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It's not my problem?
Written by Tim Beebe   

Tim Beebe, the fire chief in Upsala, Ont., looks at the lighter side of firefighting in his online column.

tim-beebe Feb. 15, 2008

“Upsala Fire Department, we have a report of a two-vehicle collision involving tractor trailers, kilometre 12 Graham Rd.. Ambulance is requesting assistance. Time out, 02:45.” 

Nothing out of the ordinary for a volunteer fire department, right? Except that the Graham Road winds through a vast area of no-man’s land, meaning that it doesn’t belong to any fire response area, so we really aren’t supposed to go there.

I rolled out of bed, drove to the hall, and chose two firefighters to respond with me. Everyone else went home. Taking a truck out of our area was bad enough – I wasn’t going to take my whole crew along. After all, it was only an ambulance assist. We would help a little with packaging and loading, write a few notes and go home. How many guys do you need for that? We hopped in the truck and headed out. I wasn’t too concerned about the response area thing. It was only kilometre 12 – not too far across the line. 

Kilometre 12 came and went, and no vehicle crash. The ambulance was still rolling, so we followed. I was monitoring the trucker frequency and heard a truck coming south. 

I picked up the microphone. “This is Upsala Fire Department. Do you know anything about the vehicle crash?” 

“I heard it’s pretty bad.” 

“What about injuries and location?” 

“Don’t know about injuries, but I hear it’s at kilometre 92.” 

Kilometre 92! Now we’re talking at least two hours outside of our response area. Should we go, or turn back? I wanted more information, so I started quizzing other south-bound truckers. 

“Are you sure it’s really at 92?” 

“Do you know anything about the condition of the drivers?”  

“Can you give me any details?” 

I began to have a feeling that either the drivers had both walked out or they were dead. In either case, it probably wasn’t worth driving two hours to find out. But what if I was wrong? What if we let the ambulance respond alone and found later that a trucker had died because he was trapped? I kept my foot on the throttle.

The ambulance strobes were glaring so I flipped down the sun visor. What were they thinking now? (I found out later that they were hoping we weren’t going to turn around.) What if something happened at home while we were out? Mutual aid was at least an hour from Upsala.  

Could I justify my actions to an insurance company if a value was lost while we were away? What did the inside of a courtroom look like during a lawsuit?  

A cruiser passed us in a wide spot on the road. He’s probably the only cop on duty in Upsala tonight, I mused. Come to think of it, our only ambulance was out here too. I doubted that either of them was thinking about legalities. If they didn’t go, who would?  

Good question. If I didn’t go, who would? 

I was falling behind the ambulance, so I pushed a little harder on the throttle. 

At about kilometre 50, we met a south-bound logger who was bringing out one of the drivers. We helped transfer the driver to the ambulance. He didn’t seem to be too injured. “What about the other driver?” I asked. 

“He’s dead,” the logger replied. 

“Did you see him? “No, but you should see the truck . . .” 

“Get out of the way!” I called as I headed back to the truck. 

I headed out again, this time without the ambulance strobes in my eyes. I wondered what they would do. Soon I could see their lights catching up to me on a straight stretch. They weren’t taking any chances either. 

At the scene, we found that a log truck had jack-knifed, sending his load over top of an in-coming empty truck. The driver was buried in a tangle of metal. The only thing we could do for him was cut him out for transport to a funeral home. 

On the way home, more thoughts rolled around in my head. Had the whole thing been a waste of time? I knew it hadn’t – there was no way of knowing without physically attending the scene. But why was it that only the fire department had to make a moral decision about responding? If someone needed medical help while our ambulance was in Timbuktu, well they could just wait.
 
There’s only so much you can do. But if a house burned down while the fire truck was in Timbuktu . . . well, you know what would happen, no matter how good a shot the home crew gave trying to put it out.

I’ve received lots of advice about this issue over the years.  

“Go, if you think you must, but make sure you leave sufficient resources at home.”That’s good advice, but not always easy to follow. On the night of this incident, seven or eight firefighters responded. Sometimes I may have three or four. Or two. 

Here’s another one.

“It’s not your problem. Those people should know the risks of driving in unorganized territory.” 

Actually, we don’t respond to any call because it’s “our problem.” We go because we can help fix other people’s problems. In this case, “those people” weren’t out recklessly joyriding. They happened to be hauling logs for lumber and paper, things that we use every day. Other times they’re vacationers on the Trans-Canada Highway. Or service people coming to fix a furnace in my village. Does it really matter who they are, or why they are out here? 

I know there isn’t a simple solution for this problem, but I do have a radical idea. In most cases in Ontario, you’ll get an ambulance or a cruiser if you need one. Downtown Toronto, or Graham Road, it doesn’t matter. That’s because the province funds ambulance and police, at least in unorganized areas. What if we created provincially funded rescue teams that had response areas matching the ambulance and police? They wouldn’t have to come from nowhere. The infrastructure is here already, and some provincial support is already being provided. Municipalities and local services boards would have to sign agreements authorising responses within the new service areas, in return for funding.  In some cases, more equipment and apparatus might be required, but we wouldn’t have to start from scratch.  

In all cases, personnel would be a problem, but when is it not a problem? I’m afraid that’s another issue, and I’ll need at least another thousand words (or maybe a picture) to address it.
 
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