Doug Sirant of Cold Lake was awarded King Charles III’s Coronation Medal September 20. The presentation was made by Alberta Lieutenant Governor Salma Lakhani at Government House in Edmonton.

The medal is presented to nominees who “have made a significant contribution to Canada or to a particular province, territory, region or community of Canada, or have made an outstanding achievement abroad that brings credit to Canada” according to the official criteria.

Sirant was one of two recipients nominated by St. John Ambulance (SJA) Alberta. He says the announcement took him by surprise.

“I was completely caught off guard,” he said. “I had no idea. And I didn’t find out till after the medal ceremony that there were only two medals allotted to St. John Ambulance. I won the northern medal and there was a gentleman out of the Calgary branch who won the southern medal. So it’s truly special because there’s so few of them in the province.

“Like, why me?” he wondered.

Beverly Lafortune knows why. Lafortune, president and CEO of SJA Alberta Council, said Sirant’s decades of service go beyond the immediate business of the organization and benefit the community at large.

“He just does so much in the community. He has been a Saint John ambassador for as long as I’ve known him, just an outstanding individual. So he was one of our top nominations,” she said.

“That’s what we were looking for because for those medals, when you read the criteria for them, it’s really looking at that big impact. What is the impact on the community?”

Sirant retired in June after 34 years teaching at Cold Lake High School. He has been active in the SJA organization for that entire time and he remains active—and highly regarded—as a first aid instructor.

In addition to his other teaching duties, he trained the high school’s students and staff in first aid. Some of his students have gone on to careers in emergency services and healthcare, and one of the teachers he trained earned a Lifesaving Award for helping a colleague who was choking.

“The big push I had originally was to train the kids because they needed it for summer work,” he said. “And then as I was doing more courses, I was getting called on more and more within the school. There’s times where I would have five or six responses a day at the school.” 

These were not typically life-threatening situations, but the type of day-to-day mishaps that require proper attention. With a large portion of the student body trained, routine situations were handled quickly and easily.

“It eventually worked out that the kids were actually handling a lot of stuff. So by the time I got from my classroom down to wherever they were at the school, they had it handled.”

The choking episode occurred when a teacher, who hadn’t had time for lunch, was quickly trying to grab a bite to eat after school. He choked on a piece of food and was on the verge of blacking out when another staff member saw his distress and used the appropriate manoeuvres to rescue him.

The staff member saved his life, for which Sirant nominated him for a Lifesaving Award.

“I was very, very proud of it. It was a very cool thing to take all the book, take all the practice, put it into a practical situation and actually save someone’s life,” he said.

Sirant has also spent more than three decades with Cold Lake Fire and Rescue, where he applies his first aid skills and mentors other firefighters.

Lafortune said SJA’s mission in Alberta includes first aid training, and also provides volunteers to offer first service at sports events, concerts, and other public gatherings.

Beyond first aid, the organization also offers a dog therapy program which provides mental-health benefits to care institutions and other settings.

And following the Calgary floods, SJA Alberta pioneered the establishment of special teams to train ordinary citizens in emergency response. This capability has been called on several times in recent years, Lafortune says, and has inspired national agencies.

“I’m going to brag: Alberta has a lot of leadership on the national scene,” she said. “We’re  often very nimble and are really trying to be responsive to community needs. And now about three years ago, Public Safety Canada announced that they’re looking at everyday citizens being able to help during emergencies because they can’t always get responders in there immediately.”

Lafortune said SJA deeply appreciates its volunteers serving its mission in specific ways, but “ambassador” volunteers like Sirant serve the organization’s big picture.

“They’re trained in multiple areas, they serve in multiple roles,” she said. “They have this bigger ambassador approach with St. John Ambulance that they view the whole mission of the Order of Saint John, and St. John Ambulance as the business entity, as the bigger piece around the mission.”

Doug Sirant with The Honourable Salma Lakhani, Lieutenant Governor of Alberta. SUBMITTED