Published: September 06, 2008 01:12 am            

PEOPLE PROFILE: Firefighter honored for water rescue

OLCOTT — A lifelong resident of Olcott, Mark Gilson has always loved the water.

“I live right by the lake, and it’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s just a cool place. It’s a nice place to grow up.”

As a member of the Olcott Volunteer Fire Company, Gilson has participated in many rescues on the water, including one last summer in which a young woman almost drowned off Krull Park.

Because of his actions that day, Gilson has been honored as a hero.

It was Aug. 4, 2007, and Gilson was eating lunch, preparing for a boat race later in the afternoon, when the call came in of a possible drowning.

Melissa Fisher, 33, of Newfane, had been on a raft with her sister about 300 feet from shore. Fisher reportedly jumped off the raft to try to pull it closer to shore, and she began to go under.

Gilson responded to the scene, put his lifejacket on and prepared to go in the water.

“Way out in the distance, I could just see her floating,” he said. “She was face-down. I could just see the top of her head.”

When he got to her, she was in full respiratory arrest.

Gilson pulled Fisher back to the shore and began rescue breathing, along with Randy Szlusta, a firefighter from the Miller Hose Co.

The Olcott ambulance was on another call in Wilson at the time, so Gilson and Szlusta continued performing CPR for several minutes until help arrived.

“CPR lasted a lot longer than it normally would have, because we had to wait for the ambulance,” Gilson said.

Gilson, an intermediate EMT, is equipped to intubate patients. He intubated Fisher once the ambulance arrived.

“We hooked her up to the monitor and realized that, while she wasn’t breathing yet, we were starting to see a rhythm on her heart,” he said.

There were other signs of life; Fisher seemed to be trying to breathe on her own.

“The guy who was actually squeezing the bag said, ‘I just felt resistance. She’s trying to take a breath,’ ” Gilson said. “The closer we got to the hospital, she clearly was ... trying to breathe.”

By the time she got to the emergency room at Inter-Community Memorial Hospital, her heart rhythm was almost normal, he said.

Fisher was taken to Erie County Medical Center for treatment, and she eventually made a full recovery.

Gilson, who was chief of the Olcott Fire Company for 15 years, said he has performed CPR on hundreds of people.

“Honestly, for the most part, it’s pretty unlikely you save someone,” he said. “Usually you get there too late.”

He said he was “astonished” that Fisher made such a full recovery, taking into account the amount of time she was without oxygen.

Usually, he said a person can last between 7 to 10 minutes without oxygen.

“From the time we got the call, to the time we got there, to the time I got out there, to the time I got her back, I’ll bet it was close to 10 minutes, easily,” he said. “She was probably right at that limit where she probably could have ended up either way.”

Gilson was given the Volunteer of Valor Award from the state Senate earlier this year.

On Aug. 22, he was named EMS Provider of the Year by the Fireman’s Association of the State of New York. The presentation was part of the FASNY’s annual awards ceremony in Rochester.

“There’s not a lot of recognition like that, unfortunately,” he said. “In all my 15 years (as chief), nobody in the county had gotten anything like this, so it was pretty cool.”

He said he wanted to thank all the other firefighters who responded that day.

“I could give you the list of names, but really, (it was) all the firefighters who responded that day, because they all played a part,” he said.

Gilson lives in Olcott with his wife, Elizabeth, and his children, Chad, 10, and Jarrett, 7.

He said the Olcott Fire Co. will be prepared in the event of another incident on the water.

“Water rescue is a big part of what we do,” he said.

Contact reporter April Amadon at 439-9222, ext. 6251.

        

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