Mon Valley leaders plan for emergency situations
MONONGAHELA – A Washington County public safety official, the Monongahela mayor and several police officials from the Mon Valley met briefly at Monongahela City Hall Wednesday to discuss coordination of emergency responses among municipalities.
Mayor Bob Kepics; Monongahela police Chief Brian Tempest and Sgt. Dennis Mendicino; Washington County Deputy Director of Public Safety Ron Sicchitano; and Carroll Township police Chief Paul Brand attended the roughly 20-minute, informal morning meeting.
Kepics said he organized the discussion because “you know what can happen at any given time” and said he’d hoped for a better turnout among mayors and police chiefs from other nearby towns in Allegheny, Westmoreland and Washington counties.
“I’d like to have another one of these in the fall maybe with more response to try to keep everybody on the same base of what’s going on,” Kepics said.
Among the ongoing measures discussed was the federal “Stop the Bleed” initiative. Sicchitano said area trauma hospitals are working together to coordinate training efforts to make techniques to control life-threatening blood loss more widely known.
“What we’re doing is teaching people, not only the general public to take care of each other, also the first responders to take care of themselves using tourniquets and the different capabilities of that and having what are called BCK, or bleeding control kits.”
He said those involved are seeking funding to install the BCK kits alongside automatic external defibrillators commonly posted on the wall in many public spaces.