HFD volunteers take the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge (VIDEO)

hfd water dump still — Hays Fire Department volunteers take the Ice Bucket Challenge for ALS and have challenged the Hays Police Department and Ellis County EMS to do the same.

By BECKY KISER
Hays Post

The temperature was nearly at the century mark, and the wind was still as volunteers with the Hays Fire Department took the “ALS Ice Bucket Challenge” late Monday afternoon.

“That was cold!,” Fire Chief Gary Brown concluded.

“But it felt good!,” according to HFD organizer, Lt. Darin Myers.

Myers said “the idea came together at 6:30 a.m. Monday morning as at least four firefighters discovered they had each been challenged individually. By 4 p.m., everything was in place, and most of the off-duty firefighters gathered at Station 2, the airport fire station, to experience the “Ice Bucket Challenge” together.

“We pooled our individual donations into one larger donation to the ALS Association on behalf of the Hays Fire Department,” Myers added.

hfd bucket ice cube dump still — Adding coolers of ice to the bucket endloader already filled with water

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge involves people getting doused with buckets of ice water on video, posting that video to social media, then nominating others to do the same, all in an effort to raise ALS awareness.

The Hays firefighters willingly subjected themselves to an entire front-end loader-full of water and ice cubes dumped over their heads, just after they challenged the Hays Police Department and Ellis County EMS to do the same:

The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, inspired by former Boston College baseball player Pete Frates, has quickly taken off. It’s gone from a fundraising campaign to a viral Internet sensation.

As of Monday, more than $15.6 million has been raised to research Lou Gehrig’s disease, the ALS Association announced. That is compared to $1.8 million during the same stretch from late July to mid-August of 2013.

Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord. People with ALS eventually lose the ability to initiate and control muscle movement, which often leads to total paralysis and death within two to five years of diagnosis.

There is no cure and only one drug approved by the FDA which modestly extends survival, according to the ALS website.