The heat is on for new Fire/EMS recruits after graduation ceremony

By Lethbridge Herald on July 6, 2022.

Herald photo by Alejandra Pulido-Guzman The Fire and Emergency Services recruits take part in their graduation ceremony while Deputy Chief Gerrit Sinke asks attendees to rise for the national anthem Tuesday at Lethbridge Fire Station No. 4.

Alejandra Pulido-Guzman  – Lethbridge Herald  – apulido@lethbridgeherald.com 

The Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services has welcomed 12 new members to their family, and it is putting some of them to work as early as today. 

After 10 intense weeks of training, a group of 12 recruits made the cut to the next level in their careers. Some come with previous EMS experience, while others started completely from scratch. 

The graduation ceremony took place Tuesday morning at the No. 4 Fire Station in the presence of their family and friends, city dignitaries and multiple members of the Fire and Emergency Services. 

During the ceremony one of the graduates was awarded the Kilkenny award for leadership and excellence, he was selected by his fellow recruits. 

Award winner and new advanced care firefighter paramedic, Bronson Busch said the fact that he was voted in by his peers meant a lot to him. 

“They were with me every moment of every day, so it feels like it’s a truer reflection of the effort that I put in over the past ten weeks. I think anyone can put on a face when training officers are around, but it really meant a lot to me that that’s who the guys saw, that they saw me as a leader,” said Busch. 

He added that knowing the caliber of the guys in the class, for them to believe he was deserving of the award it meant even more to him. 

One of his fellow recruits, Rob Cloherty said the decision was unanimous and even though the vote was anonymous, everyone came to the same conclusion. 

“He just showed all those different characteristics that a leader possesses and I think we all knew that moving forward from day one, that he was a good guy to get along with and definitely a good guy to show us the rains and the way to move forward,” said Coherty. 

Busch said when writing his acceptance speech, he thought it sounded kind of ridiculous to say that in two months time the guys were as close to him as his own family, but that it could not be more accurate. 

“I think that’s just kind of a testament to the work that we put in and the success of the training program here, to form those bonds,” said Busch. 

Cloherty echoed his feelings about the relationships created during their training. He said it started since day one as they decided to hang out after training to get to know each other. 

“That turned into ‘hey let’s go golfing’ and then it turned into we’re doing multiple things every weekend,” said Cloherty.

He said it started to feel like they came into work to be with their new best friends every day. 

“Our families got to meet each other, so we’re all coming into this as a big family,” said Cloherty. 

Deputy Chief of Lethbridge Fire and Emergency Services, Gerrit Sinke said the timing for acquiring 12 new members could not be better. 

“We are short staffed for various issues and so getting these 12 new members on board going into frontline fire tomorrow is a very exciting day for us,” said Sinke. 

One of the members starting today is Cloherty and he said he is very excited to put his new acquired skills to use and revisit those from his previous experience with EMS. 

“That will be excellent, is just like riding a bike and back into the swing of things for the EMS side, and looking forward to getting any opportunity that I can, to hone in on my fire skills and help out with the fine men and women here in Lethbridge fire,” said Cloherty. 

Unlike him, Busch has to wait for a few days to get started. His platoon has five more days off and Busch said he will be taking advantage of that, to spend some quality time with his family and friends in Calgary as he had not spend much time with them in the last 10 weeks. 

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