The Pennington First Aid Squad is pleased to announce that our training center has graduated its largest class ever, 44 students. We thank our Director, Julie Aberger; Coordinator, Dan Boone; Lead Instructor, Cindy Orlandi; and Instructors Alice Freeman and Linda Hlavacek for this effort. The students have completed their 120 hours of classroom, 10 hours of riding or hospital experience and must now take the State or National Registry written exam. The PFAS Training Center's past performance for these exams has been >95% passes, so we are not worried about the written exam and hope to see these students on ambulances soon.
The PFAS is pleased to have netted 5 new members from this class along with 2 more for local squads. The class was unusual in that nearly 40% of the students were not funded by the the NJ training fund as volunteers, but by the students.Pictures from the graduation are available for viewing and download at various levels of resolution
Patient's with mechanical heart pumps can now leave the hospital and lead reasonably normal lives. Former Vice President Dick Cheney's assist pump has been in the news lately, but the Hopewell Valley now has at least one such patient living at home. Patients with Left Ventricular Assist Devices (LVAD or VAD) must be assessed and treated somewhat differently from patients with normal hearts. Members should read more about this in our skills and procedures tab.
PFAS will soon be stocking new Epipens with a bright orange cap designed to reduce the frequency of accidental injection into EMTs instead of patients. The entire package insert is available from the manufacturer.
New design for Epipen and Epipen junior with blue safety cap and orange injection tip. Note that the instructions for use are clearly labled on the sides.