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| (L-R) E&O Safety Committee Chair Sean Eskridge, Clark Public Utilities' Joshua Vincent & Margaret Anderson, NWPPA Board President Steve Taylor, and E&O Conference Chair Pat Durham. |
(VANCOUVER, WA) – Last week, Clark Public Utilities Customer
Service Representative Joshua Vincent received the Northwest Public Power
Association Safety Heroism Award at the association’s 2018 Engineering &
Operations Conference on April 10 in Tacoma, Wash.
Vincent received the award for his life-saving actions on
the evening of March 23, 2017. That day, Vincent was on a call with a customer
when he noticed that she was disoriented and having trouble understanding basic
information such as the time and date. Concerned, he suggested that the
customer go seek medical help; she said she had a friend who was on their way.
Not sure if she had help, Vincent called the customer’s home a couple more
times over the course of 30 minutes and when her friend hadn’t arrived, he
asked permission to call an ambulance to her address. The customer agreed, and
the ambulance arrived just in time to save the customer’s life. She had been
having a heart attack and was pre-stroke, so Vincent’s careful attention and
concern was likely the reason she’s still alive. The customer and her family
followed up with Vincent and thanked him.
“In a busy work environment, it would be easy to focus
solely on the task at hand,” said Margaret Anderson, Clark Public Utilities’
assistant to the CEO.
Anderson also noted that Vincent showed compassion and
fortitude in his insistence that this customer receive medical attention.
The Safety Heroism Award recognizes an NWPPA member utility
employee or team that displayed an act of unselfish and voluntary assistance in
a situation where life, significant injury, or significant property loss would
have been incurred were it not for the efforts of the individual or team. The
NWPPA E&O Safety Subcommittee selects the winner of the annual Safety
Heroism Award with concurrence from the NWPPA E&O Policy Committee.
