Action Ambulance Donates AED to Pittsfield Inspection Offices
 Lance Beauchamp, head of education and training for Action Ambulance, show Public Health Nurse Manager Deborah Rice an AED being donated by Action for the city's inspection departments at 100 North St. |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — City workers now at 100 North St. have quick and easy access to an AED thanks to Action Ambulance.
The ambulance company donated a wall-mounted automated external defibrillator unit to the city's Health Department on Monday and has trained about 10 employees how to operate it. The machine is now easily accessible instead of asking an employee to bring one from nearby City Hall in an emergency.
"Knowledge is power and now we have the power to save a life," said Public Health Nurse Manager Deborah Rice, when she accepted the donation.
Employees in the city's Health Department went through the trainings and now the ambulance company is training other employees in other departments. According to Vice President of Operations Jim Scolforo, the city reached out to Action Ambulance for cardiopulmonary resuscitation training and company officials "took it a strep further" with the donation.
"It's a longstanding thing in which we try to work with communities," Scolforo said.
There are currently two AEDs in City hall but there wasn't one at 100 North St., where the inspection departments were moved to earlier this year.
"This is greatly appreciated. We hope we don't need it but it is a good thing to have around," Mayor Daniel Bianchi said.
Lance Beauchamp, who heads the education and training at Action Ambulance's local office, said the emergency responders hold many trainings for organizations and for individuals at its West Housatonic Street offices. It will also send instructors to a large company to provide training if there are enough people signed up and space to hold a class.
Tags: AED, ambulance service, CPR training, donations, inspections office,
