Page 7 - The Wayne Dispatch
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Glimmers of hope among


                                                                                decimated fire department



                                                                                By Carolyn Marnon                 the meals that have been provided to
                                                                                  COVID-19 has had numerous ef-   them. If you would like to donate to
                                                                                fects on the Wayne Fire Department.  the  fire  department,  Deputy  Chief
                                                                                The most notable ef-              Schneider emphasizes that they can
                                                                                fect is that 50% of the           only accept store-bought or restau-
                                                                                department’s  staff  is           rant-bought  food.  Homemade  food
                                                                                out  of  commission               items cannot be accepted.  The de-
                                                                                due to the virus.                 partment  will  gratefully  accept  gift
                                                                                  The     remaining               cards to grocery stores. Please call
                                                                                staff has been spend-             the station at 734-722-1111 to make
                                                                                ing  their  days  disin-          arrangements for a good day to or-
                                                                                fecting areas throughout the station  ganize a meal donation.
                                                                                as  well  as  the  equipment,  wearing  The pandemic is “is putting quite
                                                                                masks 24 hours a day while at work  a strain on the City of Wayne fire de-
                                                                                and preparing for 911 calls that in-  partment,” explained Deputy Chief
                                                                                volve multiple layers of personal pro-  Schneider. “Our call volumes have in-
                                                                                tection equipment.                creased. That adds to fatigue, stress
                                                                                  Even though there are only seven  and more hours each individual fire
                                                                                active  working  firefighters,  the  de-  fighter is required to work due to the
                                                                                partment has not changed how the  shortage  of  fire  fighters  that  are
                                                                                shifts are organized, but it has cre-  being quarantined.”
                                                                                ated the need for overtime to replace  Run  times  in  answering  a  911
                                                                                the missing numbers. The Wayne de-  call are affected greatly due to trans-
                                                                                partment is utilizing their mutual aid  portation times to hospitals outside
                                                                                agreements with local communities,  of Wayne and the decontamination
                                                                                but they are not staffing the station  process that follows each call.  Res-
                                                                                with any outside fire fighters.   cue workers will begin decontaminat-
                                                                                  Has  the  community  done  any-  ing  with  a  rapid  cleaning  of  the
                                                                                thing special for the fire department?  passenger compartment while they
                                                                                There’s been “a tremendous amount  are still at the hospital. As soon as
                                                                                of donations which has been wonder-  they return to the station, they deep
                                                                                ful,”  said  Deputy  Chief  Jeremie  clean  the  passenger  compartment
                                                                                Schneider.  “The  support  has  been  along with themselves.  It can take
                                                                                great from the community and really  anywhere  from  1  ½  -2  hours  to
                                                                                from all of southeast Michigan.  Dif-  transport someone and put the res-
                                                                                ferent organizations put together by  cue vehicle back into service. Since
                                                                                citizens that don’t reside in Wayne.”  the COVID-19 pandemic, the depart-
                                                                                Deputy  Chief  Schneider  also  men-  ment was able to put a 2nd vehicle
                                                                                tioned Little Caesars Pizza’s corpo-  into service but now due to half the
                                                                                rate  office  reached  out  to  the  staff in quarantine, the department
                                                                                department, as well as Livonia, Can-  has been unable to staff the 2nd ve-
                                                                                ton and some downriver restaurants.   hicle and is currently running one
                                                                                  The  department  appreciates  all  rescue and one fire engine.
























                                                                                                                    The Wayne Dispatch · May 2020 · 7
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