■ Duluth Fire Captain Eric Thompson, reflecting on his first 18 years with the department – “When I started testing for the department, shortly after 9/11, it opened my eyes to like, ‘Hey, people will pay me to be a fireman?’ I came from a small town, Alexandria, and many of my friends’ dads were volunteer firemen there. After 9/11, you see what New York was all about and its heroic aspect. I thought, hey, that would be a rewarding career. Besides, I really didn’t want to sit behind the desk for the rest of my life, and I’d rather be out and about.
So I came to Duluth for a highly competitive fire school. They told us to test everywhere, even if we didn’t want to work for that city. Just go and get the experience. Wherever we tested, there were so many applicants that you had to do a really good job to get hired. Hundreds of applicants were in Duluth, and I was lucky enough to get hired and stay here. Competition for jobs has slowly weaned over time, and our chief has cast a recruiting net a little wider now. They’re now searching online for top candidates from across the country, and we’ve recently hired a person from California and another one from the Carolinas. People are willing to move to Duluth for the job. Unfortunately, there are no longer hundreds but dozens of people testing. I don’t know if that’s a product of 9/11 being 25 years ago now, but a lot has changed.
Training under Damon Laurion has really stepped up our game. The new guys have better training than I did. When I started, it was baptism by fire, and now they go to the fire school for a couple of weeks. They have a booklet they follow, and they go through all the rigs. It’s very rigorous. In fact, for many new guys, they’re top dogs right off the get-go. They have some of the best training ever. For us greybeards, it was more to get on the rig, shut up, and learn kind of thing. So, it’s gotten a lot better. The rigs are bigger with extra bells and whistles, and they do break down more often. Some of the older rigs were more robust. The way we do things around here now, compared to when I got started, has changed a lot.
A typical day for us? Our department responds to all medical emergencies in the city. So if you call 911 for a medical emergency, you get a fire truck. A lot of people are confused by that. If someone has a heart attack, they don’t care who shows up – whether they’re a doctor, a paramedic, or a firefighter – if they know what they’re doing. With us strategically spread out with eight stations across the city, we can get to your house quickly. We are EMTs – many of us paramedics so we can handle most of the big stuff. A lion’s share of our calls for service are for medicals, and our mission is to help to keep people alive as we wait for the paramedics to show up. We help get the patients loaded up and stabilized so they can make their way to the hospital. For our citizens, it’s a big deal. We often hear comments like, ‘Holy cow, you got here really fast.’
In any given month, the calls for medical and fire service are streaky. Winter is obviously a busier time for fire responses, with people heating their homes. The neighborhood we’re in today, Lincoln Park, used to have a lot of fires. Probably the coolest part of the job is that every day is different. Today we’re at a community event for Juneteenth, which is awesome. You never know when the tones go off, when we will respond on a moment’s notice. It’s a highly rewarding career, and it's always satisfying when people come up to you and thank you in public. It’s cliche, but it’s usually their worst day for people when we show up to their houses, and it’s always nice to help make their worst day just a small bit better. That’s what keeps me coming back to work, why I love what I do.”
■ Former Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Yvonne Prettner Solon of Duluth, on the political violence earlier this week in the Twin Cities – “Leader Melissa Hortman was a friend and colleague. I admired, respected and trusted her leadership. Though we served in different legislative bodies, some of our time overlapped, and I grew to know her as a knowledgeable, thoughtful, caring, and powerful advocate for her district and our state.
Her death is a serious loss for all of us. She served with love and compassion. Her murder is a tragedy. And to what end? None. It devastates me. Her husband, Mark, an innocent bystander, was struck down and murdered purely by association. My thoughts and prayers go out to the children, parents and other family members of Melissa and Mark and all the caring citizens of Minnesota.
Sen. John Hoffman, also a friend and colleague, and his wife Yvette were also shot multiple times, though mercifully they have survived. All were supposedly targeted by a lone gunman posing as a police officer in the middle of the night, who apparently possessed a much longer target list of elected officials at the state and federal levels. The gunman remains at large. My thoughts and prayers are also with the Hoffman family.
I’m outraged that the democracy upon which our nation was established has been so obliterated in recent years that the leaders upon whom we have relied to set policy and guide our states and our nation no longer receive the respect and trust to perform their duties. Struck down in the believed safety of their own homes, blatantly violating the sanctity of our private family lives, there appears no areas that are sacred. This isn’t the first time that intruders have violated the personal space of public leaders.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband was seriously and permanently injured in a politically motivated home invasion a brief few years ago when the intruder was looking for the former Speaker of the US House of Representatives.
MN Congresswoman Angie Craig was attacked and injured while entering her DC apartment. And there are many others.
I fear people with leadership qualities will no longer choose to volunteer for public service. Everyone, whether elected official or private citizen, deserves to feel that there are some areas where they can be safe. For years, we have been advocating for reasonable gun safety laws to protect innocent citizens, the average people who live and work in our communities. When will we wake up? How many more lives must be lost? We are already an outlier in the civilized world. I plead with you to honor and respect the individual lives of every human being and pass sensible gun legislation.”
FYI: More local response to the political violence
On the Road to Grandma's
BREAKING NEWS
On Sunday at approximately 1:30 a.m., the Duluth Police Department responded to the report of a shooting in the 100 block of East 3rd Street. Upon arrival, officers located a male with multiple gunshot wounds. Officers immediately rendered medical aid, and the male was transported to a local hospital. The male victim later died as a result of the gunshot wounds. The male suspect also shot at a second male victim, but was not injured. Ultimately, two suspects were identified, and information was sent out to neighboring agencies. The Cloquet Police Department and the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office located the suspects and detained them for the Duluth Police Department. The two suspects are identified as Antonio Duryea Hendon, 35, and Amber Michele Rose Walker, 41. Hendon was lodged at the St. Louis County Jail on preliminary charges of 2nd Degree Murder and 1st Degree Assault. Walker was lodged at the St. Louis County Jail on preliminary charges of Aiding and Abetting 2nd Degree Murder. The Duluth Police Department has determined that all individuals involved in this tragic incident are known to each other and are investigating a prior incident that may have led to the shooting homicide. The victims’ names will be withheld pending further investigation, and next of kin can be notified. No further information will be released at this time.
