August 26, 2006

Lis Daily Heart of the Community Award Presented to WTHR

I just can't tell you enough how humbled I was to be involved in such a rewarding project as To Hell and Back. When we showed To Hell and Back to firefighters for the first time at FDIC year, we had a room of about 300 firefighters. Having been in instructor for other classes, it's quite common to have several students leave during the presentation. During To Hell and Back, only two people left the room. One was a friend of mine who is a firefighter and burn survivor. He was not prepared to see the program. Now he is one of our biggest sales agents. So the impact To Hell and Back has had and continues to have on firefighters is incredible. I guarantee you, this program has already saved a firefighter's life and we thank you for that.

Every fire department in the United States received this program. That's some 30,000 fire departments. When I travel around the country, I make sure the chief of each department has used To Hell and Back as a training program. Our fire department used it for National Safety Stand Down week, a week in June dedicated to firefighter safety, and even the fire house clowns sat down and shut up. It made a difference. This program is snowballing. It has not only spread throughout North America, it's on its way around the world and that's because firefighters know it works.

As a chief officer, I now have a tool to teach firefighters how prevent burn injuries. For that, I am eternally grateful. Speaking on behalf of many firefighters and chief officers, we are humbled that you would select our profession to help us prevent burn injuries. This is the first program the fire service has ever had to teach us about burn injuries and the only reason we have it is because of the unprecedented act by Channel 13 when it shared the documentary and the mission of the People's Burn Foundation to prevent burn injuries.

On behalf of our To Hell and Back team and firefighters throughout North America, thank you.

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