Whether it was the helicopters, demonstrations, information booths, a chance to interact with first responders, boat rides, great weather to be outdoors, free swag or the free Kona Ice, lots of families turned out Saturday for the annual Family Safety Day at Central Park.
“Family Safety Day is a reminder we’re one big community, the importance of good health, the importance of also recognizing - as the helicopter is leaving - all of the emergency services that we’re blessed to have. A great day,” Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose said.

    Cody Demske (R) and Eli Wise (L), Kosciusko County 4-H Shooting Sports, helps two kids shoot air rifles Saturday inside the Shooting Sports’ trailer at Family Safety Day. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

This was the 20th year for Family Safety Day, originally started by a couple local mothers. After a few years, the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory took it over and has planned and hosted it ever since.
Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Chief Joel Shilling said, “There’s been a great turnout. There’s a lot of people here. A lot of support from a lot of different vendors, and people donating, and I just want to thank them because, obviously, this event could not be possible without them.”
He also thanked the Family Safety Day Committee, chaired by his assistant Heather Vogts, who put in a lot of time and effort to make it all happen.
“There’s a lot of logistics that go behind it, so without them none of this is even possible,” Shilling stated, adding a thank you to the Warsaw Parks and Recreation Department for all of their help and support.
Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Office Public Information Officer Sgt. Doug Light gave a big thank you to Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory and the city of Warsaw for creating and hosting the event in Central Park.

    Greg Demopoulos (R), Kosciusko County Velo, directs a kid around the traffic cones at the bicycle rodeo during Saturday’s Family Safety Day at Central Park. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

“For us, it’s all about community engagement. We have a lot of safety information for the kids given out. Bicycle helmets while supplies last - we’ve given out a lot of those,” Light said. “It’s always been important to the sheriff that we really get involved, and these community events really give people an opportunity to come up and speak to us. It’s a lot easier in these type of settings to be able to do that.”
While there were a lot of resource tables inside the Zimmer Biomet Center Lake Pavilion, the CARES Community Resources tent had many more, ranging from Big Brothers Big Sisters and The Magical Meadows to Live Well Kosciusko and others.
Chris Fancil, WWFT CARES director, explained that part of CARES’ job is resource allocation and resource management.
“They go out and meet with people and decide what resources could best serve them in that time of need or time of call,” he said. “So what we’ve got over here is this CARES tent is actually full of a lot of the community resources that we work with on a daily basis to try to make sure people have the best life they can, whether that’s through problems with substance abuse, homelessness, they don’t have enough food in their house, they don’t know where to turn to for medical care. So we try to put them all in one place, so as people come through here, they can visit with those folks and maybe if they’re missing something or need something, they can talk to those people face to face and get the help that they need.”

    Thanks to the dive team, the public got to ride in a boat around Center Lake Saturday as part of Family Safety Day. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

About halfway through Family Safety Day, WWFT Fire Marshal Jeremy Williams said the event was going very smooth and awesome.
“Couldn’t ask for a better day weather-wise, turnout wise. Everybody came out, no issues so far. Couldn’t ask for better,” he said.
The fire territory cut on two cars to demonstrate how they would rescue someone entrapped in a vehicle after a crash. Williams thanked Crouse for donating those cars.
“Organizations from all over the county here - public services, safety, anything you can thank of here,” he said. “... Hopefully, we have a good turnout every year and keep going and growing.”
Parkview’s Samaritan II and Lutheran both flew their vehicles into Family Safety Day, landing near the Glover Pavilion.
Clark Wendt, line pilot and site lead pilot at the Samaritan II base, said the helicopter they flew in was brand new.
“So, we’ve just been doing our pilot training with it. We’re going to start flying patients with it Monday. So it’s going into service Monday. We’ve had it for about three months now, doing the pilot training and the maintenance training and everything, getting the med crews trained up on it because it’s a helicopter but it’s a lot different than our old one, so there’s a lot of new procedures and things we had to implement with it before we put it into service,” Wendt said.

    Jennifer Byall (R), director of surgical services and cardiac cath lab at Lutheran Kosciusko Hospital, helps a kid with Gummy Worm Surgery Saturday. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

He said the new helicopter is a “flying computer” with a lot of programming and is all flat panel displays. “It was a learning curve for most of us to transition into it, and then, as far as the med crew, the back end is just set up different, so they need to be able to just work, so everything was located in a different position so they had to learn where everything is, had to decided where they were going to put everything. I know it sounds simple, but it was a process,” Wendt said.
The normal crew of the helicopter includes a pilot, nurse and a paramedic.

    Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory cut open two cars during two separate demonstrations Saturday as part of Family Safety Day. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

The helicopter is based in Rochester at Samaritan II. Its normal service area includes Kosciusko and Fulton counties, up to South Bend, Miami County, Kokomo and anywhere within a 50-mile radius of Rochester. However, it will fly to wherever patients are needed to be transported to.
Matt Goodrich, line pilot at Samaritan II, said sometimes they go as far as Cleveland. They’re not just limited to Parkview hospitals.
Tracey’s Trailer and the bicycle rodeo was set up in one of the parking lots.
Chris Williams, previous president of Kosciusko County Velo (KCV), said Tracey’s Trailer is their bicycle education program. The bicycle rodeo gets kids on bikes and teaches them about helmets and riding.
“Normally, Tracey’s Trailer is done with the fourth grades in Kosciusko County. We meet every fourth-grade class. We give kids a helmet if they need one, and then we do a Bike Safety Day at the schools where we take kids that have never been on a bike before to kids that have been riding for a long time and we have them do different obstacle courses. It’s just a fun time for us and the kids,” Williams said.
Parents of kids who took part in the bicycle rodeo on Saturday could put their kids’ names into a raffle for one of 12 bicycles that were donated.

    Inside the CARES Community Resources tent Saturday at Family Safety Day was a number of resource booths, include Tammy Stackhouse and The Magical Meadows (L) and Tammy Smith with Big Brothers Big Sisters. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Out on Center Lake Beach and Lake, there were dive demonstrations and free boat rides around the lake.
Warsaw Police Department Dive Commander RJ Nethaway said, “We’re doing dive demo and just going through our gear, letting people know what equipment we carry with us, and then going over water safety and doing boat rides.”
He said a lot of people don’t know that they train every month, regardless of weather conditions - rain, shine, snow, ice or whatever.
“We have ice certified divers, so we train 12 months a year. We’re prepared for whatever conditions are around,” Nethaway said. “We also - the Warsaw Police Department, the Warsaw Fire Department and the Kosciusko County Sheriff’s Department - train together every month. We have universal gear, so it’s interchangeable, so when we show up we all have gear that’s compatible.”

    After dipping his hand in paint and leaving his handprint on the Warsaw Street Department dumpster, 4-year-old Andrew Casey shows his hand Saturday at Family Safety Day. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

The Warsaw Street Department had a number of vehicles on hand at Family Safety Day, including a loader, sweeper, bucket truck and a dumpster roll-off, Craig Sroufe, operator, said. Kids could put their hand in paint and then leave their handprint on the dumpster.
“Sometimes they get washed off, but most of the time we try to keep them on there as long as we can,” Sroufe said. “Then when they see this go down the road, they can see their handprint.”
Back by popular demand inside the pavilion was the Gummy Worm Surgery.
Jennifer Byall, director of surgical services and cardiac cath lab at Lutheran Kosciusko Hospital, said, “We’re basically emulating laparoscopic surgery, so we have our little mannequin set up with a makeshift belly and we’ve gotten the worms inside. And then we’re using laparoscopic instruments to go in and take the gummy worms out.”
She said it’s a popular activity at Family Safety Day because it’s just a fun thing to do.
“Surgery affects so many people, whether your like it or not, and so I think a lot of people can relate to it. It makes a scary thing fun,” Byall said.

    Throughout Family Safety Day Saturday, Warsaw Police Department officers Clay Rieder and Zackery Smith demonstrated their K9s, Red and Odin. Pictured is Smith demonstrating how Odin apprehends a suspect, in this case Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Chief Joel Shilling. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

Christina Crace, Vision Center manager from Warsaw Walmart, said at their area they were talking about vision screenings.
“It’s important to make sure you’re up to date on your eye exam, wherever you’re going, and we just have some information packets and we have some nice, free giveaways for the kids,” she said, estimating that the Vision Center has been taking part in Family Safety Day for four to five years.
Kosciusko County Emergency Management Agency Director Kip Shuter had a display table set up inside the pavilion.
“I’m particularly working with teaching them about being prepared in case of emergency or disaster,” he said, pointing to the display items and pictures of actual disasters and emergencies that have occurred in the county.

    Parkview’s new Samaritan II helicopter was a big hit at Saturday’s Family Safety Day. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

He gave out materials that explained what people needed to be prepared for emergencies or disasters. There also was information on how to make a preparation kit to have on hand in case that emergency happens and they need to leave so they can take care of themselves for 24-72 hours.
Kosciusko County 4-H Shooting Sports had their trailer out for kids to shoot air rifles at targets.
Doug Wise explained, “We’re trying to introduce people to our program, which is a safety program that we do through 4-H, but we also enjoy the shooting sports. We get kids in and the first thing we do is teach them the safety part of it, so they can know what’s going on. That’s very important. And then we get out there and try to teach them how to shoot and build their confidence in their shooting ability.”

    Thanks to the generosity of sponsors, Kona Ice was free to everyone at Saturday’s Family Safety Day in Central Park. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

    Kosciusko County Emergency Management Agency Director Kip Shuter spoke to people at Saturday’s Family Safety Day about being prepared for emergencies and disasters. His table was one of many set up inside the Zimmer Biomet Center Lake Pavilion. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

    Kosciusko REMC gave two demonstrations Saturday on electrical safety. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union