Prince William County Firefighters Rappel at Hospital to Brighten Children’s Days

It is not every day that Spiderman gets a request to draw Sonic the Hedgehog on the outside of a hospital window 10 or 12 stories off the ground.  

It turns out that Spiderman, as portrayed by Prince William County Department of Fire and Rescue Technician II Kelly VanWingerden, is not much of an artist. Still, she did her best with the recent request when she rappelled from the roof of the Inova Women’s Hospital tower and the Inova L.J. Murphy Children’s Hospital in Fairfax County in a Spiderman costume.   

“He held up a picture of Sonic the Hedgehog for me to draw,” VanWingerden said of a young cancer patient she recently visited through a hospital window. “I do not draw, but I thought I’d give it my best shot. I don’t think anybody looking at it would have known it was Sonic the Hedgehog. It looked like a blob with eyes, but he absolutely loved it. He was cracking up. His mom was in the background taking pictures and laughing so hard at my drawing. That was just fun to be able to actually make them smile and laugh when they have this horrible thing happening in their lives.”   

VanWingerden and other Prince William County Department of Fire and Rescue, or PWCDFR, firefighters recently joined other firefighters from across the Metro area to practice rappelling from the building to hone their skills. Public safety departments from the region regularly practice with each other to learn to work together to respond effectively to a widespread emergency as part of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments National Capital Region Mutual Aid Agreement.     

Prince William County Department of Fire and Rescue Battalion Chief for Special Operations Bryan Ross said the department encourages members to learn new skills, such as rappelling, to help the department stay effective and keep county residents safe. Getting the opportunity to interact with children at the hospital is a bonus.    

“We encourage our members to progress their careers by learning new skills, such as technical rescue, paramedicine, hazardous materials removal and law enforcement with the fire marshal’s office,” Ross said. “These children undergo chemotherapy and other surgeries and are usually confined to their rooms. We give them hope and help them fight their illness through that hope.”  

Fairfax County Firefighter Loren Jewell, who herself was a childhood cancer survivor, helped start the rappelling exercises during the height of the COVID epidemic. Dressing up as superheroes to visit the children started earlier when people could visit children in their rooms. Jewell said the idea of rappelling the building had been floating around the department for some time. The epidemic helped focus the effort.  

“When COVID happened, it became more of a pressing thing,” Jewell said of the prospect of the rappelling exercises. “The children couldn’t have any kind of visitors or any kind of entertainment, so we started doing it. It was really well received by the kids and families, staff and doctors. Everybody loved it. Now we do it three times a year. It’s been great.”   

Jewell said playing Tic-Tac-Toe and other games, drawing on the windows or blowing bubbles makes the children happy. Parents post about the experience on social media, which shows that the activity helps the children.   

In the most recent exercise, PWCDFR sent riggers to handle the ropes and equipment, along with the costumed rappellers.  

“Prince William County brought a good amount of people in costume, which was great,” said Jewell. “It’s good to have people doing different characters in different costumes. It’s awesome. It means a lot to have the interaction with the children, their parents and hospital staff on a different level. I think it’s really important. You get to see how small acts of kindness can really make a huge difference in someone’s day.”    

“We do it for the kids,” VanWingerden said. “We see people on their worst days, and it’s a really nice way to make people smile, and you’re doing a good thing for the kids. It just makes you feel good.”