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| Bausman firefighter Jeffrey Jones, gave his life on June 13, 1981 during a confined space rescue. |
EAST HEMPFIELD TOWNSHIP, PA - Family
members of fallen emergency responders helped break ground for a
$100,000 memorial at the Lancaster County Public Safety training Center
on Saturday, April 22, during the training center's open house.
The
new monument at athe LCPSTC in East Hempfield Township will honor
emergency responders killed in the line of duty and will ensure they
will never be forgotten.
The memorial, in front of the public
safety building at 101 Champ Blvd., will be built by ART Design Group
of Lancaster, PA, and will consist of three life-size bronze statues
representing a police officer, a firefighter and a paramedic.
The
sculpture will be flanked by five granite stones bearing the names of
the honorees. County, state and U.S. flags will stand guard, and a
brick walkway will provide access.
The 700-foot-square monument is to be completed in time for a September 11, dedication.
The
nonprofit Lancaster County Public Safety Training Center Foundation is
raising money for the project by selling $100 bricks to be engraved
with the names of donors and placed in the walkway.
U.S.
Representative Joe Pitts praised first responders for their sacrifices
and presented a citation, as did PA State Rep. Katie True, PA State
Senator David "Chip" Brightbill and the Lancaster County Commissioners
during the ground-breaking ceremony.
A 2005 Pierce Contender fire engine donated by The Lancaster County Firemen's Association was also dedicated.
Many
turned out despite rain and wind to view the displays and chat with the
uniformed men and women who, among other jobs, battle fires, splint
broken bones and dispose of hazardous materials.
Speciality
emergency services were also on display; includimg search and rescue
teams, collapse rescue team, a police CERT team, K9 police dogs,
Lancaster County Foam Task Force, PA State Explosive Detection Unit and
the Lancaster County HazMat Team.
About 100 emergency personnel
die nationwide each year, according to Nicholas Summers, Lancaster
County Firemen's Association First Vice President and Chairman of the
Memorial Committee.
He said some 50 first responders have fallen
here since 1729, when Lancaster received its charter from Chester
County. The toll includes three emergency medical workers, 14 police
officers and a constable, said Summers, who is researching the issue.
In
June of 1981, an 8-year-old boy had fallen into an old septic tank in
School Lane Hills, Lancaster Township. Carbon dioxide gas had overcome
the two paramedics who rescued him. Paramedic Bruce Ditlow went into
the pit first and Paramedic Kevin Weatherlow followed with an air tank
that he tried to share with his friend. But the carbon dioxide from the
decaying grass knocked them both out.
Wheatland Fire Company's
Firefighter Rhinier was the first one sent through the tank's 18-inch
opening to rescue the ywo paramedics. "It was straight down," recalled
the present-day Lancaster City Firefighter. "It looked like a well."
Bausman
Fire Company's volunteer-Firefighter Jeffrey Jones followed Rhinier in.
But the two men ran out of air as they worked feverishly to help the
paramedics. The two rescuers could not lift the fallen medics quickly
enough to the top of the grass pile.
Rhinier said automatic
warnings on the many air cylinders that had been lowered into the tank
by that time drowned out the sound of the alarms on his apparatus. "It
was continuous alarms going off, so I didn't hear my own."
The
18-year-old Jones died that day. So did Bruce Ditlow, 24, and Kevin
Weatherlow, 23, paramedics and best friends since high school.
Rhinier
had collapsed on a pile of grass clippings in the pit. According to
other rescuers, he stayed conscious long enough to grab a rope and be
hauled to freedom.
Rhinier said he often thinks about the three
victims. It was a gorgeous Saturday in June of 1981. He was then a
17-year-old Wheatland Fire Co. volunteer when he was sent on a risky
mission to save lives where he almost lost his own. "To this day," Mark
Rhinier said, "I don't know how I got out."
Sharon Ebersole, the
widow of Kevin Weatherlow, attended Saturday's event with her Daughter,
Kristen, who was two-and-a-half-years-old at the time of the accident.
Mrs. Ebersole said the memorial will be an especially fitting tribute
for paramedics, a group the public does not commonly associate with
mortal risk. "These people are a 'safety net' for the public," said
Betty Ditlow, mother of one of the paramedics felled 25-years ago. She
said her Son and his buddy would have been "proud and pleased" to know
that the boy in the tank survived. "Help people," she said. "That's
what they wanted to do."
The tradition of service is centuries old, and still dangerous.
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