F.I.R.E First Responder wINTERMISSION

Georgia Kwietniak '26  ~  January 2025

For this year's wINTERMISSION, I had the pleasure of going behind the scenes in local first responder companies including Woodlawn Fire Station, Mercy Flight, and the Erie County Fire Training Academy. My peers and I were able to see firsthand how important first responders are to the community. 

On Monday, we were able to visit Ms. Bebak’s very own fire company: Woodlawn. We got to meet with many of the volunteers there, including the volunteer EMT who gave us a tour of the ambulance. After completing the tour of the fire station, including learning how to use a fire extinguisher and seeing inside a firetruck, the volunteers received an emergency call and we got to witness them suit up and leave for the emergency first hand! 

The next place we visited was the Erie County Fire Academy where we learned about safety during natural disasters and how to make a survival kit. Next we toured Mercy Flight, near the Buffalo Airport. Mercy Flight is a non-profit organization that uses helicopters for the worst of emergencies to perform medical evacuations all the way to the northern border of Pennsylvania. We got to see both a complete and disassembled helicopter to see the different parts. The tour put into perspective how complicated the machinery truly is and how skilled you have to be to operate the helicopter.  

Overall, the F.I.R.E wINTERMISSION immersed me into an unfamiliar, but extremely important part of the WNY community that keeps the area safe, as well as preparing me for natural disasters and emergencies in a new way.