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News
February 5, 2020 THE OBSERVER
FUEMS Looks to Lincoln Center
Fordham University Emergency Medical Services (FUEMS) created a Lincoln Center committee on Sept. 29, in order to make the club more accessible to students at the Fordham Lincoln Center (FLC) campus. However, as a club founded at Rose Hill, it has yet to be recognized as an official club by the Office of Student Involvement at Lincoln Center. FUEMS started as a club in 1977 under the name “Student Emergency Response Group’’ (SERG). It was founded by Bruce Nedelka, Fordham College at Rose Hill (FCRH) ’79, who had the idea of providing student-run emergency services on the Rose Hill campus. This was before emergency vehicles or paramedics existed. “They would literally just run around with this little bag of medical supplies,” Nate Singh, FCRH ’20 and director of FUEMS, said. It wasn’t until 1988, when Fordham became a certified Emergency Medical Service (EMS) agency operating under the New York State Department of Health regulations, that SERG became FUEMS, according to Singh. “Our main goal is just to provide medical services for our fellow Fordham students,” said Brielle Intorica, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’20 and the Lincoln Center committee chair of FUEMS. Intorica explained that when there is a medical emergency, Public Safety contacts the FUEMS office, and then FUEMS dispatches one of their EMS-certified Fordham students to the scene of injury, who attends to the situation. Some of the medical emergencies FUEMS has seen include intoxication cases and cardiac arrests that have occurred at graduation, according to Intorica. Singh believes that about 40% of FUEMS members are trained Emergency Medical Technicians (EMT). After submitting an application for training, the club provides free EMT training to Fordham students accepted into the course. “EMT classes can be upwards of $200, so to have it right on campus and for free is amazing,” Intorica said. She is currently enrolled in the pre-med program at Fordham and emphasized that FUEMS is incredibly useful as a pre-med student. “I think that FUEMS is
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By KATRINA LAMBERT Asst. News Editor
www.fordhamobserver.com
By GUS DUPREE News Editor
ANNA KRYZANEKAS/THE OBSERVER
A group of certified EMT Fordham students hopes to expand FUEMS programming to Lincoln Center.
the perfect way to make that transition from studying medicine to practicing medicine.” Beyond hands-on medical experience, Intorica said that through FUEMS, “you learn how to think on your feet, you learn to adapt to changes in a situation, develop a lot of courage and, it sounds silly, but you learn how to talk to people.” Because of these benefits, the club decided to expand their reach and become accessible to FLC students. Intorica heard about FUEMS her junior year through Alexandra Rebosura, FCLC ’18. Before this, Intorica had never heard of the club around FLC. “I was a bit of a sore thumb sticking out at FUEMS. Not even the pre-med department mentioned it,” she said. Currently, there are approximately 200 total members in FUEMS, and only around 20 to 25 of those are FLC students, Singh said. During the fall 2019 semester, Singh approached Intorica with the idea of making a FUEMS Lincoln Center committee. She said that she loved the idea and was ecstatic when he also asked her to chair the committee. However, Singh clarified that in bringing FUEMS to FLC, the club won’t be adding student-run emergency medical services to the Manhattan campus.
“There’s really not a demand for that at Lincoln Center. Because the student population is a lot less, the way the campus is structured — especially with the amount of hospitals around the campus — logistically there is not much reason to have a fully functioning EMS,” he said. Singh said the plan for the FUEMS Lincoln Center committee is to facilitate more of their club initiatives, such as its CPR services and blood drives, spreading the word about FUEMS around the campus, and facilitating easier involvement for FLC students who want to join. The commitment to be involved with FUEMS as an FLC student is more time-consuming than it would be as a Rose Hill student, Intorica said. This is mainly because the FUEMS office is located at Rose Hill and the club holds bi-weekly training sessions on Sundays in the Bronx as well. However, the FLC committee has already worked to solve some of these inconveniences by acquiring free Ram Van passes for club members and trying to move some of the Sunday training sessions down to Lincoln Center. One of the issues that FUEMS has run into with implementing its programs at Lincoln Center is that it has not gone through the United Student Government’s club recognition process yet, and therefore
it is not formally recognized as a Lincoln Center club. “We can operate at Lincoln Center, but trying to operate based out of Rose Hill can sometimes get a little complicated in terms of room reservations and coordinating things,” Singh said. In order to become a formal club, FUEMS would have to write a new constitution with different policies and procedures from its Rose Hill counterpart. Singh said that is something they are looking into but have run into some trouble logistically. “What we’re doing right now is very much in its infancy stage, so problems that pop up are expected,” he said. He emphasized that no one at FLC has been obstructing them from becoming a club. Both Singh and Intorica said they are optimistic for their future on the FLC committee. “We have seen the highest number of applicants for EMTs at Lincoln Center this year since the committee has been created,” Intorica said. The committee hosted a blood drive on Feb. 4 and has plans for CPR training during the week of Valentine’s Day and mental health first aid training in April. “I don’t care if you are an art major, a business major, it doesn’t really matter; we take people from all fields,” Singh said. “It isn’t just for people who are interested in medicine, it is for everyone.”
