Serving and protecting Cedar

By F. Josephine Arrowood
Sun contributor

When we think about living in a community, most of us don’t want to think about the fact that we’re all going to die someday, or that we may need help in a medical emergency, accident or fire. The likelihood is that this will happen right here, in beautiful, rural Leelanau County. The men and women who come to your rescue are people you’ve seen in more prosaic moments at the grocery store or the gas station. Maybe they went to school with your kids, or live down the road from you. What distinguishes them from the “olden days” of all-volunteer fire and rescue squads (as late as 2003, according to the Leland Township Fire Department, for one example), is the quality and quantity of their training, education and availability to respond in your hour of need at any time.

A few weeks ago, suffering from shortness of breath, a galloping heart rate, and shoulder pain, I found myself staring out the back window of the Cedar Fire Department (CFD) ambulance as it sped toward Traverse City. Next to me, monitoring my vital signs and doing his best to reassure me, was Herb Sudemann of Cedar, who has been a full-time member of the CFD for five years.

Later, after my medical crisis was over, I returned to the fire station to interview the three men about the vital work they do in the community.

The 45-year-old EMT-firefighter grew up in Suttons Bay, attended the local high school, and has lived in the Cedar area for about 20 years. He used to work in a factory where, he says, “You just do your job and go home.”

“I love it here,” he explains. “I wanted to do something for the community; I wanted to give back.” He started as a volunteer 11 years ago, and continued to work in both emergency medical training and firefighting, “until the opportunity came up here to go full-time.”

In the front of the ambulance, Sudemann’s colleague Shaun Beady had expertly steered through summer traffic and road construction along the 14 or so miles from Cedar to Munson Medical Center. The 30-year-old had gone to Glen Lake High School with my daughter, and used to have a bit of a reputation as a troublemaker: the kind of essentially good kid who’d give teachers and other students a hard time if he thought they were full of hooey.

At this description of his youthful self, Beady grinned.

“In high school, I was doing community service. I went down to the fire station, where Steve Ward was [the only employee at that time, about 2001]. We were washing the ambulance, they got a call, and it opened my eyes, how it worked. Not too long after, I became a probationary candidate for volunteer firefighting. Fire school was two, three times a week: 6 to 10 p.m. on weeknights, all day on Saturdays, for about six months. We did it at Glen Lake School — Clint Ward, Tom Hollenbeck — we all took it. This was on top of being in high school at the time.”

Then, right after graduation, in the aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, he enlisted in the Army and served for three years as an infantryman.

“I went to Germany, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar. I was a combat lifesaver — you can do IVs [intravenous] in the military, but not as an EMT here.”

After his return, Beady got his EMT-Basic license. He also enrolled in Northwestern Michigan College’s pre-nursing program, but was soon mobilized to Wisconsin for three more years as a member of the Army Reserve. As a staff or drill sergeant, he still must commit to one weekend a month of training, as well as train other soldiers, such as privates and officer cadets. He also does work for the other EMS companies NorthFlight and Met. And like the other CFD personnel, he spends about 90 hours a year on continuing education and training.

The third member of the full-time CFD staff, Tim Johnson, 32, grew up in Kalamazoo, and has worked in Cedar for the past five years.

“My dad was a fire chief for southern Kalamazoo County. When I was little, I went out on runs with him. That was it! I knew exactly what I wanted to be when I grew up — the lights, the sirens,” he laughs. He credits his late father with inspiring not only him, but also a couple of cousins to become firefighters; one is a battalion chief in Corpus Christi, Tex., and the other serves in Plainwell, Mich.

He earned a fire science degree at Lake Superior State University (LSSU) in Sault Ste. Marie, which created the first accredited four-year BS in the country in that discipline. At LSSU, “they also strongly advised us to study EMT or paramedic [advanced training beyond EMT requirements]. After I graduated, I went to Detroit and worked at the Rouge Fire Department for about three years. Then they told us they were closing the station down. I got hold of a college roommate working in the Traverse City Fire Department, who told me they were hiring full-time in a little town called Cedar.”

He praises “the great people I work with,” but admits the culture shock took some time to adjust to, where, “I went from a real busy department to here, where it can be slow at times.”

He explains that in other parts of Michigan, especially the southeastern part of the state around economically-strapped metropolitan Detroit, the trend has been to cut costs and consolidate resources. Firefighters often take EMT or paramedic training, as stations operate on smaller budgets with higher demands for emergency services. He pointed out that, in towns of 30,000 or more people, most hospitals or trauma centers are only minutes away from most emergency incidents.

