Grant Will Help Buy Training Dummies for Oswego Fire Department

The is always training, preparing to run into burning buildings or extricate people from crashed cars. And to train for those circumstances properly, they need life-size, realistic dummies.

The problem, according to Lt. Josh Walters, is that the dummies they need – high-quality ones, that approximate the size and weight of a real person – cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,500 to $3,000. Walters is hoping to buy both an adult-sized and a child-sized dummy.

And now he’ll be able to, with help from Illinois American Water. The company presented the Oswego Fire District with a $1,000 grant on Thursday, part of its annual Firefighter Grant Program.

This is the third year of the program, according to Senior Operations Manager Mike Smyth, and Illinois American has in total given more than $70,000 in grants to fire districts in its service area.

“This is a great part of our job, making this happen, helping our local fire departments,” Smyth said when handing the check to Walters on Thursday.

Walters said lifelike dummies are the department’s biggest need when it comes to training. The dummies they have now are less than sturdy, he said, and have taken a beating over the years. They will sometimes get stuck as firefighters try to pull them from burning buildings (like the old farmhouse on Mill Road they trained in before ).

The check presentation took place Thursday morning at Station 1, on Wooley Road in Oswego.