CANFIELD Fire district wins national award for external-defibrillator program

The community's the real winner, says its fire chief.
By JEANNE STARMACK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
CANFIELD -- The only bigger deal than winning the annual Heart Safe Community Award, in Fire Chief Robert Tieche's estimation, is being invited to the White House.
Well, a trip to Washington, D.C., wasn't in the cards for members of the Cardinal Joint Fire District.
But a trip to Las Vegas was, all because of a successful program that distributes Automated External Defibrillators and teaches people to use them.
In April, Tieche and deputy chief Don Hutchison made the trip on behalf of the department and its Public Access Defibrillation program. There at the yearly Fire-Rescue Med convention at the Orleans Hotel, the district was lauded as the 2006 award winner.
The district, which serves the City of Canfield and Canfield Township, was chosen by the International Association of Fire Chiefs' EMS Section out of 30 nominations nationwide in the population-under-100,000 category. The award was sponsored by the association and by Medtronic, the company that makes the AEDs the Cardinal district uses.
The engraved crystal award finally got to the fire station last week, mailed because the one that was supposed to be presented April 25 at the convention was broken.
Community support
Tieche said winning it was overwhelming. But, he said, it's the Canfield community that's the real winner.
"This community has supported this program," Tieche said. "We couldn't have done it on our own."
Now, there are 31 AEDs, which allow people to give a defibrillation shock to someone in sudden cardiac arrest, throughout the city and township. Tieche estimates 250 people have been trained in CPR and AED use since the program began two years ago.
Tieche said the district's program started with "a couple of quick meetings."
He said that he, Hutchison and EMS director Rob Tieche sat down and reviewed the program, which is through the American Heart Association and various companies that sell AEDs.
They picked Medtronic to work with because of equipment they already had.
Better than expected
"We kicked the program off in May 2004 with a placement of an AED at the baseball club on Shields Road," he said.
"We wanted to place 25 AEDs within two years of the kickoff." But within 15 months, the district had placed 27. The first one was donated by a father and son who wanted to remain anonymous, and the rest were funded by private donations as well.
The program gained notice in the Mahoning Valley, Tieche said, and it was Chip Comstock, chief of the Western Reserve Joint Fire District, who nominated it for the award.
Perhaps the most notice the program has had was April 4, 2005, when Canfield Fairgrounds worker Jim Kellgreen collapsed from a severe heart attack outside a building on the grounds. Five people used their program training and the defibrillator from the fairgrounds office to save his life.