Conversely, ”If you want to be a fireman, almost everyone is full-time.” The volunteer firefighter is fast becoming a historical relic, he says, as most people work at jobs away from home during the day. Training and expertise in both medicine and fire science has also advanced; in an emergency, people want to be treated as quickly as possible — and by rigorously trained professionals.

“There are no volunteers anymore — everyone is paid for what they do,” he says. “Our EMS at night is supplementary, with paid, on-call people. They are necessary; they’re huge lifesavers!”

Cedar’s fire department, like others in Leelanau County, is also experiencing noticeable growing pains, with increased demand from the four townships it serves: Solon, Centerville, Cleveland and Kasson. The latest available data is from 2012, where Fire Chief Dan Petroskey wrote that the CFD had “the most calls ever in the history of the department, with a total of 686 responses.” These included 444 ambulance responses, 242 fire runs, and 17 mutual aid responses to other emergency servers, for a total increase over 2011’s 544 calls.

All of these factors — the move from volunteer squads, the increase in emergency services, and the technological and other advances in medicine and fire science — mean in practical terms that more resources must be available to meet the demand. Money for equipment, upgrades, training, infrastructure, and not least, living wages for the trained professionals who serve our communities has to come from somewhere.

As the 2012 annual report noted, this fire department’s 23 personnel serve over a quarter of Leelanau County’s population, and over 21 percent of its land area. “CFD covers the most square miles, second in population and second in run numbers with the lowest operating budget in the county.”

Recently, the CFD’s three full-timers formed a union to negotiate compensation, hours worked, and related matters. Currently, they work at the station in two-person shifts, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays; they must also be on call for two hours before and after that, and within five minutes of the station. Weekends must also be covered, with total weekly work schedules ranging from 32 hours, 40 hours and 48 hours, respectively.

The three are working out agreements to recover back pay for overtime hours served since May of 2013, as well as to recalibrate weekly schedules to be more in line with departments elsewhere. Typically they run three or four days on, and then off for a similar time-frame, “probably” beginning in October, according to Beady and Sudemann.

Discussions about the pros and cons of Advanced Lifesaving Services (versus the current Basic Lifesaving Services license held by the CFD) are also underway among the 10-person fire board and department heads. A work meeting has been set for Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. to move the discussion along.

Johnson was a union representative while at Rouge, and thus is on familiar territory.

“We’re ready,” to be a unionized department,” he says. “As long as we’re civil and negotiate with fair terms. As a professional, I believe in professional service. Old-timers believe in volunteering to help communities. I totally understand: people are set in their ways. I come from a big city [perspective]. We’re essentially a business; we charge for ambulance runs … it’s time for people to realize that … [a firefighter or EMT] knows what they do, and that’s all they do. Like police, or a mechanic — what if they were part-timers? Would you like that?”

Tim Johnson, Shaun Beady and Herb Sudemann all came to their career calling through different approaches, but all love their work, and strive for excellence.

“What we do as EMT-Basics in the past 10 years has grown dramatically,” Beady says. “Advanced airway, basic first-aid, splinting, spinal immobilization, oxygen therapy, some pharmacology, CPR. We see a lot of traumas, allergies and asthma … that cause breathing difficulty, stroke, chest pain.”

“We train every month for both medical and fire,” he continues. “It’s a demanding job, but I’m confident in my skills.”

His first emergency response call after his initial EMT training was for a drug overdose.

“I was excited — I did all this training, and I’m ready to do the hands-on: stabilizing, airway, all that,” he says. “I like it!”

Sudemann admits to being nervous on his first run, “a guy who choked on some milk and it blocked his airway. Afterward, ‘Did I do the right thing, did I do it correctly? Is he okay?’”

Now, he says, “You have to compartmentalize. People die — it happens, people you know.”

He and Beady agree that, “We’re publically scrutinized, or maybe … feel as though we’re held to a higher standard.”

They also “get a lot of thank yous,” he adds, “people come up to us, [and say], ‘We’re grateful for what you do, you helped my cousin, my aunt.’ We … just continue what we’re doing.”

“You see stuff that normal people shouldn’t be seeing,” says Tim Johnson. “But it’s exciting, always different — you help people. It’s the best job to ever have, in my opinion.”

This story is part of a series in the Glen Arbor Sun about the positive impact of local economic development in Leelanau County. Visit our website, GlenArbor.com to read previous stories about businesses Grocers Daughter Chocolate in Empire and Baabaazuzu in Lake Leelanau and the Empire Asparagus Festival benefiting from economic investments.