FIRST RESPONDERS EARN RECOGNITION
CHELMSFORD » The Chelmsford Police Department held a ceremony last week to recognize a group of officers who saved the lives of residents or went above and beyond their duties over the last year.
Many of the officers received the Meritorious Service Award for Lifesaving, including Officer Christopher Robinson, a fouryear veteran of the department, who responded to a call for a man who was choking. Robinson performed the Heimlich maneuver to dislodge the object, saving the man’s life.
Sgt. Matthew Fernald and Officers Matthew Kilmartin, Craig Mead, Derek Tyros and Nicholas Thayer received the same award after responding to a call of a man who had turned unresponsive at a local gym. The officers found the man had gone into cardiac arrest, and worked as a team to perform chest compressions, insert an airway and deploy an automated external defibrillator to keep the man alive before EMS arrived.
Officer Kevin Quinn and retired Officer Tony Spinazola similarly responded to a call for a person experiencing cardiac arrest in a motor vehicle. The pair was able to remove the individual from the vehicle to perform CPR and administer three shocks with a defibrillator. The person’s pulse soon returned and they were able to be transferred to the care of EMS.
Last summer, a group of local first responders, mostly consisting of Chelmsford officers, were on a hike together in New Hampshire when one of them, Sgt. Stephen Fredericks, began to suffer a serious medical emergency. At the time, the group was about 5 miles from the nearest road, so they called for a New Hampshire Army National Guard helicopter to airlift Fredericks out. They had to carry him to the summit of the mountain they were on, so they created a makeshift device to easily do so. Though they made it to the summit, it ended up being too dangerous for the helicopter to land, so the group of officers and firefighters made a makeshift shelter on the mountain so they could wait for the Androscoggin Valley Search and Rescue Team.
When the team finally arrived, they and the group of hikers undertook a six-hour effort to carry Fredericks down the mountain.
“The invaluable contribution of the trained rescuers and the team work of the group of hikers that are before you today ensured a positive outcome during the 12-hour rescue,” Chelmsford Police Chief Colin Spence said at the ceremony.
The first responders who helped to save Fredericks included Lt. William Carlo, Sgt. Robert Brown, Officer Kaleigh Marshall, clinician Rachel Beers, Chelmsford firefighter Ken Labrecque, Lowell fire
fighter Aaron Patterson, Joe Weiler, Michael Koechlin and Maya Dube. For that group’s efforts, each of them were awarded the Meritorious
Service Award for Lifesaving, and Fredericks ultimately made a full recovery and has since returned to duty.
Detective Jeffrey Blodgett was given the Meritorious Service Award for Outstanding Performance of Duty.
Blodgett has been a member of the Chelmsford Police Department for 30 years, 23 of which were spent working as a detective.
Blodgett has six previous Meritorious Service Awards, and in his personnel file are various
positive letters from crime victims and their families, as well as from the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office. He was presented with the award in recognition of his performance as an officer over his three-decade career.