Amish Health & Safety Day highlights road, fire and health awareness in Holmes County

Living in a Holmes County community where half the population is Plain People, there are a variety of unique health and safety issues that crop up that might be foreign to some communities but are common occurrences in Amish Country.

To provide insight, advice and information on many of these issues, Amish Health & Safety Day took place Monday, Aug. 11 at the Mt. Hope Event Center, where health and safety organizations from all around Holmes County and beyond came together to create stations the public could stop at to ask questions, find information and chat with professionals.

“It went really well,” said Jason Troyer, Holmes County Emergency Management Agency director, who was instrumental in pulling together details for the event. “We had a lot of vendors, although it was tough to gauge the total number of visitors because that place is so huge.

“The Amish Health & Safety Committee did a great job of organizing it. We had great sponsors, and everyone left with plenty of valuable information.”

The day kicked off at 4 p.m. with seminars taking place from 5-7:30 p.m. including battery and fire safety with state fire marshal Jesse Baughman, tick identification and Lyme disease, carbon monoxide exposure and Stop the Bleed demonstrations, and traffic and highway safety and legal concerns.

At 8 p.m. they switched gears and presented a mock crash that included a vehicle versus bicycle scenario.

“The mock crash was really valuable,” Troyer said. “We have four patients, one deceased. We had squads from East Holmes and Winesburg attending along with a rescue engine from East Holmes because the person in the car was pinned and we had to cut the victim out of the vehicle.”

Making it even more impactful was having a Metro LifeFlight helicopter landing to whisk the victim away.

Ending on a somber note to drive home the dangers that abound while traversing Holmes County’s shared roadways was a visit from Spidell Funeral Home.

“We do that for a reason,” Troyer said of the funeral home finishing the mock crash. “That tends to really drive home the point that travel can come at a cost when we aren’t safety-minded.”

Also participating in the mock crash was Ohio State Patrol and Holmes County Sheriff personnel.

In addition, there were free diabetes and cholesterol testing at the Pomerene Mobile Unit, door prizes, and plenty of great food, with those donations going to support the families of James Mast and Eddie Hershberger.

There also were numerous ongoing demonstrations from several vendors including buggy lighting and highway safety, electrical safety, bike safety that included a bike rodeo, pond and water safety and water rescue, diabetes and heart disease, CPR and health screenings, tree stand safety, and a Stop the Bleed station.

Troyer said each year the committee works hard to prepare new and meaningful portions to the event because creating an opportunity for the Amish community to unite and learn more about safety issues is critical.

He said moving the event to various locations throughout Holmes and Wayne counties also is critical because it leads to easier access for more people.

He said there was greater focus on the UTV side of safety precautions this year because the area has experienced a greater increase in the number of UTVs traveling on the area byways.

“That along with e-bike travel continue to be growing in popularity and thus it increases the chances of incidents,” Troyer said. “It’s important for our community to continue to provide opportunities like Amish Health & Safety Day to be informative and helpful and to encourage people to be cautious when traveling.

“At the end of the night, it’s our hope to equip people with enough information to be safer.”

Troyer said he could foresee creating more opportunities like this one, although he admits it is an incredible amount of work.

He also said it is imperative the area moves beyond simply informing the Amish population by partnering with schools and other entities to create events that promote defensive driving.

“There’s educating the Amish population on how to be safer, but there needs to also be an initiative put on the general public because our area is very unique,” Troyer said. “If you look at it, it’s usually not the tourists involved in incidents; it is often locals because we have become so used to it that we almost put our guard down.”

He said learning about all the possibilities involved with e-bikes, wagons, buggies and UTVs and what they might do on the road at any given moment is critical to slowing down the number of accidents.

“E-bikes and UTVs aren’t going away any time soon, so it makes sense for all of us to slow down, leave on time, not get in a rush and pay attention at all times,” Troyer said. “We’re all sharing these roads together.”

Sponsors for the event included Mt. Hope Auction, Pomerene, Homestead Furniture & Interiors, Hummel Group, Premier Outdoors, Elevator, Akron Children’s Hospital, Holmes-Wayne Electric Cooperative and Shrivers Hospice.