When Ron Swanson started in 1967 as a volunteer firefighter with the former Whatcom County Fire District 2, the Geneva fire hall was a garage that held two aging pumpers and a loft where the guys would meet.
Homes didn’t have smoke alarms, only a handful of Americans knew CPR, and defibrillators to shock a dying heart weren’t portable and easy to use.
Few firefighters had first aid training anyway, because America’s emergency medical system was still in its infancy.
The nation’s first 911 call was placed a year after Swanson started, but it wasn’t used in Whatcom County until a year or so later.
District 2 alarms were dispatched to volunteers by land-line telephone to one of the firefighters’ wives, who started a “phone tree” to alert others.
Volunteer firefighting back then was truly neighbors helping neighbors.