The City of Clarkesville is keeping its fire and police departments operating, despite temporarily losing the fire department’s two chief officers to off-duty injuries and two of the police department’s six full-time officers to medical issues.
Recently, Assistant Fire Chief Kevin Sprinkle suffered a spinal injury when he fell from a ladder.
Soon after, Fire Chief Jason Poole was injured in an accident while mowing grass.
"Unfortunately, in the fire department, our chief and our assistant chief were both in unfortunate accidents and suffered broken bones, so they're going to have some recovery time," said City Manager Barbara Kesler. "Fortunately, in the fire department we do have quite a long list of part-time people that are willing to help fill that void, and the county as well has offered to help out if need be."
Kesler updated the mayor and city council during Monday night's meeting.
Kesler said Poole underwent surgery and may be able to return to light duty in about eight weeks, Kesler said. Sprinkle also underwent surgery, but likely will be out of work for up to 12 months.
Similarly, medical issues have plagued one-third of the department's police force, resulting in Chief Brad Barrett and Assistant Chief Danny Clouatre filling patrol shifts when part-time officers were not available.
"In the police department, we have one gentleman that's been out ill for a while, then Adam Ray had to have an emergency appendectomy so he's going to be out for probably four or five weeks," Kesler said. "Again, we'll be using part-timers where we can. In the police department, it's a little bit bigger of a challenge. They're in such demand it's harder to find."
Last month, the police department had an extremely high call volume, spread out among the five officers who worked.
"Chief Barrett called out that there were 837 calls in the month of May with only five police officers during the month working," Kesler said. "I did the math and that was nearly 170 calls per officer for the month. That's a lot of calls for one person to do in 30 days' time."
In both departments, part-time personnel generally work for other departments so their schedules don't always fit with when Clarkesville needs them, thus challenging city leaders to get creative with scheduling or fill in themselves.4
Still, Kesler said both departments are fully operational and serving citizens.
