Water rescue course trainer recognized
BUTLER TWP — Butler County Community College professor Chris Calhoun has won a Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission Outstanding Service Award for helping develop the agency's water rescue program.
Calhoun, a 56-year-old Butler resident who has been a BC3 parks and recreation professor since 1984, is the lead trainer among the commission's 10 water-rescue instructor trainers.
He helped train 16 firefighters from Pennsylvania and Virginia at a 16-hour ice rescue and emergency response course held at an 18-foot deep pond on the BC3 main campus Feb. 3 and 4.
The state water rescue program Calhoun helped develop is the only one in the nation that has been approved by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Calhoun was presented with the award in late January. He was nominated by Ryan Walt, the commission's boating and watercraft safety manager.
“He is a credit to this agency and has effectively compiled and created water-rescue curriculum which results in the saving of lives,” Walt said.
