Lyndonville Foundation gives towards EMS training equipment at East Shelby

Photo by Tom Rivers

EAST SHELBY – The Lyndonville Area Foundation has approved a $9,700 grant to the East Shelby Volunteer Fire Company for EMS training equipment. East Shelby trains many of the EMTs in Orleans and nearby counties.

Lyndonville Foundation representatives met at the East Shelby fire hall on Monday evening to see some of the new equipment.

Pictured from left include Mike Fuller, an EMT and certified instructor coordinator; Norm Behrend, CIC; Russ Martino, treasurer of Lyndonville Area Foundation; Harold Sure, EMT and foundation board member; Sue Behrend, EMS coordinator at East Shelby and CIC; and Gary Lamar, a Shelby firefighter in the EMS continuing medical education recertification program.

East Shelby just had 20 EMTs students take their practical skills exam. Behrend leads the four-month training program that starts in August. Classes are twice a week, and sometimes additionally on Saturday.

The new equipment includes two mannequins to train on opening airways and properly do suctions. The mannequins will be used to practice inserting an oropharyngeal airway (OPA), which is is a medical device in airway management to maintain or open a patient’s airway. The students also will insert a nasopharyngeal airway (NPA), which is a thin, clear, flexible tube into a nostril.

There is also a new childbirth mannequin at left to practice birthing scenarios, from breached birth, normal child births and the umbilical cord around the baby’s neck.

The grant from the Foundation also paid for a hemorrhage control kit to practice “Stop the Bleed” from gunshot wounds, punctures or other cases with big open wounds. The EMS class often used a Nerf ball to simulate “Stop the Bleed.”

The EMS program also now has two emergency traction splints, and padded wood splints to assist the class in training to move people with broken legs and other injuries.

Harold Suhr, an EMT for 25 years, also is on the Foundation board of directors. He said East Shelby is training and recertifying many of the EMTs in the county, as well as eastern Niagara and Genesee. That includes an EMT in Lyndonville, and many who respond to calls in Lyndonville.

“This really saves lives,” Suhr said about enhancing the training for EMTs.