Wanda English Burnett, Editor

A unique unit that would have marked 30 years this year has been shut down. As of February 27 at 8:00 p.m. the doors were barricaded and locks were changed on the Task Unit One building in Osgood, with spokesperson Shawn Negangard saying they (Task Unit One) were officially closed. The task unit specialized in emergency rescues including extrications, rope repelling and water rescue.

Nearly a year ago a meeting was held to determine the future of the extrication and rescue unit that was one-of-a-kind in the state. At that time an advisory board was formed to oversee the operations of the unit. That board consisted of Melvin Dwenger, representing Delaware Volunteer Fire Department; Mike Schuler, representing Napoleon Volunteer Fire Department; Jeff Volz, the town of Osgood’s representative; Larry Black for Center Township and Shawn Negangard, Task Unit One’s representative. The board worked together with the township trustees for the area it served, which was Center Township (Bill Warren); Delaware Township (Paul Hardy); and Jackson Township (Joan Menchhofer).

Negangard was chosen to be the spokesperson for the group in the matter of closing the doors on the unit as it was known. “We will still have extrication and rescue,” he told the Osgood Journal last week in an interview. “It’s not that the community won’t be served, it will just now be organized under the Osgood Volunteer Fire Department, with First Responders responding from the various three fire departments, Napoleon, Osgood, and Delaware.

Negangard said the decision was made to close the unit because the advisory board was not getting information they had requested such as run sheets and reports, first response runs were not being taken by members, and there were “major problems” with tools being broken. He said for the first half of 2007 things were improving with the unit, but then seemed to deteriorate. “We were hearing many complaints by the end of last year,” he noted. He said at the end of February no paperwork had been turned in to the advisory board.

Last Tuesday, February 26, the advisory board met with the trustees from the respective townships. By the next evening, Ripley County Communications was notified that Task Unit One was not in service and Osgood and Napoleon fire departments had special meetings to inform their members what was going on, according to Negangard.

Carla Grow, secretary/treasurer for Task Unit One told the Osgood Journal the members of the unit were not notified by the advisory board. She said members began finding out one by one, calling each other and going up to the station located in Osgood. “Right, wrong, or indifferent, it’s done!” she exclaimed. “Do I believe that this was handled appropriately? Definitely not. I believe that this should have been a merge of departments versus a hostile takeover,” Grow noted.

In a written statement Grow noted that the advisory board did not notify the members of the dissolution of Task Unit One nor did they include the Command Officers in the dissolution process. Matter of fact as of Sunday evening, March 2 one Task Unit member, who has been on the force for a number of years, still had not been notified. She said she, along with other members, felt blind sided by the advisory board’s decision.

As the secretary/treasurer, Grow said she couldn’t understand what the problem was with the advisory board not getting information they say they needed. “I turned in financials and completed a run sheet for every call I responded to,” she noted. She went on to say the run sheet information was accessible at all times to the advisory board. She further noted that on February 19 she submitted a financial report and minutes of the previous meeting to then President Jason Smith, which was standard protocol. Smith has since resigned to take a state position with EMS. “I just don’t understand this,” she noted.

As for not responding to calls, Grow said as a volunteer group she was sure not every single call could be responded to. “I don’t think any volunteer agency can say that,” she noted. But as a mother of three who holds down a 40-hour a week job at Surgical Associates, Batesville, Grow said she, along with others, gave numerous volunteer hours to “serve her community.” Not only did she respond with the extrication team, she was a First Responder and just two months away from being a certified EMT (Emergency Medical Technician). “I don’t regret any of the hours of training or responding to calls, it’s something I wanted to do, I still want to,” she noted.

Grow says when she went to the Task Unit building last Wednesday night about 10 p.m. Some of the advisory board members were there taking any equipment that members were turning in and making an inventory of it. “I asked Shawn, ‘what happens to us?’” She said Negangard told her that Task Unit One was done and if she wanted, she could apply to the Osgood Volunteer Fire Department (that’s the territory she would be under). He advised her she would have to be a certified Firefighter I and Firefighter II to qualify. “I believe the effects of this decision by the advisory board will be detrimental to our community. It is wrong to turn away volunteers due to lack of an affiliation with a fire department. Volunteers, such as myself, who are certified by the state and are willing to give of their time and service to help their community should be valued.”

Negangard told the Osgood Journal he wasn’t sure how the other fire departments would handle members of Task Unit One who wanted to continue to serve their communities as First Responders, but he knew that Osgood would require them to be firefighters as well. He also noted that there are just so many slots available on the department and wasn’t for sure what the number was they could take at this time.

At this time, the equipment such as the truck, rescue boat and more, will still be housed in the Task Unit One building, but will be operated through the Osgood Volunteer Fire Department. Negangard said the advisory board will decide where the equipment is dispersed according to non-profit regulations. Last week they were still in the process of getting the equipment returned and taking inventory. The by-laws of Task Unit One give specific instructions on how the assets are to be dispersed in the event of the dissolution of the unit.

Negangard noted that the three township area will still have mutual aid and will help each other in the event of an emergency. He noted that there are several firemen on the Osgood department who have been previous Task Unit members and said they are qualified to operate the extrication equipment. Negangard himself is a nationally certified instructor for fire service and extrication. He says special classes have already been arranged that will be offered to all three fire departments to train as a group. He encouraged Task Unit members to apply to their respective fire departments.
With approximately 20 members on the Task Unit One roster, Grow said about 13 were truly active. Spending numerous hours on paperwork and training, not to mention the actual response times, Grow said it felt like a ‘slap in the face’ to have five people tell you you’re no longer wanted. While Grow says she knows volunteers give up a lot to do what they do, it’s something she looked forward to. “I love to help others, I’m just not sure what my place will be now, or even if there is one for me,” she concluded.

Negangard, who has been involved in various aspects of Task Unit One since its inception, said closing the Task Unit was a sad day for a unit he refers to as “unique”. He remembered the days of doing whatever was necessary with whatever tool you had, to simply save a life. “We worked together as a team with one common goal - to save someone’s life.” The hours of forming the group were long and sometimes the task ahead daunting, according to Negangard. But, the initial group never waivered, knowing they needed more than a “crowbar” to pry someone loose from a mangled car.

A photo hangs in his office of an accident that looks as if there was no possibility of a good outcome. But the results were life, not death. Negangard said he has seen death numerous times and it’s something that haunts him. “I’m not perfect,” he noted as he handed a copy of his feeling he had penned after a fatal accident that claimed the life of an 18-year-old. It was her birthday, she was invincible. But a few beers later, there would only be memories of this life. With tears streaming down his face he remembered her face and mostly her eyes full of fear as if it were yesterday. “I see them, I see them, I see them,” he wrote, “I see them at night before I close my own. I see them in my sleep. I see them as I wake...How I wish I could have helped those eyes.”

When the tones are dropped every firefighter, rescue worker, medical personnel, along with police know they face the potential of losing a life. Many of these people are volunteers, who simply want to make life better for the area they live in. Negangard says he hopes the merge of the units, even though it wasn’t the smoothest, will have a positive effect, and that volunteers will still work together for the good of everyone.