INNISFAIL – It was three months ago when Tim Ainscough realized there was an overdue need for the Innisfail Fire Department.
The department's assistant fire chief was on a call with other members to handle a cardiac arrest case.
They worked on the lifesaving emergency for 45 long and physically demanding minutes.
“And after that, I talked to Gary (fire chief Leith) and said, ‘you know, we've talked about it and we need to get it. He said, ‘go for it.”
At a Rotary Club of Innisfail lunch meeting on May 11 Ainscough and the fire department finally got their need all wrapped up.
Rotary, along with the Innisfail Kinsmen and the now disbanded Lifeline Society of Innisfail, presented the fire department with almost $19,000 in donations to cover the cost of a new LUCAS 3 chest compression system.
The Lund University Cardiopulmonary Assist System (LUCAS) device is state-of-the-art chest compression technology that gives emergency service responders the ability to deliver high-quality, guidelines-consistent chest compressions to sudden cardiac arrest patients, whether it’s in transit, in the field, or in a hospital.
“The advantage of the device is that it does perfect CPR, and it does perfect CPR forever,” said Ainscough, who offered a unit demonstration, with assistance from his firefighter daughter Kayla, to Rotary meeting attendees. “It also protects the firefighter. CPR is very physical. They say over time 60 per cent of firefighter first responders will have an injury doing CPR.
“If we can take that away and not have to do that, we protect our first responders, and we give better patient care.”
He said all 25 volunteer Innisfail firefighters, as well as local ambulance emergency responders, will be attending a training session this month for the new LUCAS system. The device will then be put into operation for the town and surrounding area.
As for the trio of donors, all were pleased they could work together to help the fire department acquire the new technology that will not only save lives but make the supreme effort by emergency responders much easier.
“They (fire department) initially approached the Kinsmen club, and then I caught wind of it and we talked a little bit about it at our meeting and I reached out to Tim and asked how we could help,” said Tammy Thompson, past-president of the Innisfail Rotary club that donated $7,500 for the LUCAS device.
“It saves lives and stays with our fire department, so it's always going to be available to our community members.”
Carol Howe was the program manager of the Lifeline Society of Innisfail for four years before the non-profit organization closed down last December.
For 38 years the society served vulnerable community citizens with affordable life-saving devices, such as call buttons to alert emergency responders.
The $7,500 donation the society gave to the Innisfail Fire Department was one of its final monetary offering to the community.
“We wanted to distribute the money to where it would be most used for all the citizens of Innisfail,” said Howe. “They are the ones who supported the organization through the years, and it should all go back to them.”
The remaining $4,000 of the overall $19,000 donation was from the Innisfail Kinsmen.
Sanjay Davis, the service club’s president, said it was important for Kinsmen members to play its part to support the heroic lifesaving efforts by emergency responders.
“It means being part of the community. This gets our name out there that, ‘hey, were not just building playgrounds,” said Davis. “We're also helping save lives and stuff like that. It feels good.”
