Eel Brook fire department, with help, gets new Jaws of Life

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

When the volunteer firefighters of the Eel Brook and Districts Fire Department heard the loud snap while working feverishly to free a trapped woman from her vehicle following a head-on collision on Highway 103, they thought they had made their way through the crumpled wreck.

Instead, they were stunned to discover the extrication equipment their department owned had broken – unable to penetrate the sturdy metal frame of the vehicle.

“We had the old-type Jaws that you’ve got to pump and runs on air. We started working, they opened the door on one side, opened the door on the other side, and said the best way would be to cut the roof off so they can get at her, she was pinned really tight,” recalls Eel Brook fire chief Hector Babin. “They heard a big snap, but it wasn’t because they had made it through the vehicle.”

Other fire departments on the scene – West Pubnico and Yarmouth – had equipment that was able to free the woman. It was a process that took nearly two hours.

Trapped inside the vehicle on that December day, just a few days before Christmas, was Yarmouth County resident Valerie Emin, a hockey mom who was traveling with her two children to an out-of-town hockey try-out. Emin suffered serious injuries, particularly to her leg, which required extensive surgery. Yet while her road to recovery has been a slow process, she’s made remarkable progress. She’s walking and she’s driving again.

And while the accident is still difficult for Emin to speak or think about, expressing the gratitude she and her husband Fred feel towards those who freed her from her vehicle comes easily.

“I’m eternally grateful for everything they did. My children too, because they know how hard they worked that day to get me out,” she says.

The stretch of Highway 103 where the collision occurred, and other parts of the highway, has been the site of many collisions that the Eel Brook department has had to respond to over the years. So when it came time for the department to replace the extrication equipment it had broken last winter, it decided to go with something stronger than it had before. Its old equipment could withstand 12,000 pounds of pressure. The new one it wanted to purchase came with 50,000 pounds of pressure.

But stronger also carried a hefty price tag.

The Hurst Jaws of Life – whose cutters, spreaders and rams function with piston-rod hydraulic tools – that the volunteer fire department purchased costs $27,000 plus tax.

With assistance through the province’s Provider Fund – a one-year provincial funding program for volunteer fire departments and emergency response organizations such as the Ground Search and Rescue and Hazardous Material organizations – the Eel Brook department was able to secure a decent portion of the cost towards the new equipment.

But it still had to fundraise and donate money itself to make up the balance. The department is still around $7,000 short.

But it hasn’t been battling its cause alone.

Tusket Sales and Services – the Ford car dealership that had sold the Emins their vehicle, a Lincoln MFX mid-sized crossover SUV, just three months before the accident – heard about the Eel Brook department’s plight. Aside from wanting to make a financial donation, the company opened its doors to the fire department so it could stage various fundraisers at events being hosted by the dealership, like a recent Mustang show and a monster truck event held in June. It will also accept donations on the department’s behalf.

One of the fundraisers held by the department was a barbecue. Fred Emin, upon learning of the reason for the barbecue, donated 200 hamburgers from his business Emin’s Meat Market. That translated into more than $600 being raised.

Tusket Sales and Services general manager Marcel Pothier says he wasn’t surprised that the department’s equipment had broken at the site of the December 2007 collision. He says the vehicle being driven by Emin that day had done its job.

“The way they construct these vehicles now, the metal is a lot more rigid, they’re designed to be a lot safer than they were in the past,” he says. “The same reason it took so long to get her out, was the same reason she was alive.”

Pothier adds that aside from the service the Eel Brook department provides to the public, they also wanted to support the department because it has bought vehicles from the dealership in the past. Tusket Ultra Mart also helped the department with fundraising.

The Eel Brook department received its new Jaws of Life in late August. Two days later it used the equipment to extricate the victim of a collision on Highway 103 from his vehicle.

The Eel Brook department purposely purchased equipment that is compatible to the Jaws of Life used by the West Pubnico volunteer department. This way, Babin says, if the two departments are on the scene of a motor vehicle collision – and in particular one involving more than a single vehicle – they can work together, if need be, to free victims from the wreckage.

“It’s a shame that we have to do fundraising for something that is a necessity,” says Babin, but he says in the end it is worth the effort. “Think of how many lives you can save with these things.”