The fastest two minutes in sports.
That’s how Corner Brook firefighter Wayne George refers to pushing his body to the limit when he competes in a Firefit Challenge.
The event is a friendly competition based on six firefighting tasks commonly performed in emergency situations.
Firefighters have to complete five fireground tasks — tower climb, hose pull, ventilator simulator, hose drag and dummy/rescue drag.
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Corner Brook will play host a regional Firefit Challenge this weekend and George is one of 15 Corner Brook firefighters excited to see how his firefighting skills stack up.
“When you collapse at the end of the line, you’re done,” George said of the gruelling challenge that awaits him. “You can’t get up and walk away. I don’t, anyway. They have to physically carry me it’s that physically exhausting.”
Despite the misery he feels at the end, he admits a great feeling comes over him knowing that he was able to get through it.
George, who says the fastest he ever completed the course is two minutes and 13 seconds, believes the event is something a person is either going to love or hate, and he just happens to love it. He has no plans of slowing down despite people telling him to take it easy after suffering a heart attack in 2016.
He became immersed in Fireft Challenge in 2003 as a way to keep in good shape and he’s been a steady participant other than a couple of events he missed because of other commitments.
However, he’s pretty keen at what he does, as is evident by the silver medal he won in the tandem event with Deputy Chief Craig Harnum at the 2017 National Firefit Challenge in Ottawa.
He’s going to be competing in the individual event on Saturday and expects to be a hurting unit after he tackles the course in both tandem and relay events on Sunday.
He’s been training six days a week to ensure he’s in peak condition and he’s been motivated to forge ahead as he enjoys being pushed by younger fellow Corner Brook firefighters Alex Way and Alex Hillier who have spent a fair amount of training time with him over the past few months.
“The hardest part is making the first step on the tower because it’s so stressful, but once you get on the tower you’re in a zone then,” he said.
At 57, he’s going to have a lot of young guns standing in his way, but that’s just fine with him because he’s a determined individual who loves a challenge so he has no worries.
George became a relief firefighter with the City of Corner Brook in 1993. He always wanted to be a firefighter and he was going to do whatever he could to make it happen and it did.
“I hounded city hall every day until I got a job,” he said.
That determination still burns inside.
