Lethbridge fire department welcomes new members at grad ceremony
By Lethbridge Herald on November 8, 2024.
Lethbridge Fire and Emergency newest members Andrew Shaskin, Harrison Morton, Taylor Curtis, Mike Stephenson and Billy Burch are welcomed into the department during their graduation ceremony Friday morning at the Galt Museum.
Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-GuzmanAlejandra Pulido-Guzman – LETHBRIDGE HERALD – apulido@lethbridgeherald.com
Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services acquired five new firefighter paramedics after the newest class of recruits graduated on Friday at the Galt Museum and Archives.
During the ceremony mayor Blaine Hyggen spoke to those in attendance and addressed the five graduates, Andrew Shaskin, Harrison Morton, Taylor Curtis, Mike Stephenson and Billy Burch. He began by saying that they are the future of city residents’ safety and well-being.
“You’ve trained hard, learning essential skills and forge bonds that, of course, will last a lifetime. Each call you respond becomes an opportunity to impact somebody’s life in profound ways as you step into your new roles. Know that you carry the hopes and gratitude of the entire community. Congratulations,” said Hyggen.
After the ceremony Shaskin and Burch spoke about what it means to be able to officially start working as early as today and they both agreed on the fact that it will be then when it will feel real, and they were both excited to get started.
“It’s an incredible honour, to be honest. Every single one of the guys have worked really hard to get here and it is a surreal feeling,” said Burch.
He said because of the class size of five, they became really close friends to the point of calling each other family. Something Shaskin echoed by saying the bonds created by spending almost every waking moment with his fellow recruits became really strong.
“You’re drinking through the firehose of information and trying to work together as a team, so it’s busy and you form bonds with your classmates really fast because of the schedule and you’re spending basically every waking moment together for 11 weeks,” said Shaskin.
While having five new members in LFES is great, recruit training officer Sean Larkin told media that they were hoping to add 12 new members because they are short staffed.
“Ideally our last class we wanted 12 and we had seven. We wanted another 12 here and we had five. So, in the two classes we have 12 out of the 24 that we were looking for,” said Larkin.
He said they are trying to increase their numbers because the city is growing and they need to be able to serve the community as best as they can.
“Sometimes it’s a struggle. It’s a work in progress. I think it takes a certain type of individual to be trained in EMS who also want to do fire. It’s a pretty small percentage,” said Larkin.
He said unfortunately they do not control who goes to school and who wants to come into the profession, but they do their best to get who they can.
“We’re pretty selective of who we want because we’re a pretty progressive and we have a very high standard for ourselves,” said Larkin.
He said even though they don’t have the numbers they would like to have, they continue to provide the community with the best service they can.
“Right now, we have about 240 members, that’s between firefighters, paramedics, dispatchers and fire prevention. We have five fire stations and I believe we have eight ambulances now, but we’re trying to grow that,” said Larkin.
He said that without people to fill those seats, it is really hard to expand the department and added that they want to reduce wait times.
“If somebody calls an ambulance, we don’t want them to wait for somebody from another community to come in to help them,” said Larkin.
He said their goal is to have four-member engines and it is based on the numbers whether or not they can get there. But that is what they are working towards.
“Right now, we have two engines in the city that are always staffed with four members. The other three engines are three-member engines. So, we need to increase a little bit on the fire side and we want to add more ambulances to better serve the people,” said Larkin.
21-20
We should be applauding these dedicated men and women whose job has been heavily impacted by the drug crisis and in downtown alone I would guess at least 90% of their calls for EMS and the LFS,who support EMS on calls, are related to this crisis. Many fires downtown are directly connected to this crisis and many are not aware just how many calls are related. They have been run ragged the last 5 years and reducing the issues on our streets will reduce their workload.
Thank you for your dedication and hard work!