In her department of 13, all except one have obtained medical certifications.
Braunagel, 52, joined the volunteer department in Indianapolis in 1991 and became a paid full-time firefighter with Franklin Township, in Indianapolis, in 1997. That department merged with the Indianapolis department in 2010, where he has worked since then.
Braunagel moved to Brown County five years ago and wanted to help the community, so he decided to do in his spare time what he does in his job: firefighting.
“ I like the way this is a big family here,” he said.“ We do a lot for the community, and that’ s the way it should be.” Braunagel is doing what he can to help address the firefighter shortage: His son just got hired by the Indianapolis Fire Department.
Neibert, 62, is a retired physical therapist and said she has always been a volunteer, when her kids were in school, and while she worked.
She joined the department after volunteering to help with a community event.
“ I was just helping set up, and pretty soon I noticed I was sucked in and part of the department,” she said.
Volunteer fire departments share some of the same struggles. They usually don’ t have enough money to pay for needed station and equipment upgrades, and they don’ t usually have personnel to be able to respond to all calls.
Both the Nashville and Jackson Township departments respond to about two-thirds of the calls that get dispatched. In a third of the cases, the firefighters just cannot respond because they’ re at work or because they cannot get up in the middle of the night to respond to a fire when they have to get up early for their day jobs, where lives also may be on the line. Hazelgrove said employers generally are understanding when employees get dispatched, but sometimes they just cannot get away.
When the volunteer departments cannot send anyone to respond to the call, dispatchers contact the nearest department. While that eventually generates a response, local volunteer firefighters say it usually results in delays, which can make outcomes much worse.
Hazelgrove’ s most difficult day as a firefighter came when the home of a fellow firefighter burned down and the colleague’ s dogs died.
“ When I discovered one of their dogs, I lost it,” Hazelgrove said.“ I had to go out of the structure and … I was completely checked out after that.”
Continued on 42 Jan./ Feb. 2024 • Our Brown County 41