Excerpts from patch.com:

Evanston Fire Department ambulances will be equipped with LUCAS – Chest Compression Systems thanks to a $56,000 donation from the Evanston First Responders Foundation. The local nonprofit designated funding for three LUCAS devices, one for each of the department’s ambulances, in honor of Oliver Brown Leopold, a graduate of the EFD’s fire explorer program.

LUCAS, which stands for Lund University Cardiopulmonary Assist System, is a portable chest compression system that allows firefighters to keep up chest compressions without interruptions, significantly increasing the patient’s chance of survival.

Brown Leopold was the youngest member of the foundation’s board of directors when he died December 2021 at the age of 19 from what his family described as an apparent suicide.

Speaking at a memorial service, Evanston Fire Department Captain Megan Kamarchevakul remembered Brown Leopold as a natural leader who radiated positive energy from the time he started with the fire explorers when he was 13. He recalled the time Brown Leopold purchased the department’s reserve ladder truck.

“He had everything lined up, he had insurance, storage, upkeep, the only problem was he couldn’t drive it,” Kamarchevakul said. After the teen got his permit, the captain helped him learn to drive it.

Brown Leopold graduated early from Evanston Township High School in order to become an emergency medical technician during the first waves of the coronavirus pandemic, working in an emergency room and on an ambulance — later taking a gap year so that he could become a paramedic.

Since its founding in 2013, the Evanston First Responders Foundation has distributed grants to allow the department to buy gear for the fire explorers program, acquire a police dog, funding community CPR programs and mannequins, and bought bike helmets to distribute during the Bike the Ridge event in which cyclists are allowed to legally ride on Ridge Avenue for a few hours every year.

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