The tragic events of earlier this week in Red Lake are beyond belief.
Eden Prairie Fire and Police have a special connection to the area. Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s members from Eden Prairie Fire and Police went up to Red Lake help them put on a Safety Camp program for their youth. Safety Camp was a concept created in our city by Curt Oberlander an Assistant Chief on the Fire Department and a Sergeant with the Police Department. The program has since spread nationwide.
I was fortunate enough to have been taken along on one of the trips to Red Lake. We not only helped out with Safety Camp, we also worked with their Fire Department on firefighting skills.
During that visit I met Roman Stately who is now the Fire Director, my peer at Red Lake. I recently spoke with Roman and offered whatever assistance I could, to help with his terrible circumstances. In small rural areas the first responders, fire and police, almost always know personally the victims of the scenes they respond to. Nowhere is this more true than in this situation at Red Lake. The responders will need help dealing with this as well. My hope is that Eden Prairie can offer some measure of assistance once again.
