My 911 guy

Submitted by: leedeecee

My husband is a 911 dispatcher. How he is able to keep his cool, remain calm, and get all of the necessary information when people are screaming and in an obvious state of panic is amazing. From delivering babies over the phone, to responding to calls involving domestic violence, to handling calls about horrific accidents, these dispatchers are the first contact, and get the right people to the scene as quickly as possible. Thanks for honoring them in song.

EMS

Submitted byChristel Holcomb

I watched the video and was very moved. But where was EMS? First responders, emt’s, paramedics go into dangerous scenes daily and live up to a promise they made. EMS has always been the red haired step child of public service. It’s always “Fire and Police” responded to…They make little or no money and give their time and sometimes their lives to help others. Just thought you should know.
Christel Holcomb
EMT-IT
Wisconsin

Luck Bunny

Submitted byHaley Sellers

The summer of 2000, living in Cape Breton NS, I had just made two new friends and with my girl friends and these 2 new guys we all went to MacDonald’s. This became important for two reasons one was a little rabbit, who was called lucky bunny, and hung out like normal kids do ending the night with them walking me home I remember wave bye and taking lucky bunny before heading home. Second reason it the last I remember, can’t even remember going home and to bed that night.
The next time I woke up I was in a hospital with tubes hooked up to my body and unable to move or talk, a nurse stepped in saying “Morning sleep head” like I’d been awake before. Unable to talk due to tubes set to help me breath, so went on with no real clue as to what they were doing or where I was. Once I was allowed to speck I asked my mom where am I.
Turns out that the next day I had met up with my friend and went to the mall and on the way back I was hit by a van while crossing the road, thrown 60 feet, landed right on the back of my head, dislocated a shoulder, one lung colopse and one filled with fluid.
I don’t remember this day but so many people do and it was a life changing moment for my friends. I always try and find something funny out of a big issue and the funny part was that was the first time I got to Halifax and all I had to do was get hit by a van. No one thought I was going to live but our hospital down home, which doesn’t have much money, set me up to be flown to the IWK Hospital my father told me I had that flat line 5 times on the way there but they didn’t let 5 be my last number. Ended up in a coma for 7 days and unable to move for a month the doctors and nurses helped me learn the skills you grew up with again making sure I could read, eat, walk all on my own I was very grateful and knew I was in a hospital didn’t argue with anyone or send a meal back, even with all it patients they never made me feel alone. My head took most of the blow and now I see neurologist for seizers due to having a half dead brain cell in my left temple (I say it’s walkin the line) found out that I have dead cells in the back too. Funny because I can now say I am not totally brain dead just a bit in the back, still having that one on the left causing me to have seizers changing my whole life, my memory was weak and if I focused on something to hard it would set me in that bad state of mind. My teachers did best not to push as much as they would on every other student knowing what I could or couldn’t handle, we’d joke that it wouldn’t have happened if we had lucky bunny there, and without their help I’d never get to graduate with my classmates. I still have the little toy its a piece of the day I can’t remember but has hurt so many. But for every person who tells me I should be thanking god that I’m alive, I say no I thank the doctors and Nurse who took the time and went to medical school. Without these people and my teachers, I would’t be alive and happy with my high school sweet heart, I’ll always be grateful for that.

Dispatchers

Submitted byTrina Miller

I have been an OPP dispatcher for 18 years and this song is amazing and makes me proud to keep doing what I do everyday. We are on the end of the phone with callers we can not physically help, all we can do is listen and make sure these people know that help is on the way. When we send our officers to the most unpredicable call, we wait… we wait until their backup arrives or wait to hear their voice on the other end of the radio telling us that everything is OK.
Cst Vu PHam from Huron County is one of those men who gave his life to save a person he did not know, he was just doing a job he loved to do.
He was a husband, father and an officer everyone was proud to work with. I did not have the pleasure of meeting him, but I was his dispatcher on more than one occation.
When I think of the dispatchers from London, who were working the day he was shot and killed, my heart goes out to them and Vu’s family. I could not imagine how helpless and heartbroken they felt.
Every day all we hope is that all of our officers, fire fighters, paramedics and all first responders return home to their families safe and healthy, so they can continue doing what they love to do… help save lives.
I first heard your song last December in Timmins and I was brought to tears. Thank you.
Trina

Trina

Paramedics

Submitted byElaine Ross

My husband who is a paramedic was involved in a roll over responding to a car accident back in April. He was seriously hurt and ended up in the same ER as the kids in the car accident. But this isn’t about him its about the kids who came to his bed side and told him how sorry they were that he was hurt responding to help them! I hope next time they decide to drink and drive with no seat belts on they will think of him!

