in Saskatchewan and his wife, Tamara – courtesy Dayne Wielgoz
After publishing Shon Crumley’s story, “How to Save a Life,” in the March-April 2024 edition of Tow Canada, Deputy Chief Dayne Wielgoz of the Rouleau, Saskatchewan, Fire Department, came forward with his own reflections of the events.
by Sarah Bruce
My conversation with Dayne offered a great opportunity to illustrate the important relationship that the towing industry and first responders share.
“We’ve got a major highway coming up from the states that leads to Moose Jaw, so we get a lot of heavy-truck traffic and visitors on that highway,” Dayne said, which means they work a lot with the local towing industry.
“We primarily train with Dakota Towing because [theirs is] the only towing company in and around this area. If you go 45 minutes you have Moose Jaw and Regina, but Shon is based right in Rouleau, so he can provide vehicles to train with like with the jaws of life and airbags.”
Dayne and Shon have been working together for at least 11 years, Dayne said. Both professionals expressed the value they place on maintaining a good relationship with one another, and they often get together to cross-train for accidents. One such accident was the one Shon disclosed in his recent story, which involved a rolled-over truck and a trapped young man.
July-August 2024
“I will agree with Shon,” Dayne said. “It was bloody cold out. We got the call early morning, and my wife and I responded. We are first responders together, as well as volunteer firefighters. So, we responded with the rest of the crew to a single-vehicle rollover entrapment.
“When we pulled up to where the accident was, the first thing I noticed was the guard rail had been ripped right off the bridge. I think everybody was shocked because they are not wimpy little guardrails; they’re like 8” x 8” chunks of timber that hold the railing up. We looked over the bridge and saw [the young man’s] truck upside down on a snowbank, and we thought, ‘Oh this isn’t going to be good at all.’”
As in the towing industry, the first step is to assess the situation and then set up the equipment.
"I thought when we pulled up it was going to be a fatality,
but, thank God, it wasn’t.”
“We began the process of hauling all the equipment down that we needed, and we turned all our scene lights on because it was very dark out,” Dayne said. “We got the scene lights up so we could see properly, and we hauled the Jaws of Life down. They’re tricky, like the way the hydraulic hoses hook up to them; you push them onto the equipment and then you turn them, and they click. If you don’t hear that click, it means they’re not locked in properly, and the tool won’t activate. In our rush to hook things up, we didn’t hear the click, and we didn’t know the jaws were not activated properly until we went to use them. That’s when we thought the hydraulic pump itself had frozen up. From there, we decided to drop an extension cord down and brought out a reciprocating saw, and then we finally discovered where the patient was located. As it happened, he was under the cabin of the truck.”
It was later determined that the driver wasn’t wearing his seatbelt, so when the truck hit the guard rail, it spun around, and the young man was ejected out the driver’s window, down the bank, and then the truck landed on top of him.
“8,000 pounds of truck landed on him,” Dayne said. “I can’t imagine how he felt. There was no adequate way to describe it. We did a lot of digging, got the Jaws of Life fired up finally, and cut the door off. We ended up getting the patient out using the hydraulic ram. The hydraulic ram for the Jaws of Life is a very useful tool because it can lift 55,000 pounds. So, we put some wooden bracing in and started lifting the truck.
“It was sort of like building a tower. We put wood under the truck and then lifted [with the hydraulic ram], and then we put more wood under and lifted again. We could only do two or three inches at a time before we had to readjust, but we got the patient out. Then the EMS technicians were there, and we got him loaded up onto a stretcher and to the ambulance (because it was too cold for the helicopter to fly him out).
But you have to talk about it. If you’re not talking about it, you’re not getting healed. “I thought when we pulled up it was going to be a fatality, but, thank God, it wasn’t.”
Back at the firehall, Dayne said the department held a debriefing and made counselling services available to the members of his team. The intent of the debriefing was to go over the events of the accident and determine what worked and what they needed to improve on. More importantly, the question needed to be asked, “How is everyone doing?” As Dayne said, “You don’t have to tell me in front of everyone else, but if you have a problem, come talk to me. I might not have all the best solutions all the time, but I’m here for you. It’s part and parcel to being deputy chief.”
Regarding helping with mental health in his department, Dayne said, “I feel kind of bad because you’re not going to heal if you don’t talk about it. I was fortunate to be part of the Canadian Forces, and we received a lot of training about PTSD. I got out of the military in 2001, but even back then there was counselling there for whoever needed it, so they could get on with their lives.
“I think the problem, particularly among male members (and it doesn’t matter if it’s in the towing industry, the fire department, or police), is a lot of the male members say, ‘I don’t want to talk about this. I’m macho, I don’t need help.’ But you have to talk about it. If you’re not talking about it, you’re not getting healed.”
This mindset goes along with the stereotype that the towing industry is working to break down, which Dayne recognizes.
“The towing industry is not all it’s cracked up to be, in the way that it’s not as glamourous as you see on TV,” Dayne said, referring to shows like Highway Thru Hell, which dramatize and often glamourize the industry. “Tow truck drivers aren’t given enough credit for what they do. They put up with a lot of dirty accident scenes, and realistically, they are an under-valued workforce. They do a lot of stuff the average person can’t, and I think a lot of people take them for granted.”
March-April edition of Tow Canada
When asked how the towing industry and first responders can maintain a good relationship, Dayne said, “I let the tow operator do his job because I don’t know how to operate a tow truck. I don’t know all the ins and outs, but at the same time, if there is an accident and we’re busy trying to free a patient from a vehicle, we appreciate if they extend that same courtesy to us. Let us do our job. We’re all there for a reason, to save somebody or clean up a mess, so let’s work together as a team. Let me do my part of the job, then I’ll step back and let you do your part of the job. It’ll work so much more smoothly that way.
You’ve got to have open lines of communication, and there’s got to be professional courtesy.”
“For example, about a week and a half ago, we had a ten-semi pile up here just outside of Rouleau. Give credit where credit is due; Shon got his crew out and blocked either side of the highway, and this allowed us to get on site and do our job so we could get the patients free. Because Dakota Towing and the RCMP were onsite, we were able to do our job safely.”
Especially in a small town like Rouleau, these relationships can assist with getting a job accomplished, not only efficiently, but safely. “If time allows, and we have the members, if Shon needs help with traffic control, we’ll send a couple of members in our trucks and set up a safe work area for him,” said Dayne. “We’ll put our trucks out with all our lights, so he can pull a vehicle from the ditch, or whatever he has to do. We try really hard to work hand in hand with one another, and this way everyone goes home safe and sound.”
The key is communication, Dayne explained. “First and foremost, there’s got to be a sense of communication. It sounds cliché, but if I’m not talking to [the tower], and he’s not talking to me (particularly if it’s a wreck involving semis or something), somebody could get hurt. You’ve got to have open lines of communication, and there’s got to be professional courtesy—I’ll let you do your job if you’ll let me do mine, and we can all go home safely at the end of the day.”