Luck didn’t shine on firefighters in Vegas

Island firefighters returned from “Sin City” last week slightly disappointed after competing for the first time in the five-day 2009 Scott Firefighter Combat Challenge.

Fighting cold weather, jet lag and some odd situations that could be chalked up to “Murphy’s Law,” the odds were against them this time, but Lt. Peter Kirvin said they are already psyched for the next time they attend the event.

“It may have been Las Vegas jitters, I don’t know,” he said. “It was probably more about the fact we had just flown into town that morning, on November 17, and we had been up since 4:30 a.m.”

Kirvin and Firefighters Alex Moore, Jeff Knowles, Tony Nguyen, Pat Bigness and Firefighter/Engineer Dustin Rossow made up the Boca Grande Fire Department team, competing against more than 3,000 military and civilian firefighters from all over the world.

Firefighters had several tasks to complete to get an overall combined time, which included climbing a five-story tower, hoisting, chopping, dragging hose, and rescuing a life-sized dummy.

“We still weren’t in last place, but we were planning on doing a lot better than we did,” Kirvin said. “There were just a lot of silly little mishaps, stuff we usually never, ever do. We still made it to the second round, and had a really great run until all these weird little things started happening. We almost made it into the third round, but it wasn’t meant to be.”

Kirvin said they have had plenty of practice at other venues, including state events in Gainesville, Orlando, Deerfield Beach and Kissimmee. They have also competed at the national level in Georgia.

“We qualified in Kissimmee with an overall time of 1:30, which is really, really good,” he said. “That was a very competitive time, and since we were doing so well we decided it might be time to go to Vegas. It was definitely a learning experience, we learned we need to fly out the day before to make sure we’re rested, for one thing. We sure had a great time until we started having the mishaps.”

Kirvin said several island businesses and private individuals helped to make the trip possible.

“We couldn’t have done it without them,” he said. “There was a lot of help from the community to get us there. Someday we’ll be going back, getting back on the horse, and we will redeem ourselves.”