Heros come in many forms. They can be the passerby who rescues a child from a canal.
They can be the person someone looks up to for guidance every day.
A hero can also be a model figure that a person patterns themself after.
But there is a group of heros that serve our community in jobs, jobs that deal with life and death every day. Some are paid, some are not.
All see it as a way of life.
In the last few years terroristic activities and natural disasters have brought out the best in these men and women. They have faced the aftermath of 9-11, the training, the vigilance and the action.
| Helper firefighters clean up after using the jaws of life to extract a woman from a car that was in a head on accident in Price Canyon. |
They have also faced many natural disasters, including the biggest of all in our country, the one unfolding in New Orleans right now.
These heros have concern for our country as a whole and also for our individual communities, because they are a part of those towns.
The anxiety, the fear and the uncertain future; it all adds up to a feeling most people in the United States have never had.
But these events have reinvigorated most peoples regard for those that are our defenders and helpers in time of disaster. We saw the police, fire fighters and other first responders taking on dangerous situations first hand, live on television.
We saw many of them triumph over adversity, and we cried. We saw others killed in the line of duty, and we cried even more.
Yet despite the tragedy, standing head and shoulders above everyone were these reassuring figures, that still stand tall today.
The danger on Sept. 11, 2001 was in New York and Washington D.C., but nationwide responders take risks with their lives to save others every day. Sometimes those situations are due to human actions, other times they relate to mother nature or the pure accidents of life.
While there are no skyscrapers, little violent crime, few major disasters and, up until this time, no terrorist acts in Carbon County, nonetheless local responders still stand there ready to take the blow for the common citizen.
| Emergency personnel carry a victim from an accident scene. |
Each year, the emergency personnel in Carbon County respond to hundreds of calls. Some are in regard to people who are having health problems. Others have to do with crime. Many have to do with accidents of one kind or another. Regardless of what those incidents are, heading into an unknown storm they do it with a determination and professionalism that would make any big city organization proud.
This county has something that many other counties and even cities don’t possess: cooperation amongst agencies. The Helper Police Department, the Price Police Department, the Carbon County Sheriff’s Department, the Wellington Police Department, the East Carbon Police Department and the Utah Highway Patrol often work together on everything from criminal cases to auto accident investigations.
The fire departments in the county back each other up and help out where needed as well. The Price Fire Department, the Helper Fire Department, the Wellington Fire Department, the East Carbon Fire Department and the Sunnyside Fire Department all interchange with each other when needed and support the efforts of the others constantly.
The rescue squads that are part of each of these fire departments also work together well. And the Carbon County Ambulance personnel serve everyone in the area, along with the Sunnyside Ambulance Service which takes care of the east county.
One of comments that is often made about Carbon’s emergency response teams is the level of training and sophistication they exemplify. The leaders of these organizations constantly work on training regimens and do everything they can to assure their responders have every piece of equipment they can get to make their job safer and the service they provide more effective.
A great many of the people who respond to emergency situations are volunteers; they get nothing except the satisfaction of serving their community and helping others. Others get minimal amounts to risk their lives.
Few people realize what is required of these men and women. It’s not just a matter of jumping in a truck and speeding to a fire or driving to an accident to see what can be done.
All of the skills that they need to respond properly had to be learned. Training time takes up a great deal of their lives.
They learn their skills through service training, outside workshops and certification classes. In this day and age these are a must for anyone serving.
Other areas of involvement are growing all the time as well. In the last couple of years more interest in creating a (Citizen Emergency Response Team) programs has emerged in the country.
Those programs are up and running, with volunteers learning skills they hope they will never use.
Under these programs volunteer citizens get some training in first response techniques, light fire fighting and some types of rudimentary extraction techniques for removing people from collapsed structures.
Programs like this have started all over the country in large cities and are now filtering down to smaller communities.
It’s an unsure world and the only constant is change. But the men and women who are first responders are ready to handle any situation, through training and adaptation.
That is why we want to honor those that protect our county, our cities and our homes.