The Pennington First Aid Squad is proud to have participated in an Operation HeadOn along with our neighboring squads and fire companies, The Pennington Fire Company, Union Fire and Rescue, The Hopewell Fire Department and Emergency Medical Unit, and Hopewell Valley Emergency Services. The contributions of JeffSTAT, Wilson-Apple Funeral home, Daves Ringoes Sunoco were essential as were the acting skills of Hopewell Valley Central High students Alex Bhaskar, Eric Fass, Melissa Helmstetterr, and Natalie Santos who played the victims of the crash.
Operation HeadOn is a drama staged by fire, police, and EMS to simulate a car crash caused by drunk driving. It is hoped that the event will be sobering for students on the eve of graduation. The local event was organized by Gavin Nelson, an EMS lieutenant at Union Fire and Rescue (and also a member of PFAS). Graduating seniors for Hopewell Valley Regional High School were led through the events of the crash from the first 911 call to the departure of the hearse with the simulated fatality wrapped in a body bag. Pictures of the event have been posted on this web site
HVCHS students Eric Fass, Alex Bhaskar, Melissa Helmstetterr, and Natalie Santos in their roles as the drunk driver, the critically injured patients, and the fatality.
The Pennington First Aid Squad training center has graduated a class of 17 students that is unique in the training center's history. All the students are to be volunteer EMTs and all are members of Hopewell Valley first aid squads.
Our Hopewell Valley squads are the Pennington First Aid Squad, Union Fire Company and Rescue Squad and Hopewell Fire Department and Emergency Medical Unit. Each squad needs to attract, train, and keep 5-7 new people every year. Over the years, the PFAS has established itself as a State training center, gradually increased the size of its building, the number of instructors, its presence on the internet, and the number of courses it teaches per year to keep getting new volunteers, but what has been seen from this increasing effort is that the PFAS has been teaching more and more students from farther and farther from the Hopewell Valley and retaining fewer of them. The ultimate example of this was the class held last summer. It had 44 graduates, but fewer than half intended to volunteer anywhere. Only five said they wanted to ride with Pennington and only 2 actually still ride.
The PFAS realized it needed to try something different. It decided to restrict a course just to volunteers and just to volunteers from the Hopewell Valley. The PFAS planned to keep the same number of instructors and use them to enrich the student's experience with trips and hands-on in real ambulances from the Squads they had joined. Students toured the Capital Health 911 dispatch center in Trenton, saw demonstrations of Union Fire and Rescue water rescue equipment, and were able to drill on the ambulances they would eventually ride as volunteers. It was hoped this would make volunteering on an ambulance come alive for these students.
Only time will tell if this was a successful strategy, but a comparison of the current class to the previous two classes is impressive. In the 16 months of riding time since the previous two classes, the graduates that joined the PFAS have answered 77 calls. In the 2 months that the students who plan to ride with the PFAS have been eligible to ride as observers, they have answered a staggering 67 calls.
The PFAS was pleased to have many family and friends attend the graduation on Saturday November 20 and particularly pleased to have Hopewell Township Deputy Mayor James Burd give the keynote address and for kind words of support and attendance of Hopewell Borough Councilman Sean Jackson, Hopewell Township Fire Commissioner Michael Chipowsky, Pennington Mayor Anthony Persichilli, Pennington Director of Public Safety Bill Meytrott, Pennington Borough Councilman Edwin "Weed" Tucker, and Hopewell Township Fire Commissioner Cindy Orlandi.
Pictures of the graduation are included in the pictures tab.
Fall 2010 class,
Back row, left to right: Nick Mohacsi, Jack Laufenberg, Chris Krause, Mark Gross, Cassandra Metz, Doug Kabay
Middle row, left to right: Adam Ames, Matt Chrusz, Eric Kranz, Georgia Foley, Kurt Pedersen, Krishna Kusupudi
Front row, left to right: Phil Mohacsi, Shane Baldorossi, Sarah Hopkins, Joan Schwarzwalder, Ben Dafilou
Each year the Knights of Columbus, Council 7103 recognizes a Police Officer, Firefighter, and an EMT from Hopewell Township, Hopewell Borough, and Pennington Borough who has demonstrated outstanding service to their community. This year the PFAS is proud to report that the EMT chosen was Daniel Boone, President of the PFAS, for his nearly 20 year devotion to the squad as President, prime instructor, regular crew chief, organizer of our EMT courses, and, not-incidentally, always in the top 5 or so responders with almost always over 100 calls per year.
