FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO) – The Fort Wayne Fire Department has been given the EMS Advanced Life Support Provider of the Year award from the Indiana Emergency Response Conference a part of Indiana Department of Homeland Security.

The Indiana Emergency Response Conference gives out awards every year to honor the best and brightest among Indiana first responders and public safety officials. Each department that wants to try for the award must put their name in for it, or someone can nominate them for it.

Assistant Chief of EMS for the Fort Wayne Fire Department, John Crawford was the one who nominated the department as a way to recognize the department’s efforts locally to increase the level of service that they have been able to provide the citizens in these last few years.

The Three Rivers Ambulance Authority also won the award for the non-fire department category. Fort Wayne Fire Chief Eric Lahey said for EMT awards, “This year Fort Wayne took a clean sweep of everything. We’re pretty proud of that.”

Both the FWFD and TRAA came to an agreement in 2016 to partner together to provide advanced life support care for citizens through the Fire Department.

The Advanced EMT Academy came from that union. This means that the FWFD is now certified to provide training in the advanced level of care. Chief Lahey said, “We can certify our own firefighters through the advanced EMT level.”

Douglas Randell, division chief of emergency medical services with Plainfield Fire Department and coordinator of the 2019 awards said “Many deserving individuals were nominated from across the state, and the conference is humbled to honor even a small number of them. Peers understand the difficult work that these responders face every day, and while these awards are an important way for individuals to be recognized, the sheer number of nominees show that colleagues are noticing and honoring the blood, sweat and tears that responders pour into their work every day.”