If you are lucky enough to experience the gratitude — they've done their jobs well again.

They get the calls at all hours of the day and night and drop what they are doing.

Their jobs and businesses are set aside; their families are set aside; their rest is set aside and they roll.

The volunteers who comprise Invermere Fire-Rescue's (IFR) initial response team know that every second counts and they train hard to make sure they can respond to emergency calls as quickly as possible.

Invermere Volunteer Firefighter Society president and IFR member responsible for overseeing the rescue team Tom McNeil, said lives literally hang in a balance that is maintained by seconds and minutes.

It makes complete sense. The quicker the crew can respond to a call, the faster they can extricate people from vehicles that have been involved in crashes.

But this crew covers a vast area — stretching well beyond District of Invermere boundaries to include Windermere north to Spillimacheen and Highway 93 in Kootenay National Park.

While the IFR crew have responded well beyond the definition of admirable the past few years, they are receiving more calls each year and they desperately need a new response vehicle, which costs in the neighbourhood of $450,000.

As we all know, saving lives is an extremely expensive business, whether from the controlled environment of a hospital or among the chaos of an accident scene.

Our tax dollars go toward ensuring BC Ambulance is outfitted, to making sure the RCMP are rigged up and ready to roll and toward ensuring hospitals can operate. Of course, each of those three vital social infrastructures are underfunded in many areas.

But our local fire departments rely on local government funding and the odd bone thrown their way by the province.

Raising funds for such a vital piece of equipment as an emergency response vehicle is an extremely difficult and onerous task.

Luckily, the Lake Windermere and District Lions Club has again risen to the challenge and is working with the firefighters' society.

The initial drives to raise funds are completed and efforts remain ongoing, but our community — as-a-whole — must become more engaged.

That includes our business community, second home/weekender communities and all residents.

“This is your vehicle, locally,” noted Lions Club member Rick Hoar.

“Every bit of money we collect from people goes into the rescue vehicle.

“We are picking up the administrative costs and the District (of Invermere) is doing things for us, like photocopying, but it's important that people know all the money they provide for this cause goes directly toward the purchase of a rescue vehicle.”

The firefighters' society and Lions have gone around the valley community seeking funding support and while they are deeply appreciative of what they've received thus far, much more work and many more dollars are needed.

The eight-person IFR first response crew handles 44% of all the department's calls.

The calls they respond to see them going to: 29% into Kootenay National Park; 29% District of Invermere area; 29% Regional District of East Kootenay Electoral Areas F and G and 11% in the Radium Hot Springs area.

So it is obvious that this Invermere-based crew covers the valley community as a whole, except the area south of the Windermere Volunteer Fire Department boundary.

We all rely on our highways to get around the valley and we are all intricately linked to our neighbouring communities.

We also tend to tour through Kootenay National Park (KNP) fairly regularly, as visits to Calgary are common for most valley residents.

Whether it is valley local beetling into Calgary to pick someone up at the airport or use a medical facility or a weekender heading to the valley to enjoy their cottage/cabin/lakefront mansion, we all run the risk of becoming involved in serious accidents in the isolated confines of KNP.

Many valley residents and visitors have been left dangling upside down in rollovers or trapped in their damaged vehicles, clinging to life by threads — scared and uncertain of the width of those threads.

Or unconscious and flirting with the bright light at the end of a long dark tunnel.

When the IFR crew arrives at the scene — your life or the lives of those you love and cherish become theirs to save and they do a damned good job of it.

Doesn't it make sense for us all to dig deeper and help?