DECATUR -- Members of the Decatur and Centerton Fire Departments, along with a Northwest Heath Ambulance and Air Evac Unit 4 from Springdale, converged on Decatur Northside Elementary not to fight a fire or transport patients to the hospital but to teach students the importance of fire safety and the equipment first responders use to save lives.
Several Decatur firefighters brought Decatur Tanker Unit 2413, Pumper 2412 and Rescue 2451 for the display area in the north parking lot of the elementary school. Clint Bush, a member of the Centerton Fire Department, brought Centerton's Station 6 Ladder unit 631, completing the fire department display.
Northwest Health set one of its units with first responders Billy Emmons and Gary Osburn to show the students through a working ambulance, complete with an EKG monitor, oxygen and a stretcher.
At 10 a.m. the morning silence was broken with the sounds of an inbound helicopter from Springdale. Air Evac Unit 4 with pilot Eril Brotherton, flight nurse Andrew Chaffin and flight paramedic Doug Baher landed on the school open playground, completing the Fire Day display.
Students from Decatur Pre-K school and Northside kindergarten through fourth grade got the chance to tour all the display vehicles and the helicopter and asked questions of the firefighters, paramedics and flight crew.
In the afternoon, the three Decatur Fire Department units moved to the parking lot of Decatur High School, talking to middle and high school students about fire safety.
The Oct. 4 events kicked off National Fire Safety/Fire Prevention Week which runs from Oct. 6-12. The week in which Oct. 9 falls each year was set aside for this event by a proclamation of President Calvin Coolidge in 1925 as a way to teach children the importance of fire prevention.
General News on 10/09/2019