The Regional Burn Center provides specialized medical and surgical treatment for patients in San Diego and Imperial counties who have burns and varying skin disorders. Then Tovie was transferred to the UC San Diego Health Regional Burn Center. Cousin rushed Tovie to the emergency room, where they assessed the burn and gave him pain medication. The damage was done - both hands had third-degree burns, with more severe burns on his right hand. “I heard Tovie screaming and immediately grabbed him away from the barbecue.” “In a blink of an eye, Tovie went from a crawl position to standing, and he placed his right, then left hand on the side of the barbecue,” Cousin recalls in a written description of the event. In preparation for the event, Poway’s demolition team reached out to Poway High School’s automotive department to salvage last year’s derby car.īy coincidence, the school’s auto shop teacher, Joey Cousin, had his own encounter with The Burn Institute a decade ago.Ĭousin remembers the day, March 16, 2012, when his then-11-month-old son, Tovie, was outside with him while he was barbecuing a birthday meal. “This is the same vehicle we’ve used for three years in a row. “It’s a lot of fun for the firefighters and the crowd loves it, too,” Mitchell said. Typically they drive in reverse to try to preserve their engines, Mitchell said. “What’s more important?”įirefighters in the wacky Demolition Derby go head-to-head, intentionally crashing their cars into each other to see how much damage they can inflict on the other vehicles. “Encinitas Fire Department won the Demolition Derby but the Poway Fire Department collected the most for fundraising,” Mitchell said. Firefighters from around San Diego County joined in the annual Firefighter Demolition Derby Day June 11 to raise funds for The Burn Institute.īut it was the Poway Fire Department that raised the most money that day, a whopping $21,000, during the event at the San Diego County Fair.īrian Mitchell, Poway’s deputy fire chief, said corporate sponsors who donated to the Institute were able to get their name and logo on participating cars, similar to the way it’s done at NASCAR races.

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