I know this isn’t exactly breaking news, but Mission firefighters are heroes.
I just wanted to reconfirm it.
The thought has been running through my head these past few weeks as I have been filling in at the Mission Record.
Our office has a scanner that catches all of the dispatch calls that go out to the Mission Fire and Rescue Service.
Most are benign calls, but many are sort of funny while others are downright terrifying.
One call this week detailed how a woman somehow got herself “trapped” in some bushes while she was out walking on a Mission trail.
The call came in for one of the firefighters to go out and rescue the woman who had called 911 after getting trapped.
There was a back and forth between the fire staff and the dispatcher as he tried to find the woman. I was giggling, but the two sides kept things professional.
After several minutes, the fire staff reported back that when they arrived on scene, the woman had just managed to “extricate” herself from said bushes and was heading back to her vehicle.
No word on if alcohol was involved.
That had a happy ending, but some of the other calls get the heart racing.
Someone called in about a “ball of fire” and a possible plane crash, which turned out to be a false claim – thankfully.
For those who don’t realize this, firefighters don’t just respond to calls about fires.
In Mission, many of the calls are related to B.C.’s ongoing toxic drug crisis. I’ve heard multiple calls in which people are “overdosing” in the washrooms of Mission fast food restaurants.
This shouldn’t be a surprise. According to the latest numbers from the BC Coroners Service, 21 Mission residents have died so far in 2022, up until the end of August, from illicit toxic drugs. Mission’s illicit toxicity death rate per 100,000 has skyrocketed from 38.9 in 2017 to 65 in 2022.
And firefighters are often the first ones on scene when someone is in crisis due to these toxic drugs.
Imagine having to arrive and try to save someone on the floor of a bathroom in a restaurant because of these drugs. Imagine arriving too late and seeing someone dead on the floor. This is what our local firefighters, RCMP and paramedics have to face on a daily basis.
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Another terrifying call came in the other day in which a woman had been pinned between a vehicle and a garage door after a driver accidentally hit the gas instead of the brakes.
These first responders deal with these incidents every day and then have to go home and lead regular lives, playing with their kids and being dutiful spouses.
I just don’t know how you shake off that kind of trauma, but they do it.
So just another reminder of the heroes we have working for us every day.
@shinebox44
chris.campbell@missioncityrecord.com
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