Daniel Boone, Shield Award winner cheered on by his friends from PFAS. Back row, left to right:Tom Tedd, Zay Risinger, Tom Steinbacher, Julie Aberger, Allie Freeman, John Muccioli.
There are new forms of the venerable medic alert tag in the field. These medic alert tags have the usual short description engraved on the outside but inside they have a flash drive. When plugged into a computer, a detailed patient history can be downloaded. These USB medic alert tags come as bracelets and neck pendants so they will be found during the usual focused exam. They just need to be recognized as USB flash drives.
We recently encountered one of these for a person with severe nut allergies. The person carries an epinephrine injector, but after using the injector he/she can no longer speak, so the information on the tag may be critical. However, the radius of the tag does not allow the plug to fit into the USB socket on the Panasonic Toughbook so the data cannot be read. We have contacted Panasonic and they suggested a small extension socket which we have obtained and placed in our clipboards. We contacted the manufacturer and they have told us they are redesigning the dog tag.
USB dog tag. A form of medic alert with detailed patient information available for display on ToughBook computer. The slider to extend the plug is shown on the side.
At a recent meeting, the Squad voted to make all its pictures available to the public. There is now a Pictures tab on this page with access to hundreds of pictures old and new.
The Squad is grateful to the family of Jack Post for donating a number of historic pictures including several of our original ambulance, a used 1952 Packard. Jack Post was Captain (1961) of the American Legion First Aid Squad of Pennington, Post No 413. The American Legion First Aid Squad of Pennington was the parent organization of the Pennington First Aid Squad.
Squad members load victims of an auto accident into the 1952 Packard ambulance around 1961. Attendents lifting patient into ambulance are Fred Barrett (left) and Tom Cooper. Experienced EMTs will observe that procedures have changed dramatically since 1961. Can you identify where this picture was taken?
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.
Promised delivery of the re-mounted ambulance 151-1 is now Jun-25.
The so-called "conspicuity striping" on the re-mounted 151-1 is really ugly but sure is easy to see.
The Squad's new policy on standby ambulances is now in effect.
The schedule and registration forms for our summer EMT class have been posted.
The Pennington First Aid Squad responded to 1021 calls in 2009, almost exactly the same as 2008.
The Boro of Pennington accounted for 26% of these calls with most of the remainder in Hopewell Township. Six locations accounted for 23% of our calls: Hopewell Garden Apartments (72), Stony Brook Assisted Living (71), Merrill-Lynch (31), Woolsey Court (26), Bristol-Myers Squibb (16) and Hopewell Township police (16).
The PFAS supplied mutual aid 97 times; to Lawrence (42), Ewing (37), Union (11), Hopewell (5), and Trenton (2). In return, we received mutual aid 43 times, almost all from Hopewell Valley Emergency Services. The mutual aid we provided was down from the 120 calls in 2008 and the mutual aid we received rose from 35 calls in 2008.
Our work could not have been accomplished without the work of the dedicated volunteers who responded to calls, kept our building and ambulances in order, helped with fund drives, and recruited and trained new members. The PFAS training center conducted two complete EMT-B courses and regular, monthly drills this year. Sixty-seven of our members responded to at least one call throughout the year and 17 responded to more than 50 calls.
PFAS salutes the top ten responders for 2009. Together these ten made 1347 responses to calls for help from our community.
PFAS top ten responders for 2009. From top left: Neal Blackwell, Daniel Boone, Richard Gordon, John Muccioli, Jess Niederer, Kristen Orlandi, Kirk Schmitt, Tom Steinbacher, Tom Tedd, and Heather Varrasse
A new section has been added to the "SOP, Skills, Procedures" tab called Manuals. I've attempted to collect and post every manual for every piece of equipment on the ambulances I could find so they're available to the whole squad and not just to those with access to the President's office. Will add more as they become available. Some files are pretty big because some vendors don't seem to have manuals available on line. The paper manuals were scanned in those cases. Login is required.
