MOUNT VERNON – Now 33 years old, newly appointed Mount Vernon Fire Department Captain Trevor Williams recalled his youth, when he wouldn’t always follow backseat rules.
Williams wouldn’t always wear his seat belt properly and would sometimes crawl around the backseat of his grandmother’s Lincoln, he admitted.
“We all broke some rules a little bit,” he said to the crowd of Baldwin Shrine Club members at the fire station on Wednesday morning. “But now they’re saying keep them in their car seats longer, secure them better.”
Much older now, Williams understands the importance of proper backseat behavior, and he demonstrated the future of emergency pediatric transportation safety on Wednesday in front of club members and Mayor Richard Mavis.
With a donation from the Baldwin Shrine Club, the fire department was able to purchase two new child restraint systems to be used in their ambulances.
One is the Pedi-Mate Plus, a seat with multiple connecting straps that will serve as a high-level car seat for children who are involved in an accident and need to be transported to a hospital via ambulance. This will fit children anywhere from 10 to 100 pounds and is an upgrade from the station’s current Pedi-Mate restraint systems, which will only work for children up to 60 or 75 pounds.
Williams said this restraint keeps the department up-to-date with the ever-changing state laws concerning car seats. Currently, children less than four years old or 40 pounds must use a child safety seat meeting federal motor vehicle safety standards. Children less than eight years old, unless they are at least four feet, nine inches tall must use a booster seat. Children ages eight to 15 years old must use a child safety seat or safety belt as well.
“Once the weight and height requirements started to go up, we needed to have a better security system,” Williams said.
The second restraint system that was donated is the Neo-Mate, which is tailored towards infants. Along with numerous safety straps, which connect behind the stretcher on which the child is being transported, the system also includes a semi-circle pad that secures the infant’s head.
Williams likened the systems to a $200 or $300 car seat that a parent might buy for their child. While the department had used different modes of emergency child transportation safety in the past, he said this is by far the safest and most advanced technology they’ve seen.
“It keeps us up-to-speed, being a progressive department like we are,” Williams said. “We’re able to stay up-to-date with rules and regulations for children.”
Williams believes that the Mount Vernon Fire Department is likely one of the first in the country to acquire the Neo-Mate technology and that they are likely the first in Knox County to acquire the Pedi-Mate Plus, although other local fire departments have different types of pediatric transportation capabilities.
“There’s nothing safer than this right now,” Williams said. “We’re now prepared to transport them safer, we can transport them better.
“As far as 911 response (units), we’re probably the first in the area to do this.”
The Baldwin Shrine Club, based in Mount Vernon, presented the fire department with a $597.98 check on Wednesday to cover the costs of the new safety devices. This is money the club raised during its Poker Run fundraiser, which is a motorcycle ride in Knox County.
Club president Chuck Law said $10,000 was donated by the late Dick Dailey at last year’s Poker Run, which helped fund the purchase of the fire department’s new devices. While Dailey was not a Shrine Club member, Law said he was a close friend and someone who wanted to see the money put to use in the community.
Dailey’s vision of putting the community first is shared by the Shrine Club.
“We as a club have said that most of our money is going to be spent with our own kids and our own county,” Law said. “We feel that we need to take care of our own county because there’s a lot of need here in our own county and this is what we’re bound to do as Shriners.”
Eight Shrine Club members were present on Wednesday to learn about the new devices and confer the check. The Baldwin Shrine Club has around 70 members total, Law said, and the club mainly focuses its efforts towards serving the community. The club also transports children to hospitals across the state and to Philadelphia for major orthopedic surgeries.
Williams said that eventually the department hopes to acquire two more Pedi-Mate Plus systems, so that they can have one for all three ambulances. Right now, they will use regular Pedi-Mate devices in the other two ambulances.
It is hard to estimate how many children the station has to transport on a monthly basis, Williams said, although numbers seem to be higher in the summer months due to kids spending more time outside and less time in the classroom.
Williams and fire chief Chad Christopher both expressed gratitude towards the Shrine Club for their donation, as they noted the importance of making emergency transportation safe for the community’s youth.
“When children are in vehicles, no matter if it’s an ambulance, a small car, truck or anything, children are smaller, they’re flexible and they bend when they’re not secured,” Williams said. “Even with a seatbelt on a kid, it can make them bend in the wrong places at the wrong times in the wrong ways.”
“I hope we don’t have to use this,” Williams said, holding the new Pedi-Mate Plus in his hands. “But we’ve got to be ready.”
