Thursday, March 20, 2014
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Youngstown police officer Tim Edwards, left, Goshen police officer Anthony Pilolli and Ed Villone, commander of the Youngstown State University Peace Officer Training Academy, stand Wednesday with awards Edwards and Pilolli won for saving the lives of a baby and a person at a gym, respectively, in January. Both are graduates of the academy.
By Joe Gorman
YOUNGSTOWN
Tim Edwards and Anthony Pilolli are both young police officers who already have done something a lot of veteran cops have not: saved a life.
The two were honored Wednesday by the Youngstown State University Peace Officer Training Academy as each was presented with the American Heart Association Heartsaver Award.
Edwards, a rookie officer for the Youngstown Police Department, and a Marine veteran of Afghanistan, was honored for saving the life of an 8-month-old baby in January in a South Side home on just his third day on patrol. He performed chest compressions on the baby when he arrived with his partner and saw the baby on her back and not breathing.
The baby died at the hospital about a week later. However, ambulance crews said that Edwards likely saved her at the home so she could be transported to the hospital.
Pilolli, a Goshen Township police officer and a paramedic for Lane Ambulance Service, was honored for saving a man at a gym in Boardman in January who was having a heart attack. He was off duty at the time.Both are graduates of the academy. Pilolli earned his peace-officer certification from the academy in 2012.
Both also received proclamations from the state Senate for their actions.
Ed Villone, a former Struthers police captain and commander of the academy, said the training the two received was crucial because that’s what they fell back on in a crisis situation. Training, Villone said, is the key to reacting in a crisis.
“You react to how you’re trained. That’s why you’re trained,” Villone said. “It’s been scientifically proven that you fall back on your training in a crisis situation.”
Murphy Miller, a firefighter for Niles and Matt Ozanich, a firefighter from Champion, were instructors for both Edwards and Pilolli in lifesaving techniques. They said what the two did was impressive, especially because it is hard for some medical professionals to react the way they did in a crisis situation.
“It doesn’t happen very often,” Ozanich said.
Ozanich said the training also is important for police officers because they sometimes feel hesitant to perform CPR at a scene because that job usually falls to a paramedic or someone in the fire service.