Kids & Family

Mineola Lions Helps Volunteer Ambulance Corps. Purchase Equipment

Lions club donates $3,000 for new carbon monoxide detectors for firefighters.

The following article was posted by Geoffrey Walter. It was submitted by the Mineola Lions Club.

The Mineola Lions Club recently donated $3,000 to the Mineola Volunteer Ambulance Corps. (MVAC) for the purchase three Masimo RAD-57 devices.

The Rad-57 device is instrumental in evaluating if a person exposed to carbon monoxide (CO) gas. MVAC operates three advanced life support (ALS) ambulances and now each ambulance will be equipped with one device.

Emergency service personnel recommend that everyone should have CO meters in their homes. If a CO meter sounds, regardless of how you feel, you should call the fire department. MVAC accompanies the Mineola Fire Department in these types of calls. As the firefighters ascertain the source of CO, while wearing their self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), the EMTs from MVAC will evaluate all persons previously inside the building using these Rad-57 devices. The evaluations are quick, painless and not invasive. Most people have been to a medical office in the past few years, and had a clip placed on their finger to evaluate their oxygen saturation. The Rad-57 works in a similar fashion, yet it also evaluates any traces of CO gas in their system.

These devices will also be used to evaluate all firefighters who have been exposed to CO gas as the result of a structure fire. New protocols are in place so that each firefighter gets evaluated prior to leaving the scene. Cardiac arrest is the number one cause of death in the fire service, and usually occurs many hours after the actual fire. In the past, a firefighter would leave the scene, having been exposed to CO, go home and go to sleep as they are tired. However, they do not realize they are tired as a result of the CO they have inhaled. Now if a firefighter registers high CO levels at the scene they will be rapidly transported to the hospital.

Carbon monoxide is odorless, tasteless and invisible, and if a person has inhaled CO gas the only symptoms may be fatigue and muscle aches, however these are late symptoms. The Rad-57 will be able to evaluate a person quickly, and if needed, MVAC will transport toan appropriate hospital with a hyperbaric chamber. High pressure oxygen in a hyperbaric chamber may be the only way to force the CO gas from your blood stream, and the only two hospitals in Nassau County are Winthrop University Hospital and the Nassau University Medical Center.

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