FIRE CAPTAIN BACK ON THE JOB

Good news! Bryan Fire Cap­tain Gary Mer­schdorf was back on the job Mon­day morn­ing.

In Jan­u­ary, the Cap­tain fell from a scis­sors lift while work­ing on a garage door at the new fire sta­tion.

Mer­schdorf had a skull frac­ture, trau­matic brain injury (TBI) and spinal dam­age. He spent weeks in a drug-induced coma at the Uni­ver­sity of Toledo Med­ical Cen­ter.

On Feb. 8, he started inten­sive rehabilitation.

In May, he started occu­pa­tional ther­apy. Three hours a day, five days a week in full turn-out gear with a 30-pound self-contained breath­ing appa­ra­tus on his back.

On May 24 he finally came home to stay.

Accord­ing to the Bryan Times, he cur­rently is work­ing five-hour days on sta­tion duty, but not yet respond­ing to emer­gen­cies with his crew.

He spends his time catch­ing up on train­ing require­ments and sup­port­ing rou­tine sta­tion operations.