At the conclusion of the December 17, 2013 Fernandina Beach City Commission meeting, City Manager Joe Gerrity informed commissioners that city firefighters recently completed a course preparing them to respond to a variety of emergencies, some of which required repelling down ropes and rescuing victims from confined spaces. He expressed his pride and gratitude to the city fire rescue team and read the following letter from the course instructor:
From: Jeff Kelly
Sent: Monday, December 16, 2013 2:01 PM
To: Joe Gerrity
Subject: A letter of appreciation for your great fire department.
Mr. Gerrity, my name is Jeff Kelly and I had the pleasure of teaching rope rescue and confined space rescue to several of your fire department members during the months of November and December 2013. During my 25 year career as a firefighter and teaching technical rescue for 20 years, I must tell you that I have never come across a better team of people than those of the Fernandina Beach Fire Department.
I was made aware that several of the students were providing stand-by services to the RockTenn plant during their off hours after class, and were returning back to their respective fire stations to complete their shifts as well. With all of the hours they were putting in, they held themselves to a very high professional standard. They maintained a positive attitude towards learning, and were able to focus on and successfully complete all of the training objectives with a high degree of understanding and competence.
Please relay a word of thanks to Chiefs [Jason] Higginbotham and [Fino] Murallo. If it wasn’t for their tireless efforts trying to secure training sites throughout the city, the class would not have been nearly as successful as it was. They spent countless hours before, during and after class hours working on providing me with the best possible areas to train. This translates to your firefighters having already trained on and pre-planned some the very places they may be called upon to assist a resident or visitor to your city.
I feel very privileged to have met such a great team of professionals. The department members who attended the classes were: Jason Higginbotham, Fino Murallo, Steven Henderson, Matt Edison, Bill Baughn, Chett Lyncker, Marcus Carter and Brent DeLoach.
Respectfully,
Jeff Kelly
December 19, 2013 9:40 p.m.