“I still drive trucks. I will as long as I can. It’s in my blood ... my blood is half diesel fuel,” Leland Township volunteer firefi ghter Tim Eggert said.
Eggert celebrated 42 years of being a volunteer firefighter on the Leelanau Peninsula in 2023.
Eggert, 67, graduated from Suttons Bay in the 1970s.
He grew up in Northport before moving to Suttons Bay when his father Gerald started working for the Leelanau County Road Commission.
Like a father like son, Eggert eventually joined the road commission after high school and worked for the county for 41 years.
“When I retired, I asked the secretary to add up the inches of snowfall because they will give you a cake on your last day. I wanted to turn around all my coworkers eating my cake ... the secretary put (the number) on the cake. It was 487 feet,” Eggert said.
Eggert specifically remembers 1981 and 2014 vividly. In 1981, Eggert recalls working for 46 consecutive days plowing snow. The year 2014 was also intriguing when the peninsula got dumped with 214 inches of snow.
Eggert raised a family with his wife Kathy on the peninsula. His two girls are named Krystal and Tracey.
Eggert knows how lucky he was to have his kids go to Leland where they never had to worry.
“I knew they always came home after school, but a lot of times they’d bring their friends home with them and there was never a problem that I didn’t have to worry about them hanging out down on the corner after school,” he said.
Eggert’s father was born on the family farm in Northport, and his mother is still alive at 88 years old.
In 1978, Eggert found love when he married his wife Kathy.
That same year he decided to start volunteering at the Leland township fire department thanks to his wife’s dad, Emil.
“Back then, it was all volunteer work. There was no pay involved back then. We voted not to get paid because you were covered by the Good Samaritan Act. If we didn’t take a dime, we couldn’t be sued,” Eggert said.
Regulations and funding have changed since the 1970s and 1980s, but volunteers still remain a huge part of fire departments that have seen a decline in them.
Eggert has countless memories about volunteering with the fire department from behind the wheel of tankers to support firefighters fighting countless building blazes throughout the years.
“I’m here to watch out for my other fellow firefighters who do, I’m here to put the water in the hose. Those guys are risking their lives to save everybody else’s property or persons in the community,” Eggert said.
Eggert remembers booking it to Glen Arbor for a log cabin fire that was out of control with Chris Herman, lieutenant/medical first responder. “That’s my brother’s there fighting that fire. Somebody gotta put the water in the hose. That’s why I do it ... We are all together,” he said.
Eggert remembers another fire with Dr. John Suelzer, this time a fire out on Northport Point during winter.
During the fire Northport’s hydrant went down when it was sucked full of slush.
“(People) were in the house and we could hear them yelling on the radio to get out, get out, get out. Suttons Bay Tanker was in Peshawbestown, and I picked up Suelzer at the end of the lake ... I was three quarters of the way to Northport. And I looked at him and I said, ‘the radio, light, siren, everything is yours. I’m just driving the truck,’’ Eggert said. “Northport is all S-curves. I went down through Northport over 40 miles an hour, just at a power slide through all the corners. I was going out past the fire station and I said Suelzer ‘I’m sorry if I scared you back there, but we lose firefighters this way.’” After the fire, and before Eggert could thank Suelzer, he passed away unexpectedly.
Eggert’s main duty after driving was to make sure that the specific engine maintains pressure to the hoses and keeping the tank full of water.
One of Eggert’s worst stories came in the early days in the early 1980s during New Year’s Eve when he got called to a disastrous head-on-head collision.
Eggert remembers one car had one person in it, and the other had seven. The only unscathed in the seven person car was the driver. Eggert remembers picking up a bloody and battered 7-year-old girl to put her back in the ambulance. Then a 12-year-old girl that had the same name as his daughter, which shook Eggert to his core.
“She’s 12 years old. Her name is Krystal, my knee buckled. I can’t recognize her. She’s got a broken nose and a broken jaw. The blood’s running out of her nose and into her mouth,” Eggert said. “Fortunately everyone lived ... That was one of the worst runs I was ever on.”
No matter the situation Eggert is always someone to count on for the Leland Township Fire Department. Eggert plans to continue serving for as long as he can.
