By Norm Vargo
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
SEWICKLEY TWP., Pa. — The Sewickley Township Community Emergency Ambulance Service is canine-rescue ready — thanks to an unexpected, but welcome, boost from members of Christ Episcopal Church in Greensburg.
One day last week, a woman walked into the unit’s station in Herminie. Chief Walt Lipinski thought nothing of it.
“Herminie is a close-knit town,” Chief Lipinski said. “Residents often stop by to chat with emergency personnel on duty.”
This was not one of those times.
“The woman comes up and says, ‘You the chief?’ I nodded yes,” Chief Lipinski recalled.
“She reached into a bag. Imagine my surprise when she pulled out two animal oxygen masks. She asked, ‘Can your organization use these?’ ”
“I said yes and accepted them. I thanked her. She nodded, smiled and left the building. Her good deed for the day was done, I guess.”
The chief added: “I couldn’t help wondering, though. How did members of that church know our organization didn’t have animal oxygen masks? These masks will hook into oxygen bottles our ambulances carry.”
“Really, we’ve answered emergency distress calls for dogs, cats and even cattle. We used oxygen masks designed for humans,” said Chief Lipinski, a former administrator of the North Huntingdon Rescue 8 Squad.
“Once, our unit got a frantic call that a male was in cardiac arrest. That’s all the dispatcher said. Our crew got there and found a crowd looking at a dog lying on the ground. The animal was pretty far gone. We tried to bring it back. It died.
”... Maybe if we had an animal mask, the result might have been happier.
“In this business, you never know what you’re going to face when you’re called out. Now, we’re prepared for anything, even dogs.”
Although Chief Lipinski is the only member of the Sewickley Township ambulance service certified in emergency canine resuscitation, several of the unit’s emergency medical technicians are qualified in animal rescue technique.
“I needed to be certified in North Huntingdon because of the township police K-9 unit’s dogs,” Chief Lipinski said.