To Brian and Gloria

Submitted byDENYS PREVOST

Hi Dave,

Just heard and watched the 911Song on your site. Very moving and beautifully done. And the east coast voice made me home-sick too.

I just wanted to tell you that I have been a firefighter for about 33 years now. A volunteer (Halifax County) for many years and for the past 15 years full-time in Ontario (I “went down the road”). In 1989 as a volunteer in Cole Harbour I was fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time on 2 occasions only a few weeks apart and was part of 3 successful fire rescues. Although I never really appreciated it at the time, just doing my “job” as was expected of me. NOW as a fire chief and with the “wisdom” that comes from many more years/events passing by I have a better understanding of how significant those particular events were almost 22 years ago. 3 people are alive, and oddly that seems on the surface unremarkable since it’s what we firefighters do and are expected to do everyday… As you say in your song…everyday heroes…or better yet an everyday team of heroes since firefighting (as you know) is done successfully as a team.

Its only when you contemplate what is and would never have been if we had not been there do you truly understand (from another perspective) what it means to save a life, to save a home, to save someone’s cat or dog, even if you can only just save their baby or wedding pictures. All irreplaceable memories and unbelievably precious…..to someone. To someone who sees us as their heroes. Very humbling.

Thanks for capturing that in your song.

DENYS PREVOST
Chief, Welland Fire & Emergency Services
Welland, Ontario

A Clear Head

Submitted by: Ruth Boncorddo

When my youngest son Daniel was 3 he had a seizure. I was alone at home with him and quickly dialed 911. Little did I know that my small town didn’t have 911. I had moved from Boston where 911 had been used for years.

I was so grateful to the operator that answered my call in another town and found out where I was to dispatch an ambulance and fire truck to my town. I was also grateful that Avon, the town I lived in at the time, had paramedics on duty and not just an on-call fire department.

The ambulance and fire department was at my house within minutes of my call even though it had to be transfered to a few different people.

I will be forever grateful. To all the people that helped out in my time of need. And for the quick thinking of the first person on the other line that had her wits about her.

He became my friend and ‘brother’

Submitted by: Cathie Byrne

I actually met Gregg because another local officer asked him if he could help me with my car. I was a new single mom of four in a small town, just lost my father and divorced after moving there less than a year earlier. This policeman will be remembered, in my heart, and through a plaque with a picture of him and two other officers, wading across the main street during a large, devastating flood.

Despite it being in a rural town, he has been shot, along with another officer, pulled two kids and a father from raging rivers, climbed mountains to rescue ‘trapped’ kids who climbed to far and were afraid to come down, all when he was wearing a suit! Back on streets that he loves now. He has been awarded one or more of a very few medals of honor given by our police dept.

But in the last quarter of a century, it is his continued self of service when off the job that impacted my life in more ways than I can say. As I look back over the years at all he’s done for me and my family… well, he epitomizes why I went into law enforcement some 30 years ago, and it is no surprise I consider him my brother. Always there no matter what. Saving lives on and off duty, remaining true to the policeman’s oath of Serve and protect 24/7.

Volunteers

Submitted byMurray Pound

I am standing, alone, in the dark. I couldn’t tell you what time it is if you asked, somewhere between half past one and breakfast. January has been cold and it has been snowing for days. The crew from Station 1 have been out in a snow storm tonight cleaning up the remnants of a collision involving a semi loaded with 20mm rebar versus a half ton truck. As I turn my face away from the wind to get a brief reprieve from the cold, I widen my eyes and catch my first glimpse of death.

Through the flashing red and white lights that glare off the frozen asphalt like an oil slick, I can see the paramedics loading the smaller truck’s single occupant into the back of their ambulance. He doesn’t make it.

I live in a bedroom town where people move to when things get too lousy where they are. I have lived here most of my life. My father was a businessman and moved us here when I was nine. I attended and graduated from the county school. Time for university came, and I went. I didn’t get much out of it though. I felt lost, disassociated. The buildings were big and the people were not familiar. I left there with a paper in hand that stated I had finished a degree. During the summers in between semesters I worked for my father and various other jobs. For a few years I worked as a salesman in Calgary, then Winnipeg. On hot summer nights alone in a hotel bed with no familiar sounds of a mid-night train whistle, I found it hard to sleep. I moved back home after my Father called me up one day and asked if I would like to help with the family business. Mom must have told him my voice sounded lonely and it would do me good to return to things familiar. I don’t remember the trip home save for the last ten minutes.

