‘The best of the best’: KCFD fire chief remembers fallen firefighter

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A husband, brother, friend and dedicated public servant, is how firefighter Kyler Brinker is described. Tuesday, marks one week since Brinker suffered a medical emergency and died during a training exercise.

Wednesday, services will be held to honor his life and sacrifice.

“It’s been a week now. We have the funeral services tomorrow. It’s been a very challenging week for us and certainly his family. Our condolences go out to the family,” Fire Chief Ross Grundyson shared. “There will be a very large procession, to and from the funeral with Kyle. There will be a lot of people there. There’s a lot of firefighters from our department that will come and there’s also people coming from fire departments across the state and even farther reaches than that.”
Kyle Brinker’s name will the 118th etched on a monument at the Kansas City Firefighter Memorial at Penn Valley Park in KCMO.

“It’s our worst nightmare. We’ve been through this before and we will get through this again,” Grundyson said. “You train, plan, and prepare for what you can, but there’s no guarantees in this line of work.”

You can see the department’s mourning among many things, including the badge where a black band hugs ones the department is wearing.

“A symbol that we do that we are honestly all too familiar with,” Grundyson said.

Brinker moved to Kansas City specifically to gear up for the Kansas City Fire Department, 11 years ago. He’s a hire, Grundyson says, he remembers fondly.

“The best of the best,” he shared. “I remember interviewing him. I was on the panel that hired him. I remember thinking at the time. This a good one. We need to get him working for us at KCFD. He did an excellent job in his paramedic assessment. It was a near perfect score there.”

Brinker’s impact stretches across nearly 20,000 calls for service during his Kansas City career.

“He did that without complaint. He was a natural leader. He was humble. He was just a giver. He was the epitome of a public servant for KCFD,” Grundyson said.

“There’s no doubt there are people out there today in our community that are there, because of him. Outstanding paramedic,” he continued.

“Being a resident of Kansas City. Kansas City loves their fire department,” Ron Olman, a Kansas City, Missouri resident shared. “God bless him. God bless him.”

Olman stopped by the firefighter memorial fountain to show friends in town Tuesday.

Grundyson says, there’s next to no break for a public servant.

“We are working with Local 42 Cares. They are wellness folks; they work with the mental health. We’ve got peer supports. I’ve personally met with crews that were there,” he said. “Unfortunately for us, we run 135,000 a year in our city and that is just shy 400 emergencies a day.”

Right now, he’s encouraging his department to extend their arms to one another.

“We are trying to take the time and we are reaching out to each other, and we encourage that, so that our folks have people available to talk to if they want to or if they need to, but we carry on the business of the fire department that doesn’t stop,” Grundyson said.

Honoring Brinker’s legacy of the excellent service he provided, is something Grundyson says Kyle’s brother, Scott will be doing too.

“It’s a devastating loss for him. He will have some time off now and try and deal with this tragedy, but he will get back on a firetruck again and he will do the job that he’s done and he’s an excellent firefighter also. He will continue the good work that we do and carry on Kyle’s legacy that way,” on Kyle’s bother, Scott, carrying on his brother’s legacy.

Grundyson add that Kyle’s death was a tragic and devastating loss for his family, the department, and community he served.

“Kyle served at the highest level of professionalism and skill and dedication as a public servant. We move forward by honoring his legacy of that excellent service that he provided.” Grundyson shared. “There is a memorial in town. His name will certainly go on that. There is also a national memorial in Colorado. His name will be placed there. We will be putting up plaques and things like that and just in our history books it will be documented there, but more importantly, we will keep his memory alive by re-telling the stories around the kitchen table in the morning, and making sure that we never forget.”

Brinker’s cause of death is still undetermined.

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