of those, 91 incidents were overlapping for 31.8%. They had a total of eight fire calls. In assists to other agencies, Shilling said they gave mutual aid to Milford Fire Department for a dive call and to Winona Lake Fire Department for a fire alarm. Warsaw received mutual aid from Winona Lake three separate times and Pierceton once.
“One thing to point out there, the last mutual aid received with Winona Lake, we had a major incident in two different locations, so we only had one fire engine to respond to a fire, so luckily we were fortunate to have Winona Lake come in and then we had to leave the scene to take more calls. I believe we had six calls in that three-hour window. Our resources were drained. Luckily, we had that mutual aid in place to help us out,” Shilling said.
In the category of rescue/EMS, he said his department had 199 calls; hazardous conditions with no fire, eight; service calls, six; good intent calls, 19; and false alarms/false calls, 21. Community Assistance, Resources, Emergency Services had 27 calls in April. As far as training, they had 1,021 hours, covering a variety of topics, Shilling said. Firefighters dedicated 22.98 hours to community service in April.
Mikaela Bixler, C.A.R.E.S. coordinator, gave her report for the month of May. She said they had a total of 52 interactions, with 25 of those in-person and 27 were significant phone calls. Fourteen were new consumers, or new people who C.A.R.E.S. hadn’t met before. She said they were able to assist a family after a house fire with the help of several local organizations that came together to help that family.
The highest needs reported by community members were mental health services, transportation, home health care and rent assistance. C.A.R.E.S. also participated in a number of special events.
