Bradley Gardens Rescue Cadets Take Top Honors at First Aid Competition

Written by Chris Ireland

Five cadets with the Bradley Gardens Rescue Squad—Mansi Sheth, Stephanie Lin, Sachin Parikh, Skyler Le and Priya Mansukhani—captured top honors at Saturday's New Jersey State First Aid Council convention competition.

Volunteer EMS organizations in New Jersey belong to the New Jersey State First Aid Council (NJSFAC) which works to insure rescue squad volunteers have equal training and equipment standards as well as keep volunteers informed on any EMS legislation proposed in New Jersey.  The NJSFAC also hosts a wide variety of training sessions and activities throughout the year which includes an annual convention.

This year's convention was held at the Doubletree Hotel in Somerset, Oct. 9-13.  On Saturday, the event organizers invited rescue squads from throughout New Jersey to send their cadet core members between the ages of 14-18 to compete by showing their emergency care skills in different scenarios.  Teams had to have a minimum of four members and they needed to bring one person to be the patient.  Seven different teams came from six different rescue squads.

A fantastic display of skills and knowledge was demonstrated by all.  At the end of the event, the five cadets pictured from the Bradley Gardens Rescue Squad were declared the winners. All are Bridgewater-Raritan High School students with four of them becoming Emergency Medical Technicians this past summer through participation in Somerset Medical Center's Youth in EMS program held at the Somerset County Vo-Tech.  

The students prepared by meeting for three hours for the past six weeks with their cadet advisor, Matthew Chiang, to practice medical and trauma scenarios.  A great display of hard work and concentration was shown by these students and our residents should be very proud of this fine accomplishment.