As you approach Carstairs from the south, you crest a hill about seven kilometres out. The secondary highway I’m on parallels the rail line and the two snake there way towards town. From here you can see the town site. You can recognize it as a town because it’s green with trees, (there are few trees in the prairies). Grain elevators (now torn down) poke through the canopy, dividing the town into two parts. The fields roll with green and the bright yellow of canola. They used to call it rape seed, but some nice Christian ladies found the name offensive, so they changed it.

Our little town borders several busy highways, the largest of which is the Queen Elizabeth II highway. Thousands of people and millions of tones of vehicles travel along it each day. We are in the parklands of Alberta, and the weather is unpredictable. They say that if you don’t like the weather in Alberta, wait a minute. Congested traffic plus high rates of speed plus rapid changes in road conditions equals regular carnage. We call them MVC’s (motor vehicle collisions). We used to call them MVA’s, A standing for accident, but a few years ago someone convinced the fire service to change the acronym because there is no such thing as an accident.

It was no accident that I have found myself out on that highway tonight. A few hours ago my pager scared me awake. Minutes later I am in the back of an old yellow Thiebault engine screaming east through the country side en-route to a two vehicle collision. I love this truck, it looks and sounds like the trucks from the Hollywood movies I watched as a kid. It is configured for a driver and officer up in the cab and behind is room for four ‘men’, two on either side of a large pump, each facing the other. It is much like sitting at a table in a restaurant. You can see everyone’s face and if you talk loud enough over the sirens and the sound of the engine you can share a joke or catch up on last night’s hockey game. Several minutes later our driver has stopped and positioned us behind what looks like a tractor trailer unit that is jackknifed into the meridian that separates north and southbound traffic. We pile out of the engine and our officer points us in various directions. I have no extrication or medical experience yet so he hands me a stop/slow lollipop sign and tells me to walk up the highway and get people to slow down. I head off into the snow.

Two months before, soon after returning to Carstairs, I joined the Volunteer Fire Department with two of my friends. They are somewhere else down the road, out of sight. Because of Claude’s size the Captain probably has him hauling equipment back and forth between emergency vehicles and the crash site. Claude is a large man, just over six feet and built like a linebacker or maybe more like a retired linebacker. His girlfriend Lyne is somewhere out of sight, probably holding a traffic sign like me on the other side. They moved here from Quebec about the same time I returned. To me their English is good, but sometimes the boys at the hall give Claude a hard time with his accent. None of them have the balls to tease Lyne. If you did she would likely tear them off.

I am a volunteer firefighter. And I even though at the time I didn’t know much about fire, blood, fear, or the pain this new path will bring me, I was at the time proud to be part of something. Proud to be wearing a hand me down helmet and fire coat. Proud to be freezing my feet and ears. Proud to tell my girlfriend what we did that night. I am still proud. But not about myself anymore. I am proud of my family for putting up with the missed dinners. Proud of my coworkers for covering for me in the middle of the day so I can run off at the sound of my pager. Proud of the other men and women who join me on the cold roads at night, the hot, dusty grassfires, the long hours cleaning and drying hose. I am proud of the people in my little town that support our efforts at our Christmas fundraisers. The transition from realizing that these things are more important than the single contribution I make has taken several years.

Thank you to all my brothers and sisters who lay it on the line 24-7 and expect nothing in return.

Too Many to Choose Only One

Submitted by: Joy Polley

My first experience with an amazing first responder begins with my Dad. He has been a Volunteer Firefighter for as long as I can recall. He is a shining example of the dedication it takes to give up your time freely to help those in need. In recent years he has also become trained as a medical first responder, is part of the emergency response team and teaches first aid in the community. While holding down his full time job as a school bus driver.
I swelled with pride the day my husband also chose the path of selfless service with our community volunteer department. Through his involvment with the department I have met other amazing men and women that not only show the dedication while in emergency situations but also are the first ones there when ever anyone needs a hand whether it be a reno project or a lend of a lawnmower. There is a deep sense of comradery within the department and they become like family. I also had the privledge of running into an old friend in not the best of circumstances. My grandmother suffered a heartattack, immediately I sent someone to call 911 and spend the next five minutes keeping her comfortable while panicing on the inside. And old friend walked into the room wearing his EHS uniform and a wave of calm came over me.
Thanks so much Dave for writing this great song. Many of the first responders do this without seeking recognition or praise, but they certainly deserve the honour your words convey.