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By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
To celebrate both 75 years of service and Fire Prevention Week, the Sherborn Fire Department welcomed the community to their North Main Street station on October 15 for an afternoon of activities for children and adults.
A chili competition, raffle prizes, pizza, cotton candy, and sausages were perfect fuel for the children as they raced around the station touching fire engines and sitting in the trucks. Attendees tossed bean bags, had their faces painted, and had the opportunity to crawl through a house fire simulator.
Sherborn firefighters demonstrated vehicle extrication, where they flipped the roof of a car to show how they would get to a patient trapped inside the car in a real emergency.
The firefighters also put on a demonstration of car extrication, during which families could watch firefighters in uniform cutting the glass on a car and using the Jaws of Life, a combination of three hydraulic rescue tools (cutters, spreaders, and rams), to take off the doors and flip the roof back. Using the glass master saw and an axe to break the windshield, three firefighters showed how they would save a person trapped in the old and beaten Audi in an emergency.
Firefighter Joe Cumming narrated the extrication as the firefighters worked on the car. “Normally, if this was an actual auto accident, this would be done in probably less than eight minutes,” Cumming reminded the audience. “We usually like to have four people working on the car and at least one EMT inside the car with the patient.”
Sherborn firefighters demonstrated vehicle extrication, where they flipped the roof of a car to show how they would get to a patient trapped inside the car in a real emergency.
Taking the demonstration just a little bit further than the basic extrication, the firefighters used the Jaws of Life to make work of the steering wheel and dashboard to show what the responders would do if a patient were trapped in the floor space.
Framingham Fire Department also lent their Fire Prevention Trailer to Sherborn so they could learn how to navigate through a smoke-filled house. “We teach them to feel the door with the back of our hands, that they have to go low and crawl through smoke to find the door to get out,” said Bob Bond, the advisor to the Explorer Program, which recruits boys and girls age 14 to 21 to teach them the skills of a firefighter. “We teach them not to hide under the bed or under the closet and not to hide from us. We’re coming to help you.”
Sparky the dog even made an appearance to take photos with children as parents chatted with the firefighters and looked through the informational pamphlets about fire safety.
“Typically when you think of the fire department, you think of rescuing a cat in a tree,” joked one of the engine drivers. “Yes, we’ve done that.”
The firefighters reminded children that the fire station does much more for the community than just put out fires. The Fire Department will help with large animal rescues, work on fallen power lines, and search for missing Alzheimer’s patients and missing children.
And provide an inspirational and informative afternoon for Sherborn’s families.
Children at the Sherborn Fire Department’s celebration of 75 years of service and Fire Prevention Week watched firefighters break the windshield to show how they would handle the situation in a real emergency.
