The Courage of Arkansas’s First Responders

The Courage of Arkansas’s First Responders

LITTLE ROCK — On a tour of our state this week, I saw rivers topping levees and creeks covering highways. I saw washed-out roads and houses battered by wind and filled with floodwater.

And over several days, I learned at least seven Arkansans had died in storm-related incidents, including firefighter Doug Deckard, who was chief of the Cove Creek Pearson Fire Department.

Chief Deckard was killed on Saturday when a car struck him as he inspected water lines along Arkansas Highway 25.

Thursday was International Firefighters Day, and Chief Deckard’s death reminds us of the risks that our first responders take to keep us safe. When civilians are fleeing from harm, police officers, firefighters, emergency medical technicians, and forestry firefighters are running headlong into danger. They often are the first to arrive, and most of the time, they don’t know exactly what they are about to face.

Sometimes, as Chief Deckard’s death reminds us, the difference between a routine call and high danger is nothing more than a rain-slick highway.

Or in the case of Oak Grove Fire Chief Randy Pogue, the danger was from an icy highway.

Chief Pogue was driving a fire truck over icy roads to the scene of an accident near Maumelle in 2014. The truck slipped off the highway and crashed into a ditch.

The impact of the crash broke his back. He died a month later of complications from his injuries.

Former Little Rock firefighter Marvin Benton says: “There is no such thing as a routine call.” Marvin suffered burns over 38 percent of his body when a burning house collapsed. “I was burning to death,” he says. He spent two months in the hospital, and even after two years of rehabilitation, his career as a firefighter was over. He has written a book about his life called “Unfallen Hero.”

But not all of their calls, obviously, end in tragedy.

The first responders often save lives. Rusty McClain, who just retired after 25 years with the Wynne fire department, remembers that one of his first calls was a head-on crash in which a young woman’s legs were pinned beneath the dash of her car. Rescuers cut their way into the car and put in two IV lines, which Rusty held. “She survived. She could walk,” Rusty says. And he adds, “That really changed how I looked at my job.

“Sometimes young people or parents will come up and hug you. They remember you from working a wreck.”

In 2014, firefighters dedicated a memorial statue in honor of firefighters who died in the line of duty. With the help of the state legislature and many private contributors, the Arkansas Fallen Firefighters Memorial stands as a tribute to the sacrifice of all firefighters, and in memory of those who died protecting others.

The 108 names inscribed on the memorial include Stewart Warren, Ed Hudson and Reginald Robinson, all of whom died in an explosion in West Helena in 1997, and Don Payton and David Carpenter, who died later that year fighting a fire in Mammoth Springs.

And so on this weekend, let’s remember the firefighters and other emergency responders and thank them for their service. And let’s remember the sacrifice of Chief Doug Deckard.

Governor

Asa Hutchinson

From Governor Asa Hutchinson