Welcome to this month’s issue of Montauk Fire Department Corner. I hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable Labor Day weekend. This month I would like to dedicate the entire issue to a very important topic, CPR and the use of AED’s defibrillators.
The Montauk Fire Department, and the Montauk Fire District have had a longstanding commitment in training and updating MFD members and other interested members of the community in being qualified to perform CPR and the use of defibrillators. We know that for every minute that goes by without CPR/defibrillation the patient’s survival rate decreases by 10%. Knowing this statistic, I feel it is imperative and critical to have public involvement. To this end the Montauk Fire Department, in conjunction with Laerdal Medical Corporation, hosted an event on Sunday, August 11th. The goal of this event and program was to build High Performance Resuscitation Teams.
We are very lucky to have two volunteer paramedics, Donna Hitscherich and her husband Tom Barberi who planned this event together. In fact Donna applied for a grant that was accepted giving our Department $175,000.00 for training material and equipment, including Life Pack 15 Series and Life Pack 1000 Series AED’s (Automatic External Defibrillators). We should all feel fortunate that we have people in our Department and in our community like Donna and Tom, and I thank them for their service.
The event was attended by forty EMS members from Fire Departments as far away as Nassau County. The program included classroom work as well as practical application, as you will see from the photos provided by Donna Hitscherich. The device used in the practical portion of the training was the SimMan ALS, allowing for an experience as close to working on a real patient as you will find. The SimMan monitors and provides important feedback about the progress and effectiveness of the CPR session.
I think it is very important that everyone be familiar with CPR. If you are interested and would like more information on programs available please contact the Montauk Fire Department via this email: mtkcpr123@gmail.com
Please watch a future MFD Corner for more information also.
Thanks for keeping up to date with the workings at the Montauk Fire Department. See you next month.
~ David Ryan, Chief, Montauk Fire Department
