EAST HAVEN

On July 25, East Haven Mayor Joseph Carfora announced in a press release that the East Haven Fire Department (EHFD) was awarded more than $173,000 in federal funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Assistance to Firefighters Grant program. The funds will be directed toward the acquisition of diesel exhaust removal systems for three town-owned fire stations and 12 automated external defibrillators (AEDs) for all department vehicles.

This latest funding, totalling $173,317.27, is on top of $1.79 million the department has been awarded through the federal program since 2017. The funding garnered support from East Haven representatives in Hartford in State Representative Joseph Zullo and Senator Paul Cicarella.

The current exhaust systems at the three town-owned first stations—Foxon, Bradford Manor, and Headquarters—are “now between 20 and 30 years old” and “have become obsolete and costly to repair,” according to the town. Those three stations will see their outdated systems replaced by “state-of-the-art” diesel exhaust systems, while every fire apparatus and support vehicle which those stations house will be equipped with new biphasic AEDs.

According to Fire Chief Matt Marcarelli, the new exhaust systems “are essential to prevent diesel exhaust, a known carcinogen, from entering living quarters” at the stations.

Carfora lauded Marcarelli for his continued efforts to secure grants for his department to help “minimize the financial burden on the town” in a statement made in the press release.

“I commend him for his work on this highly competitive grant, and I am pleased to support his effort,” said Carfora. “The installation of new diesel exhaust removal systems is a critical step in mitigating the risk of occupational cancers for our firefighters, while the AEDs will be a vital resource available to any first responder, regardless of the vehicle they are on. This equipment is essential to the safety of both our great team of firefighters and the public."

The FEMA grant is especially important for the installation of the exhaust systems since the frequency and cost of repair go up as the older units get older, according to Marcarelli.

“We’ve had to do some costly repairs to them over the years, and the ability for us to source parts for them has become more difficult,” he said. “Doing a cost-benefit analysis, it was a grant that we thought was low-hanging fruit, and we went for it.”

The new systems will recover exhaust from all of the fire department’s vehicles, venting it outside of the stations, “as opposed to migrating it up into the living quarters,” said Marcarelli.

This includes the Main Street Headquarters Station, where systems have not been operating properly, Marcarelli added.

The new systems will also serve as a health benefit to East Haven firefighters. Marcarelli said that “over the past several years, there's been an increase in awareness of occupational cancers,” which the new system’s method of venting exhaust away from the town stations can help its service people avoid.

New technology to protect lives is also the case for the new AED units, one of which will be placed in every fire truck and staff car of the department. Marcarelli said this will expand the ability of the fire department to use this kind of “truly life-saving” technology in the case of an emergency in any part of town.

“No matter where we are in town, if one of our vehicles is there, and there's a person driving it—if they come upon an incident or they're closer to an incident that's dispatched, they'll have the ability to utilize that defibrillator,” said Marcarelli.

Marcarelli said the more effective biphasic technology of the AEDs “integrate better with our defibrillators that we currently have on the paramedic trucks” and can be used without the use of an adapter. He added that they are also “self-promoting” defibrillators which provide instructions of precisely what to do from the moment the machine is opened.

“[If you] place them on a patient who’s gone into cardiac arrest, it will assess their rhythm and tell you if it's shockable. And if it is shockable, it will indicate to you to shock the person,” he said.

While major public buildings in East Haven—including the ice rink, the Town Beach house, and all public schools—are currently equipped with AED units, Marcarelli said that one of the goals with the newly acquired defibrillators to is see an increase of them in school buildings.

Marcarelli said he hopes to see his department and the East Haven Board of Education partner in the future to increase the number of AEDs in their facilities by “repurposing our older units which can be used by civilians” with an aspiration of having one on each floor of the high school.

“It’s very important for the chain of survival that, coupled with early recognition, early CPR and early defibrillation improves the survival rates of patients who suffer sudden cardiac arrest,” he said.