By Joel van der Veen

BLADWORTH — It was a special delivery Lacey and Chase Tannahill won’t soon forget.

The couple welcomed their newborn son Owen around 5 p.m. on Sept. 5, weighing 7 lbs. 8 oz., measuring 20.5 inches long.

He arrived while his mother was laying on a stretcher in the back of an ambulance, stopped on the side of Highway 11 just north of Bladworth.

The Tannahills were en route from Liberty to Saskatoon to deliver their child, but pulled over once they realized the birth was imminent.

A 9-1-1 call summoned the ambulance from Davidson, and within a minute of climbing aboard, Lacey had given birth.

“It came fast, very, very fast,” said Lacey. “Once the ambulance got there, I settled down quite a bit . . . I was a lot calmer once I got in there.”

“We knew it’d be fairly quick,” said Chase. “We didn’t know it’d be as quick as it was.” Continue reading A safe arrival on Highway 11 →

By Joel van der Veen

BLADWORTH — Two fires on the same section of land made for a busy Saturday for local firefighters and nearby farmers.

The Davidson Volunteer Fire Department was called around noon on Aug. 19 to a stubble fire on a field northwest of Davidson along the Allan Road.

After that fire was extinguished, they returned to the same section six hours later to respond to a combine fire, about a mile west.

“This was actually two completely separate fires,” deputy fire chief Don Willner told the Leader.

In both cases, he said, area farmers responded with their tractors, discers and water trucks, helping to keep the fires from spreading.

“The discers did most of the work,” said Willner. “They knocked it down faster than we did.”

Given the dry, windy conditions, Willner said their help was crucial in preventing the fire from crossing the Allan Road into the adjacent pasture land, “which would have been extremely difficult to contain.”

The first call came in at 12:10 p.m., with Rescue 481, Engine 482 and Tanker 481 responding.

Willner said the smoke was visible from town as the firefighters headed out.

Upon arrival, they found the farmer using a 4WD tractor with a discer around the perimeter to limit the spread.

Neighbours brought two or three additional tractors and discers, while water trucks were also brought to the site, including a truck from the Clear Spring colony.

Willner said firefighters were on the scene for roughly two hours.

The second call came in around 6:30 p.m., reporting a combine fire located about a mile west of the first blaze.

After realizing the machine was on fire, Willner said, the combine operator began driving back towards the direction of the first fire, hoping to limit the damage and spread.

With the combine, a Case IH Model 7120, already believed to be a total loss, the firefighters focused on extinguishing the fire on the ground.

“We concentrated on the fire itself,” said Willner. “We didn’t want it to reach around where it had already burned.”

Again, firefighters were on the scene for around two hours.

The affected barley field had already been harvested, so no crops were lost in either blaze.

Willner said the cause of both fires was undetermined, though it may have been as simple as a blade making a spark after striking a rock.

The Hodgins family, who own the affected land, later expressed their thanks to firefighters and their neighbours in a Facebook post.

By Joel van der Veen

BLADWORTH — With days left till the end of school, Brenda Townsend and her girls were making their summer plans.

For Canada Day, they were going to ride together in the parade in Elbow, having already helped Anne Willner construct her float.

After that, the Townsends had some Saskatchewan road trips in mind.

“The girls and I were going to see more of the province,” Brenda said last week.

But those plans shifted to the back burner in late June after her oldest daughter, Jessica, suffered a brain aneurysm.

As of last week, Jessica remained in the pediatric unit at Royal University Hospital (RUH) in Saskatoon, where she is recovering from surgery and undergoing treatment and therapy.

Though recovery remains a long way off, Brenda said her daughter is making progress and showing daily improvement.

“Her spirit is there,” she said Thursday. “It’s long days, but it’s still good.”

Jessica, 14, is going into Grade 10 this fall at Davidson School, along with her twin sister Breanne.

They have two younger twin sisters, Marissa and Topanga, going into Grade 7. (Brenda also has two older sons — Alek Howell, 24, and Nicolas, 27.)

On the morning of Wednesday, June 21, Brenda went to wake Jessica up for school at their home in Bladworth. Though her eyes were open, Jessica couldn’t speak, move or get out of bed. She had suffered a seizure in her sleep.

“At first we didn’t really know what happened,” said Brenda. “I called her dad and he came over right away.”

After Jessica’s father Craig arrived, they called 9-1-1. Davidson EMS quickly arrived to transport her to Davidson Health Centre, where she was stabilized but remained unresponsive.

Paramedics rushed Jessica to RUH, where a CT scan revealed an arteriovenous malformation (AVM) on the left side of her brain. The abnormality, present from birth, was causing internal bleeding.

After she suffered another seizure, the doctors prepared her for immediate surgery to relieve the pressure in her brain.

They placed Jessica in an induced coma, leaving her under for nine days. (The process also included removing Jessica’s skullcap, which is being kept in cold storage.)

Further surgery will be required to treat the AVM, and right now doctors are monitoring her response to treatment and therapy.

Jessica slowly woke from the coma at the start of the month, and on July 2 she was moved to the pediatric unit.

When she awoke, she could smile and hold items in her left hand, but spoke very little. There was no movement whatsoever on her right side.

Since then, she has made steady progress, with the help of a team of specialists that includes two physiotherapists and an occupational therapist.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to solicit donations for the Townsends. To contribute, visit gofundme.com/jessica-townsend.

For the full story, please see the July 17 edition of The Davidson Leader or call 306-567-2047 to subscribe today.