The Grunthal Lions Club handed over some life saving equipment this week to the Hanover Fire Departments.

Club Member Doug Wiens says the last two years they raised money for STARS air ambulance but this year the decision was made to keep their money local. Wiens says they decided to ask Hanover Fire Chief Paul Wiebe if there was anything they needed. Wiebe responded by saying they were actually looking to fundraise for Automated External Defibrillators (AED).

"We brought it to a meeting and discussed it and thought that would be a great way to help locally," says Wiens. "As a Lions Club our motto is we serve and our position is we want to make our communities better places to live."

Wiebe says the AED's will stay on the fire trucks in Kleefeld, Grunthal and New Bothwell. He adds because they don't respond to medical calls, these units are actually intended to be used in event a firefighter ever goes down on the job. Wiebe says as a firefighter, you can go from a state of sleeping to fighting a fire in a very short period of time.

"The work we do a lot of times is very taxing on our firefighters physically," notes Wiebe. "It gets your heart rate up, when you're working on some of these calls. This will be part of our safety net."

Wiebe says there has never been a case where a Hanover firefighter has suffered a heart attack while on the job, but it does happen in other places and they take the health and safety of their firefighters very seriously. He says there will definitely be a training night to get the firefighters familiar, noting they will likely do it as part of their CPR training.

Wiebe notes his firefighters had previously identified the AED's as something they would like to fundraise for. He adds because they probably wouldn't have been included in their funding from the municipality, they would have needed to raise between $1,800 and $2,000 per unit. Because they are a Lions Club, the Grunthal Lions Club was able to purchase them for $1,000 each.

"The Lions Club has been just a fantastic part of this community," notes Wiebe.

For the last number of years, firefighters in Hanover have assisted the Grunthal Lions Club in various roles at the annual Hanover Ag Fair.