Firefightershonored

Xenia Fire Division recently held its first Firefighter Awards ceremony. Fire Chief Kenneth Riggsby and other XFD leadership held it inside the training room at Fire Station 1. Each shift was recognized individually and each ceremonywas visible to the entire Division via Zoom.

The following are the recipients of this year’s awards:

■ Fire Chief ’s Meritorious Award – This year’s recipients are Firefighter Gary Fannin and Captain Jeff Bruggeman.

■ Roger PacholkaAward– This award is named after Dr. Roger W. Pacholka, M.D., an Emergency Medicine Specialist at Miami ValleyHospital and ClinicalAssistant

Professor of EmergencyMedicine at his alma mater, Wright State University. This year’s award was presented to Firefighter Tyler Bundy for performing a surgical cricothyrotomy on the scene of a critical trauma patient.

■ Unit Citation – Unit citations are given to the entire crew for unified credible acts in the line of duty that are commendable in nature and display admirable initiative and accomplishment. This year several unit citations were given to deserving crews, including:

1. FirefightersAdamCoblentz, JoshRothenberger, andMatt Staley for responding to a female patient in cardiac arrest who was pregnant. Both the child and the mother were resuscitated and both were resuscitated. 2. Captain TomNorris, Lieutenant Cory Stroup, and Firefighters Derek Dennehy, Mike Senter, Brandon Strunk, and Brandon Davis for responding to a rollover crash with heavy damage, some 200 feet off the road. One of the two occupants was extricated and transported to the trauma center within 13 minutes of arriving on scene.

3. Lieutenant Mike Bogan, and Firefighters Mike Senter, Matt Staley, Ben Boedeker, Cameron Stegall, Anson Smith, and Travis Dill for administering care to twin babies seconds after their birth.

■ Firefighter of the Year – The Firefighter of Year for 2020 is M. Nate Todd, who received the award for exemplifying his commitment to public service through his active participation on several committees and teams; he represents the Xenia FireDivision on the Region 3 Task Force, Ohio Task Force 1, and Greene County Regional SWAT team.

■ Outstanding Public Service Award – This year’s award was given to Lieutenant Travis Dill for his service on the board for the YMCA.

■ Professional Development Award – The Professional DevelopmentAward is given to the firefighter who acquires the most training hours with the exception of basic certification hours. Lieutenant Cory Stroup acquired more hours than any other member this year with 249 hours of additional training.