Friday, November 4, 2011
When David and Deanne Owsianiak ask each other, “How was your day today?” it takes on a little different meaning than most couples. The Owsianiaks, from Chicago, have dedicated their lives to public service for 18 years—David as a firefighter/paramedic and Deanne as a police officer.
“I joke around with her,” David said. “But I always remember she is the one with the gun.”
The couple, married 25 years, recently attended training at the Center for Domestic Preparedness (CDP), in Anniston, Ala. The course they attended was called Technical Emergency Response Training (TERT) for CBRNE Incidents. The training focuses on incident management, mass casualty response, and emergency response to a catastrophic natural disaster or terrorist act.
“This was the first time we were able to attend training together,” David says. “What a great opportunity for us both. The training is top notch—everyone [in response] should take advantage.”
David has been with the Chicago Fire Department for 15 years and Deanne has served as a police officer for 17. Ask the two about the difficulties of balancing marriage with demanding jobs, long shifts and exhausting assignments, they look at each other and smile.
“We make it work,” Deanne says.
Deanne has risen to the rank of sergeant and now supervises the mass transit systems that are at the nucleus of her city’s public transportation. This assignment has made CDP training more meaningful, she says.
“This training is perfect,” Deanne says. “Chicago’s public transportation is a major target for terrorism and even accidents come in many forms that result in mass casualties. The CDP week provided me more threat awareness and gave a little extra confidence to improve our response plans. I’ll be sharing this with the officers I supervise and encouraging others to get the training.”
“This training was in line with what I do as a firefighter,” David says. “I’m assigned to Squad 5 which is a special operations unit and we are the busiest fire company in the city. What I enjoyed most was the nerve agent training. I have never experienced working in an environment with toxic agents. That experience was great and I feel more prepared and confident in my gear.”
For more information on CDP, visit www.cdp.dhs.gov.
