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Ottawa firefighters are dropping the time-honoured tradition of featuring buff firefighters posing half-dressed on fund-raising calendars.
Instead, this year’s calendar features a series of reunions of firefighters with adorable tiny babies the service helped rescue in a dramatic fire scene last October, at the Ottawa Hospital’s General campus.
As a precaution during a fire and power outage at the General, the firefighters ferried 17 neonatal intensive care children — almost all of them weighing less than a kilo — down eight floors to the safety of the ground floor and next door to CHEO.
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The well-planned evacuation began with medical staff assisting the mothers and their luggage down the stairwell with the aid of “stair chairs.”
Firefighters then helped deliver them to transport on the ground. Then came the babies. At every step, medical staff were nearby in case of an emergency.
Firefighters took the first few babies, those in the most danger, on baby stretchers and in incubators.
The final babies were carried, by hand, by firefighters down the stairs.
The operation drew wide praise.
The Ottawa Hospital president and CEO Cameron Love expressed his thanks for the actions of the firefighters, nurses and all first responders.
“We would not have been able to manage through this without their support,” he said Saturday.
The 2025 Firefighters Calendar is available here.
All proceeds go to the Ottawa Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and Ottawa First Responders Foundation.
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