140 West Building Evacuated Due to Valve Leak By GILLIAN RUSSO Arts & Culture Editor
GUS DUPREE/THE OBSERVER
When steam started to rise, FDNY trucks and Con Edison arrived on scene.
On Friday, Jan. 31, a damaged safety valve caused a steam release on the roof of the 140 West 62nd Street Building, forcing a building-wide evacuation and all the building’s classes and club events to be canceled for the evening. The fire safety director came onto the building’s P.A. system at 6:30 p.m., alerting occupants that an alarm had been set off which prompted an investigation. A second announcement followed five minutes later, ordering all students and staff to evacuate. Small crowds gathered on the sidewalk in front of the building and across West 62nd Street, watching a plume of steam billow from the roof. Fire crews appeared on the scene but were not called into the building. Con Edison arrived around 7 p.m. to begin repairing the damaged valve. “It resulted from a faulty safety relief valve that activated,”
John Carroll, associate vice president of Fordham Public Safety, wrote in an email. “That particular safety valve was damaged due to the Con Ed shutdown over the last weeks. Our Facilities team isolated that valve and a redundant safety system was put on line providing heat / hot water needed.” The leak occurred hours after Public Safety announced Con Edison had “repaired the damaged steam pipe that provides heat and hot water to the Lowenstein Center, 140 W. 62nd Street and Martino Hall,” according to an email sent out at 2:30 p.m. that day. “There was a definite correlation in that the particular safety valve problem caused by Con Ed didn’t manifest itself as damaged until almost 20 hours after the return of Con Ed service,” Carroll wrote. The building was safely reopened for use Saturday morning, and a new safety valve has been ordered for installation, according to Carroll. No other buildings were evacuated.
McMahon Hall has been operating on a fire alarm system originally installed in 1993, but a new system will soon be put in place, in addition to other upgrades. Total costs so far have exceeded $1 million, a price tag to be expected when implementing new technology, according to Joseph Scaltro, director of engineering services at Fordham Lincoln Center (FLC). “The cost includes programing all the new fire alarm devices; an electrician furnishing and installing all conduits and wires; and patching, painting and cleaning up after the contractors, as we install devices on all floors of the 21-story building,” Scaltro said. Scaltro referred to the fire alarm and sprinkler systems as a “Life Safety System,” which is routinely inspected and maintained. The original system is largely outdated and many of the system’s required parts are no longer sold or produced. New up-to-date technology and wiring will be installed into the Life Safety System. All devices in McMahon will now connect directly to the main fire alarm control panel on McMahon’s ground level. The fire alarm system will also connect to both the sprinkler system and smoke detectors, allowing more communications among systems. The changes will allow the FDNY and FLC Fire Safety Director to communicate more clearly and effectively with residents. To ensure that the installation process would not bother residents, the system was implemented in two-to four-floor increments from Dec. 20 to Jan. 13. “The invasive, noisy work was done from Dec. 20 to Jan. 13, by design,” Scaltro said. Signs of the replacement can be seen throughout the residential hall. A chart has been put up next to the first floor entrance to McMahon Hall, which denotes the status of the Life Safety System on each floor. Bryan Huchesson, FCLC and Alvin Ailey ’22, was confused by the chart. “I don’t even know what it is,” Huchesson said. He was further unnerved by the wires and other exposed electronics. “It just looks ominous. Especially the big red thing,” said Huchesson, referring to the red fire alarm panel located in the room adjacent to the McMahon front desk, which has been seen open and emitting various beeping noises at different times in the day. In the hallways of McMahon, every front door for each apartment has had hole cut into the wall above. Matthew Chen, FCLC ’22, was concerned with the apparent lack of warning by Fordham before beginning work in students’ dorms over break. “They should’ve told us before they started doing anything,” Chen said. The renovations were briefly included in an email by the Office of Residential Life sent on Dec. 9 which reminded students of “maintenance work” that was to be conducted in dorms over break. The Capital Planning and Projects Department, part of the NYC Housing Authority, made the initial decision to update McMahon’s fire alarm system. Fordham’s Office of Residential Life, Campus Operations and Campus Security are also involved in the process. The new Life Safety System is expected to be fully installed by May 2020.