Daniel Wheeler still remembers the helpless feeling of being unable to save his grandmother, Mary Burnett, when she had a heart attack at her birthday party.
"I couldn't do anything for her," recalled Wheeler, 45, who was a teenager at the time.
Burnett's death had such a profound impact on Wheeler that he immediately signed up to be a volunteer at the Jonesville Fire Department to learn more about first aid.
He said the training paid off in a big way on June 12, 1985. Wheeler was driving north on the Northway near Exit 8 when he noticed his mother in a vehicle behind him careening off the road. She had suffered cardiac arrest.
Wheeler parked his truck and ran to his mother's vehicle, which had skidded along a guard rail. He yanked her out of the car and applied cardio pulmonary resuscitation, which he had learned at the firehouse.
A passing priest stopped to issued last rites to Wheeler's mother on the side of the road. "I wasn't going to let her die on the Northway," Wheeler recalled.
He didn't. The CPR revived his mother until an emergency crew arrived on the scene to treat her. She survived.
The story of her rescue is one of the many family-related memories the Wheelers have experienced through the fire department.
At the main fire station, Wheeler met Richard J. Horstman, an old-school company member who had served as lieutenant, captain and commissioner since joining the department in 1961. During competitions with other departments in 1980, Wheeler took a liking to Horstman's daughter, Carol, one of the department's first female volunteers.
"I asked her to go out on a date and she said yes," said Wheeler, a UPS driver. They married after she finished college.
The couple now has three boys: Kyle Wheeler, 17, who will be a senior in the fall at Shenendehowa High School and who joined the department as an apprentice firefighter; Mitchell, 14, who is seeking to join the department's Explorers soon; and 12-year-old Jacob.
Now 76 and the elder of the family, Horstman has served as the department radio operator since state law kicked him off the trucks at the age of 65. His jobs include answering radio calls, taking attendance, helping to dispatch the trucks and offering radio support.
"I'm here at 3 o'clock in the morning, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and any time in between," said Horstman, a Boy Scout leader who worked in construction all his life. "My wife says I live here."
Fighting fires has changed since the 1960s, he said. The equipment is modern. The fires have changed, too.
They used to be mainly wood and hay. "Now, you get plastics, rugs, garbage. Everything is toxic," Horstman said.
The Horstmans and Wheelers live side-by-side on MacElroy Road. The three generations of firefighters and the 80 or so other active members in the department consider their volunteer work as part of the cost of residing in a safe community. They give several hours a week of their time for training, emergency rescue and firefighting. Drill night on Wednesdays goes from 6 to 10:30 p.m.
"There's a need, and I've lived here in this community all my life, and when there's a problem, I want to help," Horstman said.
Lately, the department needs help. While a lot of its calls are for emergency medical assistance, firefighters have had to respond to four house fires in the district since September.
Kyle Wheeler has been to all four. He's worked nozzles and hoses, retrieved tools and operated the hydrant.
"I've had a lot of training with fellow firefighters and we support each other through it. Everything changes when you go into a house. You become almost family, like a support system," Kyle Wheeler said.
He's considering a career in law enforcement or as a full-time firefighter in a big city.
"I don't think I would have been able to do any of this without my family and the members' support," he said.
