Schenevus students save woman

Their timely intervention came as they were performing another good deed, delivering holiday baskets, according to Sandra Bonczkowski, the school's music teacher.

The school's students, faculty and staff had contributed money toward the community service project, she said.

"We thought it would be a nice thing to do for the older people here," she said of the baskets. "We had food, decks of cards, puzzles and other things we thought they'd like."

Wednesday was delivery day and about 15 students from the senior seminar class volunteered to help, said Jill Ten Eyck, the school's business teacher.

At about 12:30 p.m., the school bus came to a mobile home and Kimberly Barnett, a senior who takes health care technology classes at Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital, decided to deliver the basket.

"The door was locked when I got there," she said. "I could hear a dog barking inside. Then someone unlocked the door but didn't open it. I could tell she was having trouble."

A woman said she was sick and Barnett stepped inside, finding an elderly woman in distress with heart pains.

The woman, whose name was not given by officials, asked her to call an ambulance and Barnett ran back to the bus where Ten Eyck and the other students were waiting.

"The bus driver called the school on his radio, then we used my cell phone to call 911," Barnett said.

However, the 911 system could not locate the mobile home from a cellular call, and Ten Eyck and the students went into the home to help the woman and use her phone.

While Ten Eyck called for help, the students tried to calm the woman down. One student, Scott Milford, who is a volunteer firefighter, found the woman's nitroglycerine pills. The woman took a pill and her pains eased, Ten Eyck said.

Another student, Anthony Carimando, also a volunteer firefighter, said his classmates remained calm throughout the episode.

"All the students were good about this," he said. "We looked around the house to see if there were other prescriptions she had been taking so we could tell someone when the ambulance got there."

Ten Eyck said the students even shut the woman's dog into the bathroom, so emergency medical technicians could take the woman to the ambulance unhindered.

"They kept their heads," she said.

The woman was transported to Bassett Hospital, according to the Otsego County Sheriff's Department.

The woman was back home again by Thursday, said Barnett, who is planning a career in health care.

When the woman didn't open her door at first, Barnett could have left the holiday basket on the stoop and left, "but that never crossed my mind," she said. "I thought she might need help."

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