The meeting on August 12, 2022, held in the flag room of the sixth-floor government center, was an EMT Recognition Ceremony to honor Luke Farrell. Mayor, who presided over the ceremony, introduced Fire Chief Roger Martin to explain the reason for the recognition. Chief Martin detailed how EMT Luke Farrell, while off-duty and on his way to work about a month prior, came across a severe motorcycle accident on the Fall River/Westport line. Farrell found the motorcyclist profusely bleeding from lower limbs and immediately intervened. He fabricated a tourniquet from a nylon stocking and a piece of metal from the road to stem the blood flow. Upon the arrival of the State Police, he applied a CAT tourniquet from their cruiser. Lieutenant Leonardo from the EMS division later researched the event, and the Director of Trauma at Rhode Island Hospital confirmed that Farrell's prompt application of tourniquets saved the motorcyclist's life. Chief Martin emphasized Farrell's dedication, noting he acted while off-duty, upholding the honor of the Fall River Fire Department and EMS division. State Representatives Carol Fiola and Paul Schmidt were also present. The Mayor expressed immense pride and gratitude for Farrell's heroic actions, highlighting that he pulled over to help when many others might have passed by. Luke Farrell, in turn, expressed his humility and gratitude for the honor, stating he was overwhelmed and believed any member of the EMS division would have done the same. The ceremony concluded with further appreciation for Farrell's life-saving efforts.
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good afternoon everybody and now welcome to the flag room in the sixth floor government center this is another very very special occasion where we honor people that go over and above their daily responsibilities to the city of fall river today we're going to talk about one of our uh emts luke farrell but first of all i will allow of course our honorable fire chief roger martin to say
0:27a few words about why we're here today also and then we'll do the presentation roger that's bad that's okay everybody makes that mistake that's fine first of all thank you all for being here today appreciate it i was told probably about maybe a month ago got to a motorcycle accident that happened on the fall river westport line i was told by one of the lieutenants for ems and he told me what actually transpired where
0:58one of our emts who's also a paramedic candidate that works for us on the way to work came across a motorcyclist in the middle of the highway who was profusely bleeding from the lower limbs he pulled over and fabricated a tourniquet out of a nylon stocking and used a piece of metal from the road to act as a windlass to stem the flow of blood then upon the arrival of the state police
1:31he then grabbed a cat tourniquet from from the state police's cruiser and applied another tourniquet and lieutenant leonardo from ems division i asked him to research the event and he reached out to the director of uh what was it now from the rhode island hospital the director of trauma at rhode island hospital and he said that the performance of the tourniquets actually did save the lot save the life of the
2:10motorcyclist so um so i um i brought this up to the mayor and the city council and i think he deserves great credit because he he was not on duty he was on his way to work he saw a person in need and because of his dedication to his craft he he stopped on the highway and perform these lay-saving maneuvers to a uh somebody who didn't know and i think that's the uh he upheld the honor
2:42and tradition and dedication of the former fire department and ems division and for that i thank him so uh thank you very much mayor for uh making this happen and uh thank you luke
3:01again very special joining us also today are state representative carol fiola and state representative paul schmidt they also were very impressed with the actions of luke as so greatly explained by chief saint martin this is a very very very special thing when people go over and above on their way to work to save someone's life so with that being said i'm extremely happy and proud to acknowledge luke farrell in
3:32honor and recognition of his life-saving heroics on that very special day to save that motorcyclist is very very important and i know that the city of fall river appreciates employees that go out of their way to help someone in distress when i'm sure there were hundreds of cars sitting by on 195 and luke took the time to pull over and help someone in this dress
4:06thank you very much for this honor it's greatly appreciated i feel that anybody in the ems division would have done the same thing and i'm very humbled and extremely overwhelmed with this honor i was never expecting it so thank you
4:27and that concludes our ceremony but again uh these are the people that make a city run and luke uh went over and above that day to make sure that gentleman was safe and got him the necessary life-saving help he needed so again we really really appreciate it thank you everybody