East Lake Fire Rescue Hosts Blood Drive

Donating blood saves lives, in fact, it saved one of our firefighters back in 2005. For our March Blood Drive, we are sharing Lieutenant Sullivan’s story: “On February 5, 2005, I was working construction while going to paramedic school. On my way home from work I was involved in a bad head on collision. I was ejected through the windshield and bayflited to St. Joseph’s hospital in Tampa. I had lost 2/3 of my blood and required several emergency blood transfusions. After several surgeries and months of rehab learning to walk again, I returned to finish paramedic school and got hired with East Lake Fire Rescue the following year.”

East Lake Fire Rescue will be hosting a blood drive on Wednesday, March 15th, from 10:30am to 3pm at station 57 located at 3375 Tarpon Lake Blvd., Palm Harbor, FL 34685. All donors will receive a St. Patrick’s Day t-shirt, a $20 eGift Card, and a wellness checkup that includes blood pressure, temperature, iron count, pulse, and a cholesterol screening. To schedule an appointment, visit www.oneblood.org/donate-now/ and you can either search by zip code or type in sponsor code 59152. For more information on this event, visit the East Lake Fire Rescue Facebook page.

East Lake Fire Rescue Promotes New Division Chief

On January 3^rd, 2023 Lieutenant Matt Wirth was promoted to Division Chief. Chief Wirth has been a Firefighter Paramedic with East Lake Fire Rescue since July 23, 2012. Wirth has served a total of 16 years in the EMS/Fire field including his time with East Lake Fire Rescue, Madeira Beach Fire Department, Sunstar Paramedics and as a tactical medic for the Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office. He has been very involved in the department serving as chairman for the hiring committee and a Continuing Medical Education instructor for the department and Pinellas County EMS. Chief Wirth has completed his Florida State Fire Pump Operator Certification, Fire Officer 1, 2 and 3 Certification and Instructor 1. He is a Florida State Fire Inspector and is currently working on his master’s degree program in Public Administration. Please help us congratulate Chief Wirth on his promotion!

East Lake Fire Rescue Attends North County Training

Throughout the month of January, firefighters from East Lake Fire Rescue attended the Air Consumption Drill at the North Pinellas County Training. During this training, firefighters went through a series of stations including multiple hose dragging activities, ladder retrieval and raise, sledgehammer strikes, victim drag and a flight of stairs while in full gear and breathing air from their self-contained breathing apparatus. The firefighters are encouraged to complete as many tasks as possible before their low-pressure alarm sounds. The instructors document the amount of air in the firefighter’s cylinder before the drill starts and when the low-pressure alarm sounds. The goal of this drill is to build knowledge of personal air consumption and encourage endurance. 

East Lake Fire Rescue Hands-Only CPR Training

East Lake Fire Rescue jumped right into American Heart Month by starting off February at the Calvary Church to share Hands-Only CPR with East Lake Middle School students! During the event, students were able to practice compressions on mannequins and they were provided with an American Heart Association hands-only CPR handout. Fire and Life Safety Educator Hernandez also provided a hands-only CPR lesson for the East Lake Middle School morning news, which is shared with the entire school and reached a total of 396 students!

East Lake Fire Rescue’s January 2023 Peer Recognition Award

East Lake Fire Rescue’s Firefighter Tyler Hyde received the January 2023 Peer Recognition Award. FF Hyde was recognized by his peers for going above and beyond in 3 separate incidents.

#1: FF Hyde saw students walking home from school and he asked his crew if they could pull over to brighten their day! Hyde and his crew grabbed plastic fire helmets from the truck and distributed them to the students on the spot. The students and their parents loved this!

#2: FF Hyde ran a call for a lift assist. The homeowner (a veteran) said they kept struggling to get up because they didn’t have a grab bar on the wall to assist them. FF Hyde (also a veteran) purchased a grab bar on his day off and personally took it to the patient’s home on his next shift. The homeowner was extremely thankful.

#3: FF Hyde was off duty and driving through the district with his family when he rolled up on the scene of a single-vehicle motor vehicle accident. FF Hyde cleared the scene and started patient assessment prior to E58’s arrival.

 East Lake Fire Rescue would like to congratulate Firefighter Tyler Hyde on receiving this award.