The Fond du lac Fire Department is recognizing outstanding achievements from the past year. Brian Vahsholtz received the 2015 Fire Fighter of the Year award for his work covering numerous fields in the department. Phillip Seibel and Brian Westby received the paramedic of the year award for providing life support measures to a fatally injured State Trooper Trevor Casper on March 24, 2015. Casper was shot and killed by a bank robbery suspect, but not before Casper was able to return fire and kill the bank robber. Unit Citation Awards were given to Dwight Fisher, Ben Stephany, Brian Westby, and Phillip Seibel, for their rescue efforts following the shooting. “Our department gave Trooper Trevor Casper his best chance for survival,” O’Leary told WFDL news. “Unfortunately the outcome wasn’t what we had hoped . But I can tell his family, the troopers that he was in incredibly good hands and if he had a chance to live it would have been because we would have been able to save him.” Also receiving Unit Citation Awards were Peter Dutkievic and Bobby Scott for rescuing a woman who was trapped in a burning house on North Lincoln Ave. in Fond du Lac . Chad Churchill, Gene Olig, Luanne Bridenbaugh and Deb Pinnow all received Excellence Awards for helping the fire department become one of 232 departments in the world to be awarded international accreditation.
