The Sedona Fire District will be holding its first fire station open house since the COVID-19 pandemic response on Saturday, May 25, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Station 3, located at 125 Slide Rock Road in the Village of Oak Creek.
The event will commemorate the final day of National Emergency Medical Services Week.
“In 1974, President Gerald Ford authorized EMS Week to celebrate EMS practitioners and the important work they do in our nation’s communities,” the website emsweek. org states. “National Emergency Medical Services Week brings together local communities and medical personnel to honor the dedication of those who provide the day-today lifesaving services of medicine’s frontline.”
The free event will include a display of SFD’s fleet of vehicles, a landing of a Guardian Air helicopter at noon, hands-only CPR demonstrations that will not include certification, tours of the station and free burgers and hotdogs cooked by SFD Fire Chief Ed Mezulis.
“We haven’t really been open to the public since COVID,” SFD Division Chief of Community Risk Reduction Dori Booth said. The event is an opportunity for “getting to meet with firefighters … we hired nine over the fall …
“We’ll also have file of life forms that you can take home with you which is where you put all of your medical information and store that somewhere safe. … and will have Steps to Safety, which is a program for [the] National Fire Protection Association.”
“It’s six different fire prevention, safety steps and fall prevention steps for the home, which focuses more on the older adult population,” Booth said. “We’ll also talk about some of the different programs that we are bringing to the community or plan to bring in the near future.”
Booth anticipates that SFD will recommence offering first-aid and CPR certifications later in the year.
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“Hands-only CPR, will be hands-on training, it’s not a certification” at the open house, Booth said. “It’s 100% compressions at different intervals based on child or youth.”
Giving chest compressions at the rate of 100 beats per minute is critical for proper administration of the technique, and many CPR instructors suggest syncing compressions to the 1977 Bee Gees hit song “Stayin’ Alive” as a simple way to get the right pace.
“Also, many Lady Gaga songs are also at 100 to 120 beats per minute,” Booth noted.
“We live in a community that has people that are elderly, and more likely to need the services of an EMS provider,” Foothills South resident Tom Solon said. “My wife and I have a great deal of gratitude towards Sedona Fire’s intelligent and professional approach, and how well they served us in our time of need. I feel like we owe them so much.”
Solon said that SFD transported his wife on three separate occasions during medical emergencies to area medical facilities over the last year.
“We have lived here for 16 years now and are constantly reminded of our community’s capable EMS crews,” Solon said. “How fortunate we are. When, during a medical emergency, five or six young men; strong, intelligent and ever so professional, enter your home in the middle of the night, it just takes your breath away. How proud and grateful we are of each and every one of them.
