Attending the Protective Services Life Saving Awards event were (l-r): honoree Robert Plummer; Dean Caruso, vice president, Support Services and Sustainability, YNHH; honorees Mark Burke, John Rostkowski, Dennis Mastriano, Andre Velez, Edward Viglione and Andrew Vilardo; Nicholas Proto, director, Protective Services; Stephanie McGuire, manager of security technology; and Thomas Mendillo, manager of patrol operations.
Last year, Yale New Haven Hospital’s Protective Services department responded to 147,000 calls for service at both campuses and off-site locations.
These included five calls that showed how department staff members use their communications skills, experience and compassion – and sometimes put themselves in danger – to help others. On Oct. 29, the department presented the staff members involved in these calls with Life Saving Awards:
- Senior patrol officers John Rostkowski and Miriam Garcia noticed an unresponsive person with a bluish tint to their skin in the Saint Raphael Campus Emergency Department waiting room. Unable to wake the person, they alerted clinical staff, who revived the patient and credited the officers for saving the person’s life.
- Edward Viglione, senior patrol officer, was responding to a report of a suspicious person on the second floor of the Air Rights Garage while Andrew Vilardo, central communications officer, provided regular status updates. When the person attempted to jump off the garage, Viglione pulled them to safety and ensured they were taken to the Emergency Department.
- Andre Velez, senior patrol officer, was doing a walk-through at Yale New Haven Psychiatric Hospital when a patient he’d established a rapport with threatened to harm staff with a homemade weapon. When the patient refused to surrender the weapon, Velez was able to pat him down and confiscate it.
- Mark Burke, security specialist, was in the North Pavilion lobby when he encountered a visitor who wanted to deliver a box to a patient. Burke’s many years of security experience prompted him to search the package, where he found and confiscated three kitchen knives.
- Robert Plummer, security supervisor, and Dennis Mastriano, senior patrol officer, received a report of a person who might harm themselves. The officers were able to locate the person and bring them to the Emergency Department for evaluation.
