By Susan Bromley

Staff Writer

Brandon Twp.-After 37 years, six months, and eight days as a firefighter in the township, Captain Erich Schudlich has retired.

“No, I wasn’t counting,” chuckles the 62-year-old, who tried several other professions, including construction worker, machine operator, and mechanic, before he became a firefighter/medic— a job he adds that you either love or hate.

“It was a good job, I enjoyed it,” said Schudlich. “The guys I worked with, they were a good bunch of people.”

A township resident since 1978, Schudlich started as a paid on-call firefighter in April 1979, joining his brother-in-law Butch Williams, who was also in the department, which back then had about 20-25 firefighters, but only three full-time.

The job has changed a lot over the course of more than three and a half decades. In Schudlich’s first year as a firefighter, the department responded to 340 calls— both fire and medical. Now the department averages about 1,200 per year, he said. They have also gone from basic first aid to advanced life support, from two fire stations to three, and no ambulances to five.

Schudlich recalls vividly some of the calls he has been on, including the first car accident he responded to, which happened on a back road and involved treating occupants of the vehicle who had gone through the windshield and were laying on the hood. Although they were “cut up pretty good,” they survived.

He recalls another accident in which deputies had covered victims in the accident from head to toe with blankets, shocking responding medics when the patients sat up.

“We thought they were deceased,” said Schudlich. “We learned not to let deputies have blankets.”

He also recalls the first time he responded to a home on fire, with no real training as back then it was learn-as-you-go.

“The fire chief wanted me to go into the basement and turn the power off and I said, ‘But the house is on fire,’” laughed Schudlich. “It made me wonder about my choice to be a firefighter.”

He would go on to fight many blazes, including a factory fire in Groveland Township in winter in which everything kept freezing up, and in which they had to cut holes through ice on lakes to get water. Upon returning to the station from that fire, only an hour later, they had a big barn fire.

Schudlich has been on many animal rescues, including for deer in the swimming pool and ducks in the chimney, but only one cat in a tree. He notes that cats usually climb higher when you try to get them from a tree and will come down when they are hungry. Dogs have a knack for falling through ice on lakes in winter, and can get their owners in trouble, too, when they try to rescue them.

He also wonders about the situations adults and children get into that necessitates help from first responders.

“People get themselves stuck in places and you think, ‘How did you do that?’ Kids get their heads stuck in stairway bannisters, or chairs, stick their fingers in places they don’t belong,” he laughs.

The most difficult calls are ones involving children, although he does have a happy memory of helping with a baby’s delivery, only two weeks after he’d had to assist his wife at home with the birth of their last child when his arrival wasn’t going to wait for the trip to the hospital.

“It was more nerve-wracking than delivering my own,” remembers Schudlich. “We got the call and the ambulance was there and they said, ‘Does anyone have experience delivering a child?’ I raised my hand. You just play catcher.”

The job is high stress and takes a toll both mentally and physically, too— he says he doesn’t know any of his colleagues that don’t have a bad back from the constant lifting.

Still, it was rewarding to do something different every day.

“You go to work and have no clue what is coming,” said Schudlich.

In retirement, he will keep working, saying he has a big list of stuff to do around the house that he shares with wife Denna. The couple have four sons, Erich III, Eugene, Brandon, and Joshua and six grandchildren, whom he looks forward to spending time with.