The President's report on voter eligibility for the 2009 election has been posted.
Receipts for purchase vouchers may now be uploaded in Microsoft Word format. Either the old .DOC format or the new, XML based, .DOCX format may be used, but not all approvers can read the .DOCX format.
Military style tourniquets designed for easy, fast use will now be carried on the ambulances. The tourniquets will be carried in the cravat bags and a check will be added to the weekend rig check to help members remember what the tourniquets look like and where they are found on the ambulances. For further information, follow this link.
Guidelines for controlling bleeding on extremities and for administration of nitroglycerin have changed. Tourniquets are now back in favor and the cut-off systolic pressure for nitroglycerin has been lowered to 100 mm Hg. The skills assessment sheets have been updated to reflect the changes.
Guidelines for Hopewell Valley Squads dealing with suspected swine flu patients have been posted.
Pictures and the program for the 2009 Captain's party have been posted.
A new base station radio has been installed and new, simplified instructions for the home alert test are available.
Pictures from the 2007 Memorial Day Parade at the squad have been added to the collection. Thanks to Julie Aberger for sharing.
Extensive helps for emsCharts have been added to the web site. Each page of a chart is reproduced in the helps. Help for each entry will "pop up" as the user slides the mouse pointer over it.
The Pennington First Aid Squad Responded to 1029 calls in 2008, up 2.7% from 2007.
The Boro of Pennington accounted for 24% of these calls with most of the remainder in Hopewell Township. Five locations accounted for 22% of our calls: Stony Brook Assisted Living (71), Merrill-Lynch (56), Hopewell Garden Apartments (51), Hopewell Township police (30) and Woolsey Court (18).
The PFAS supplied mutual aid to Ewing (52), Lawrence (30), Union (26), Hopewell (7), Princeton (3), and Trenton (2). In return, we received mutual aid 35 times, almost entirely from Hopewell Valley Emergency Services. The mutual aid we provided was up dramatically from 83 calls in 2007 to 120 calls in 2008, but the mutual aid we received dropped from 45 calls to 35 calls.
Our work could not have been accomplished without the work of the dedicated volunteers who responded to calls, kept our building and ambulances in order, helped with fund drives, and recruited and trained new members. The PFAS training center conducted two complete EMT-B courses and regular, monthly drills this year. Sixty-four of our members responded to at least 1 call throughout the year and 20 responded to more than 50 calls.
PFAS salutes the top ten responders for 2008. Together these ten made 1310 responses to calls for help from our community.
PFAS top ten responders for 2008. From top left: Neal Blackwell, Daniel Boone, Richard Gordon, Brian Haig, John Muccioli, Cindy Orlandi, Kristen Orlandi, Zay Risinger, Kirk Schmitt, Tom Tedd
Proud Members of the 2008 Pennington First Aid Squad EMT-B Class pose
for a graduation photo before they take the NJ State EMT exam:
(foreground, l-r) Nicola Burrow, Jacqueline Franzosi, Anna Lyman
(1st row l-r) Ben Cialone, Nathalie Cassion, Raushanah Ali, Yuliya Afinogenova,
Jack Ackerman, Nitzan Ben-David, Kathleen Nase, Emily Benziger, Dawn Ruggie,
Audrey Schlette, Erin Kamleiter, Annmarie Soganic, Troy Sabatura, Nicholas
Smaltino, Laura Murphy, Eric Keeny
(2nd row l-r) Brian Foster, Andrew DeVore, Dan Khan, Greg Bunting,
Tom Falkenberg, Kelsey Ballinger, Gabrielle Schmidt, James Palmer,
Mike Murphy, Jess Williams, Serge Paul, Niklas Hansson, Michael Leahy,
Joe Francisco
CLICK ON PICTURE FOR HIGHER RESOLUTION.
In process of scanning, transcribing, saving old PFAS Monthly Minutes to website. Available in Members section (need login). Complete Minutes 1990-2008. Others to follow
Approximately 250 more PFAS pictures added to the collection.
Anyone seen these TV ads encouraging people to become volunteer EMTs? Some of our PFAS members have cameo appearances.
