According to ring leader, Jeff Dezenski, much fun was had by all and he hopes to recover by early next week. The picture below is the after shot. From left to right are: Dave Thompson, Paul Welter(back row), Don Jensen(back row), Jeff Dezenski, Mike Luger(back row), David Gandrud and Travis Dahlke.

Nice going!

As you can see from the comments below, our folks and their friends really stepped up. Not only did the EPFD do well on a percentage basis, but also in terms of just the pure number of folks donating blood. Here are excerpts from the Blood drive coordinator:

“The results are in and the Eden Prairie Fire Department is the January 2010 Battle of the Badges Champion. Eden Prairie had ten times the donor goal and easily surpassed Bloomington Fire who also had an impressive rate of 4.7 times the donor rate. Eden Prairie had 48 total donors compared with Bloomington at 40.”

Of course the big winner here is the Blood Center. Thanks to everyone for taking time to donate to this great cause! Even though this contest is over, the need for blood donations goes on every day. If you are willing to do so, please contact the Memorial Blood Center for the donation location nearest to you, blood is always needed.

Nice going, guys!

“I wanted to take this opportunity to discuss the fire deaths for last year in Minnesota and wax philosophically a bit about the significance of this and where we go from here. There were 32 total fire deaths last year. This compares to 52 in 2008. Since 1970, the highest total was 134 in 1976. In 1978 the total was 85 with 91 in 1979.

The ‘78 and ‘79 numbers are significant to me because I was at fires in both years where 2 of the people died. Just before Christmas, 1978, I was at a fire where 2 young children died. I had been on that fire department for 6½ months at the time of the fire. Doing overhaul on that fire and seeing the tree with the presents under it that the kids would never have a chance to open was difficult. Then, two months later, in February of 1979, we responded to a fire where a young couple that had their engagement party a few hours before died as a result of a dropped cigarette. I remember thinking after the 2^nd double fatal fire in 2 months before I had a year on the department, that this wasn’t always a lot of fun, like I thought it would be.

Those fires convinced me that we as a fire service had to do all we could to prevent this type of tragedy. That is why I took the opportunity to get into fire prevention work. While I am proud of the work all of us in the fire service to set this new record of least fire deaths in recorded history of Minnesota, I don’t believe that our work is done. The often asked question when talk turns to fire is “How many deaths are an acceptable level?” Some people seem to believe that there is just a certain amount of “bad things” that are going to happen to people, and only so much we can do to stop or prevent that. I firmly believe, and am proud to belong to a department that also believes, that the proper answer to the above question is “ZERO!!”

I will continue to work during my career, and after I retire, to get to that acceptable number. I don’t believe it will be easy, nor do I believe we can reach it quickly, but I DO believe it’s an obtainable goal. Fire sprinklers in all buildings, including homes, is just one step toward this. I invite you to join me in this endeavor.”

I couldn’t agree more with Allen about the impact that Fire Prevention and Public Education can have. if you would like to know what you can do to help spread the word and make a difference let me know, we welcome all the help we can get.

Joe is a first class person, an excellent fire chief and now I know an excellent cook too!

That is Joe on the left and his Fire Marshal, Kevin Fox (nice hat, Kevin) on the right.

Well, fast forward to earlier this week and the old Crash Truck was headed off for it’s next assignment as we have upgraded to a new more versatile piece of equipment. Crash 11, as the old truck was referred to here in Eden Prairie is headed off to Dallas, Texas. In Dallas, the truck will be taken completely apart, sand blasted, repainted, outfitted with some new electronics and have other worn out parts replaced too. Once the truck is reassembled it will, most likely, be sold to the United States Military for use overseas protecting our nation’s military pilots.

Crash 11 was a good investment for us, we paid $1.00 for it and got $35,000 for it in trade. In addition we have provided a valuable service to our local airport by being able to protect more completely the pilots that fly in and out of the facility. With our new truck, Engine 12, we have a single truck that replaced Crash 11 as well as Engine#2. Engine 12 has enough pump and roll capacity to handle the types of aircraft that might fly into Flying Cloud Airport, and also can perform quite well, at structure fires of all sorts. So here they are, Crash 11 loaded and ready to go to Texas and new Engine 12 ready and waiting.

Last year the leading organizations in the fire service put together a program to encourage seatbelt use, and educate firefighters about the dangers of not wearing their seat-belts. Along with the program came a process to get all firefighters to sign a pledge to wear their seat-belts 100% of the time.

I am glad to report that in Eden Prairie, seatbelt usage has always been a priority and compliance has been outstanding, but we still asked each of our firefighters to sign the pledge and in doing so, we achieved 100% buy-in from our staff on the use of their seat-belts. I know that we will continue to focus on this important message and our folks will continue to wear their seat-belts.

United Way

. Eaton is a model corporate citizen in Eden Prairie and a corporate sponsor of the

United Way

.

AS I understand it, each year, the EP Plant identifies various activities throughout the week to encourage employees to support the

United Way

while having fun. The Plant purchases gifts and receives donations from other local businesses that are used as prizes for the various games (bingo, basketball, dunk tank, golf, etc.), raffles or auctions. Through employee pledges and money raised from the activities during the week, $25,000 – $30,000 is typically raised for the

United Way

. Eaton’s Charitable Contribution fund will then match employee donations $0.50 on every dollar.

This year a volunteer participant, Fire Inspector Chuck Schaitberger from the Eden Prairie Fire Department, agreed to sit in the dunk tank. Chuck has always been a strong supporter of fund raising activities for a good cause and this event clearly met that criteria. another good corporate citizen in the Minnesota vikings. At this event they sent some of their Cheerleaders to participate as well.

A big thank you to Eaton Corporation and all their great employees and to Eden Prairie Fire Inspector Chuck Schaitbergerfor his willingness to help out too.

Below are pictures of Chuck Schaitberger poised in the “Dunk Tank”, then getting dunked, and then posing with the Minnesota Viking’s Cheerleaders. All in a day’s work in community service.

Nine teams competed in the event and the times were very close. The winning team is pictured below with their trophy, which was awarded last night.

Pictured from left to right are: Firefighter Nate Maier, Lieutenant Jeremy Hoehn, Firefighter Keith Puchalski, Firefighter Casey Hoeschen and Firefighter Eric Meiners.