Three peoples’ lives were saved in Cranberry Township in less than one month due to the help of bystanders and the quick response time of EMS and police.
Ted Fessides- Chief of Cranberry Township Emergency Medical Service- said crews were dispatched to three separate incidents in recent weeks- including two people who went into sudden cardiac arrest and a third who suffered severe laceration to a major vein.
In each case, Fessides says it was the combination of bystanders who knew what to do, and the emergency response in Cranberry, as the reasons all three people are recovering.
“They all had people stepping up and taking action, and not waiting for police or an ambulance to show up,” Fessides said in an interview Tuesday. “If we wait that long, we’re so far behind the eight ball.”
Crews were recently dispatched to a “man down” call only to pull up on scene and find bystanders administering CPR, according to Brian Dambaugh, Crew Chief for Cranberry Township Emergency Medical Service. The crew took over resuscitative efforts with assistance from Cranberry police and a backup ambulance crew. On this not-so-typical day, a healthy individual that went into sudden cardiac arrest was successfully resuscitated and is continuing to recover each day thanks to by-stander CPR and quick responses by Police and EMS, according to Dambaugh.
Again, in mid-March, crews responded to another sudden cardiac arrest. Police beat EMS on scene this time and began CPR and applied an Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) to deliver a shock.
“The combination of rapid basic life support measures with a full Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) protocol by EMS clearly saved this man’s life,” Fessides said.
In the third incident, crews were dispatched to a scene where a patient suffered a severe laceration to a major vein. Using “Stop the Bleed” training, first responder police units packed the wound with clot forming bandages and stopped the bleeding. The victim was then further stabilized by EMS and transported to a helipad to be flown to a trauma center in Pittsburgh for further care.
While Fessides had high praise for his crews, he was also quick to point out that Cranberry Township reaps great benefit from the systems of emergency response in the community that are built on all three public safety sectors: EMS, Police and Fire.
“All three departments cross train and plan together to ensure that our responses are rapid but also coordinated so that our efforts produce the best results,” he said.
However, emergency responders can get a huge assist by members of the public already at the scene.
“We need the community just as much as they need us,” he said.
Cranberry Township EMS offers citizen training on emergency procedures on the third Saturday of even months. Residents are taught CPR, how to use an AED and how to control sudden and severe bleeding.
You can sign up for classes online.
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