Pictures from the Memorial Day Parade have been posted in the Members section. Thanks to June Guerard and Bonnie Schmitt for some of these.
Weekend rig checks should now be done on line. Please stop using paper forms.
2008 Infection Control Plan Finalized. See For Members
Pictures from 2008 Captain's Party have been posted in the members only section (finally!)
Congratulations to our latest EMTs, Brielle Hamilton, Dylan Hughes, and Mike Roubo
The 2008 Revision to the Pennington First Aid Squad Infection Control Plan has been posted in the members only section of the web site. Member input on the plan is requested
The Lion's Club Volunteer Recognition Award is presented by the Hopewell Valley Lions Club to members of Hopewell Valley's fire and EMS organizations. On March 30, 2008, the Lion's presented awards for 2006 and 2007 at the Mountain View Golf Course banquet hall. The 2006 recipient from the Pennington First Aid Squad was Julie Aberger, and the 2007 recipient was Cindy Orlandi. These recipients' names will be added to a plaque hanging in Pennington Borough Hall listing honorees from previous years.
Hopewell Valley Lions Club 2006/2007 Fire and EMS Awardees. Click on picture for higher resolution.
The drill for the April meeting will start at 17:30. Please see the training link for details.
New street, Silver's Court, added to directory.
Pictures from Captain's Party will be posted as soon as they are made available.
All PFAS EMTs must take "Right to Know" and "Blood Borne Pathogens" each year. Courses are being offered Saturday February 9 at 0800-1200, Wednesday February 20 at 1900-2300, Tuesday February 26 at 0800-1200. Sign up in the radio room.
Results are slowly dribbling in from the state. Congratulations to Wendella Doggett and Brian Haig, two more new EMTs.
Congratulations to our new EMTs: Lauren Apgar, Kyle Heys, Jessica Niederer, Kristen Orlandi, Kelly Thompson, and Morgan Zang. Hope to see you on many calls soon.
We expect to see more new EMTs on this list when the State finishes grading the tests for our other new students.
PFAS salutes the top ten responders for 2007; Julianna Aberger, Neal Blackwell, Daniel Boone, Ellyn Gerberding, Richard Gordon, John Muccioli, Zay Risinger, Kirk Schmitt, Tom Tedd, and Heather Varrasse. Together these ten responded to 1379 calls for help from our community.
PFAS top ten responders for 2007
Daily rig checks may now be done on line. Members are urged to try it and send feedback to the Assistant Captain. We expect this will result in faster correction of problems and better inventory control. The form is in the forms section for members only.
Individual loginIDs and passwords were issued to members tonight for access to the "for members" portion of this website. If you did not get one, call the Assistant Captain. The generic loginID and password will be retired in two weeks.
The new Ferno stretchers and Stat Trac fastening systems purchased with a grant from Merrill-Lynch have arrived and are being installed. Ambulance 151-3 was the first converted.
All members are urged to practice with the new system before they need to use them. A training session will be held at 18:30 11-Dec-2007, preceding the regular monthly meeting.
Some new rules for filling out emsCharts will be discussed by the Captain at the next monthly meeting, 11-Dec-2007.
We are pleased to announce the graduation of 35 students from the Pennington First Aid Squad's fall EMT-B class. The graduation ceremony took place November 17 at the Hopewell Township Municipal building where an overflow crowd heard talks from our education director Julie Aberger and Hopewell Township Police Chief George Meyer. The video "New Jersey Volunteer EMS Opens Doors was also shown followed by presentation of diplomas and an expression of thanks and gifts from the class to the instructors.
Of the 35 students, 13 will ride with PFAS, 8 with Titusville, and 5 with Hopewell. The importance of volunteers to the Hopewell valley was emphasized by the fact that the PFAS was toned out for two EMS calls during the graduation ceremony.
Fall 2007 EMT-B class
Knox Boxes are now operational on all three ambulances.
Our thanks to Merrill Lynch for a special grant of $15000 to replace our stretchers and stretcher mounting system.
Robert Krukowski, Director Hopewell Facilities and Helene Garcia, Director Community & Strategic Initiatives present check to President Daniel Boone, Captain Cindy Orlandi, and First Assistant Captain Kirk Schmitt
