Emil Richter Honored For 50 Years Of Service To Milford Fire And Rescue
Emil Richter Honored For 50 Years Of Service To Milford Fire And Rescue
December 13, 2021Steve Schwaller
(Milford)– A Milford man has been honored for his 50 years of service with Milford Fire and Rescue. Emil Richter received the recognition during the department’s annual Christmas party held recently. Richter says it came as a complete surprise…
“I basically was in a room where I had my back basically to the crowd, which was what they intended for, I guess, and with the family, my son and daughter and their families were there and I figured the only reason they were in that room, there was a room somewhere else where we were, so it was a surprise to me.”
Richter says a lot has changed since he first got involved in fire and rescue services 50 years ago…
“Back then, literally there was like six coats and boots and helmets for like 25 guys and that’s the way it was. There wasn’t breathing apparatus or anything. I mentioned to them the night at that little party that if a structure was on fire, if we’d have left it alone it would have burned down in 30 minutes but we made it last three hours because you stood outside and shot water on the roof. That’s about what it amounted you to. You couldn’t go in. There wasn’t equipment.”
He says another major change over those years was in equipment used at accident scenes…
“It was about four months after I joined the Fire Department that I was at an accident at 1:00 in the morning where a young fellow died. They had a collision like out in a corn field meet but it was just the fall of the year. There was nothing. No equipment for anything. No ambulances, no power equipment, just nothing. Whatever you could do with a crow bar or anything like that, that’s what you used. And I figured like, this is the way it is? And that’s when basically something’s got to happen more than this. So I remember we went to the Coast to Coast store in Milford and bought what we call portapowers. They were about the size of a hand and they would open up a few inches, they were hydraulic with a hand pump, and that was the beginning of power equipment. That was 1971. It was 1973 when the actual Jaws Of Life were introduced at Indianapolis, at the races, and it was 1976 when we bought our first sets. And I think we were about the sixth in the state of Iowa out of hundreds of fire departments to get any rescue equipment. That was like I say, ’73. It was about ’84 that we upgraded those. At that time they were like 40 ton of hydraulic power, and we just upgraded them a year and-a-half ago to 160 ton of cutting power to cut the metal in these new cars, today, the last 10 years.”
Richter adds finding a way to finance the equipment was behind the impetus of him and his brother Herman starting up the University Of Okoboji. Emil says he plans to continue to offer his services to the community…
“I look at it this way: as long as I’m physically able to do this, it’s like why not do it? I mean it’s a blessing. And I have no problem. There’s things I don’t do. For instance, fire wise I don’t wear air packs because I’ve replaced both knees and I can’t crawl around in a structure and I’d be a hazard to the fire department to be in those buildings. So I do the things that I can do that are safe and healthy. It’s like, why not?”
Richter thanks those that made the recognition possible and those who have, and continued to support, the department’s operations financially.
