Volunteer firemen fueled only by desire.

Copyright 2001 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette...12/18/2001



**STATE EDITION**
DE QUEEN -- Volunteer firefighter John Wishard carries a poem in his fire coat pocket. When things get tough, he pulls out the sheet of paper, unfolds it and reads the 10 stanzas he wrote after a tough rescue during last year's ice storms.
Who is a volunteer fireman? the poem begins. They are your neighbor, your friend. They are the person that has seen a child's life come to an end.
Wishard wrote the piece after helping resuscitate an electrocuted line worker. Rescuers revived the man, but he died a short time later.

Wishard began his volunteer work three years ago after watching efforts to recover the body of a co-worker who drowned in the Cossatot River. The Navy veteran realized he had skills that could be put to use volunteering.
I consider it kind of a hobby, he said. I've seen some stuff most people should never have seen. But I plan on being here doing this until I cannot do it anymore.
Despite working full time for De Queen and Eastern Railroad, Wishard often answers late-night emergency calls. He will spend his night at a car wreck or house fire then return home, shower and head to work.
Statewide, Arkansas relies heavily on firefighters like Wishard. Of Arkansas' 950 fire departments, 902 are volunteer, according to the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.
There is a perception that being a volunteer is less risky, said Ethany Perkins, a Jefferson County volunteer firefighter and president of the 1,300-member Arkansas Rural and Volunteer Firefighters Association. The only true difference is they don't have as much or as good equipment. And there is really no financial benefit for these men and women to do this.
Perkins and other volunteers say they have gotten more recognition and appreciation since Sept. 11. And even though these rural Arkansans have little in common with firefighters in New York, they say all firefighters share a bond that was strengthened by the East Coast attacks.
Many of your states, even New York when you start getting out of the cities, rely on volunteer firefighters, said Harold O'Dell, Department of Emergency Management fire services coordinator. The main thing that attracts them is a willingness and a desire to help their fellow human beings.
At the Highway 70 West Volunteer Fire Department near Lake Hamilton, community members sold cookie mixes, tree ornaments and other crafts at a Christmas bazaar this month. Money raised purchased emergency medical equipment.
The 28-member department, among the largest in the state, covers 118 square miles of rugged, rural territory, has five substations, 15 fire vehicles and a growing emergency medical program.
The firefighters' annual incentives: a Thanksgiving turkey and a Christmas ham.
Among the volunteers are paramedics Todd and Angela Stanich, who occasionally load their 6- and 7-year-old sons in the car to respond to emergencies.
Either that, or we'll flip a coin to decide who goes, Todd Stanich said. I look at it like, I'm at my house watching TV and I could be doing something to save someone's life. We do it because you know you can help.
Fire Chief Robert Roland works full time as a Jacksonville firefighter and spends his days off at the volunteer department.
Medical director Dr. Karl Wagenhauser, an emergency room physician in Hot Springs, often answers his pager in the middle of the night to respond to a car wreck or heart attack.
On his wedding anniversary, he had the day off from the hospital but spent much of the day responding to calls.
He eventually told his wife that he would stop answering the pager and take her to dinner.
We got in the Jeep, headed to the restaurant and, a mile down the road, there was a truck that had rolled down into a ditch, he said.


















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