After seven or eight years of fundraising, the Landmark Fire Department has just purchased a new jaws of life unit worth $38,000. District Chief Jason Kroeker says a huge thank-you to the community for its steadfast support of the fire department. He adds they host an annual pancake breakfast in June and it is very well supported, enabling them to acquire equipment like this. Kroeker notes the jaws of life equipment is vital for rescues where they have to extricate people from vehicles and adds it's important that the unit is up to date.

"With new vehicle technology, the vehicles are tougher, they handle the impacts better. When we need these tools, people are often severely trapped within a vehicle and the tougher vehicles do make it harder for us to actually remove the patients. That's where these tools become very important, that we've got the newest and the best of the best. We've had a countless number of accidents where, without these tools, somebody for sure would have died just because it would take us hours to get them out of the vehicle."

Kroeker says now that this major purchase is complete, they are considering a number of possibilities for their next fundraising initiative.

"We do want to develop better rescue programs. Some ideas are getting into the technical rescue programs, some water or some basic water rescue equipment due to the growth of the towns and the addition of retention ponds and such as that. I can't say exactly what all future dollars will be going towards, but we can guarantee 100% will be going towards rescue equipment."