AECOM, the main company overseeing dozens of subcontractors doing hundreds of millions of dollars in federally funded hurricane recovery work in the territory, donated seven defibrillators and seven sets of emergency lights to the V.I. Fire Service for use on St. Thomas and St. John.
AECOM also donated seven vehicle light systems that can be used on personal vehicles when time is of the essence during an emergency response.
“This is a blessed day, and we thank AECOM for this generous donation,” Fire Service Directory Daryl George Sr. said at a ceremony publicizing the donation Wednesday at the Omar Brown Sr. Fire Station.
“For a long time coming, the Fire Service has been on a path of enhancing our emergency response capability and becoming one of the better-equipped first-responder agencies in the Virgin Islands,” George said.
AECOM Executive Director of Operations Pat Mitchell said the gift is part of the company’s mission of having a commitment to safety and giving back to the community.
“If we can help, we’re going to help. If there’s things to do in our off time, we have folks volunteering all the time, helping out, doing whatever,” he said.
The AEDs were part of AECOM’s equipment they had at every project site, and weren’t put to use, so the company donated some of the brand new units to the V.I. Fire Service, Mitchell said.
AECOM bought the emergency lights to use on top of the modular units when they moved them to various school sites during the night so as not to disrupt traffic, he said.
AECOM Industrial Safety and Health Manager Anon Miller said the AEDs walk a person through what to do in an emergency.
“So, even if you aren’t trained as a first-responder and someone goes down, these units will actually tell you exactly what to do, when to do it and how to do it,” he said.
George also said during the press conference that St. Croix resident Cher Will, who was the project director of the AED Fund at the St. Croix Foundation, solicited enough community donations to put an AED in every station on St. Croix. Will has spearheaded a successful effort to get the lifesaving defibrillators deployed throughout the territory.
