Tara Fehr approached her interview with a smile and a sweeping statement: “I feel this department has given me so much more than I could ever give back.”
Fehr and her husband moved to Niverville in 2006. While being a stay-at-home mom of three boys, she completed an Emergency Medical Responder (EMR) course and joined the volunteer firefighters.
“Getting my pager on my birthday was the most exciting gift I ever received,” Fehr says.
True to the “two in, two out” rule, training and testing for Level I are always done with a partner. In September 2014, Fehr was one of nine who acquired their Level I firefighter status.
“It was an awesome experience to graduate with eight others. It’s the best family you could want to be in.” Fehr and two others took their paramedic course together and graduated in June. She will begin working for Southern Health this fall.
Fehr believes family support is essential for anyone who wants to become a volunteer firefighter. Apart from pager calls at all hours, the time commitment for a paramedic firefighter is considerable, including biweekly meetings and training, and another monthly meeting for EMR personnel.
Niverville has three EMR platoons that rotate for maintenance checks of equipment. They also check medical supplies, expiry dates, inventory, etc.
Maintaining physical fitness is paramount and especially key for someone like Tara who is only five-foot-three. The same practical tests are applied to men and women.
“It’s not about the individual, though,” Fehr says. “It’s team effort, team environment, having each other’s back, helping each other out. As one of five women in the department, I have experienced nothing but respect and support.”
Fehr has profound respect for her leaders, colleagues, and the people they help, especially their privacy (which can be particularly difficult in a small town where everyone seems to know everyone).
When asked what she feels when approaching a critical accident scene, she replies, “A definite sense of calmness.”
She recalls a time when she was in Winnipeg as a young adult and an ambulance sped by with its siren wailing. “I felt an urgent desire to be on that ambulance. There’s a saying about this work, that you don’t choose it, it chooses you. I think there’s some truth to that.”
