Miss. firefighters train to return safely

By Chris Van Tuyl
The Commercial Appeal

CORINTH, Miss. — For James Bryant, it was a privilege. And the Mississippi State Fire Academy certified instructor would do it all over again.

"I like the fire service," said Bryant, "and I like teaching these guys what to do."

The engineer with the Corinth Fire Department recently made his way to Horn Lake's Station No. 3 for a course called "Training, Responding and Returning Home Alive."

The class lasted several hours, yet the message Bryant needed to get across came out of his mouth in a matter of seconds:

"They're responsible for returning home at the end of their shift," he said. "They need not to become a statistic."

Horn Lake Fire Chief David Linville was in sync , and said it's important for all his men and women to be in top shape.

"It's no different than any other work," he said. "Everybody gets lax with age. You have to continue to do things to be active. We don't do these things every day like we did years ago. It's the little things that catch us off guard."

The last two topics were Responding to the Call and Health and Wellness.

"It's more informative now than it was 23 year ago when I started," Battalion Chief Mark York said. "Maybe this is going to work and drive home a few more points to them."

One thing that stuck with York is the number of line-of-duty deaths in Mississippi. The last local incident occurred on May 11, 2007, when 46-year-old Jeffrey "J.J." Jeans died of a heart attack in Eudora.

"I've been to seven or eight firefighter funerals," said York. "That's something you just don't want to go to. It's something I don't ever want to see here; never - even after I retire."

Bryant taught two of the three shifts at Horn Lake. Before giving way to another instructor from Ridgeland, he was able to share many stories, including flooding that hit Corinth in May.

"There's classes going on just about every week somewhere in the state. I got to show these guys some of the pictures from the flood," he said. "They can learn from my experiences and I can learn something from them. It's just an evolving cycle."

Said Linville: "The No. 1 thing about this class is to try and make sure everybody understands what their limits are. You've just got to take care of yourself."

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