42 - Sunday, December 8, 1991 - North Shore News

HIGH PROFILES

NVC Fire Chief answers the bell .

Tom Cumming enters his
26th year with fire dept.

IF ANYONE was ever in
the right place at the right
time, it was Tom Cumming.

By Surj Rattan
News Reporter

It ‘was 10 a.m. on July 11 and
the North Vancouver City Fire
Chief was sitting in his office at
the East 13th Street fire half.
Suddenly, he suffered a cardiac
arrest.

‘sMy heart stopped beating and
my secretary came in and found
me gasping for breath in my
chair,’ says Cumming.

She immediately called other
firefighters at the halt for help;
three arrived and started giving
their boss CPR.

“The crew was just great, Dan
Hilton, Shawn Bjornson and Bob
Schreiner started working on me
immediately, giving me CPR,”
says Cumming. ‘‘They kept the
blood circulating and all those
kinds of things and when the am-
bulance arrived they defibrillated
the heart and immediately I pop-
ped back up.’’

Cumming spent the next month
_in hospital undergoing a battery
of tests that proved there was
nothing wrong with his heart. A

May your holiday

be wrapped in joy
aud fricndship... .

Thanks to ali our
friends & castomers.

@ NAME: Tom Cumming
@ AGE: 48

@ OCCUPATION: North
couver City Fire Chicf

@ RESIDENCE: North Van-
couver

@ SORN: North Vancouver

@ FAMILY: Divorced, 41-year-
old daughter Danielle

Van-

defibrillator was instalied in his
chest.

I's an incident Curoming still
thinks about. Had he suffered the
cardiac arrest one day earlier, he
said he wouldn't be here-today.

“Was | ever in the right place
at the right time. That was a close
call," says Cumming, ‘‘I still
haven't totally come to grips with
why happened to be here
(firehall) at the time because it
was only the day before that I was
up at my lake, which is in. the
wilderness.

‘Nothing would have brought
me back except for a defibrillator,
so that would have been the end
of it.”

Cumming, who was bern and
has lived all his life in North Van-
couver, is about to enter into his
26th year with the North Van-
couver City Fire Department.

He describes fighting fires as

Let us rejoice
in (he ecason
ef love.

Happiness, harmony
and health tw allt
Our thanks for a

uvraderful year

NEWS photo Mike Wakefie!d

NVC Fire Chief Tom Cumming's father, also named Tom, was a captain and assistant chief with the
same fire department he now commands.

with the same fire department he
Tow commands. :

See more page &3

“exciting, a lot of fun, it’s like child.
playing a game’’ and was in- His father, clso named Tom,
troduced to the profession as a was a captain and assistant chief

the world over in celebrating .
the birth of our Lord.

Christmas is a time of }
joy, peace and harmony. -
May your holiday
be truly blessed.