It is not only paramedics who provide first aid in the event of an accident, firefighters also have to look after injured people in the event of a fire. The right equipment is essential for this: a first aid kit is part of the basic equipment of volunteer fire brigades, but increasingly they also have a so-called first aid emergency backpack. Mario Boeger, from the heat supply department at Stadtwerke Gießen (SWG) and deputy fire chief of the Nordeck-Winnen volunteer fire brigade, learnt about and appreciated the benefits of this emergency backpack during the "Fire brigade paramedic" course. Special dressing material for burns, splints for broken bones, a blood pressure cuff and respiratory mask, among other things, supplement the normal first aid kit. This enables fire service paramedics to treat injured people until the rescue team arrives. "With the equipment and materials, we can provide much better assistance at the scene," explains the deputy fire chief. "But as we have very limited financial resources, such a purchase would have exceeded our budget at the moment." So Mario Boeger came up with the idea of proposing a first aid emergency backpack for the volunteer fire brigade as one of SWG's 75 good deeds.
On 16 October, the SWG sponsor handed over the symbolic cheque for a first aid emergency backpack to Christian Elmshäuser, head of the Nordeck-Winnen volunteer fire brigade, and Sebastian Schlapp, deputy town fire inspector of the town of Allendorf (Lumda). "Our emergency services will be able to use the emergency rucksack and do even better work on site," Christian Elmshäuser is certain. "The donation from Stadtwerke Gießen has come at just the right time."