Oceanside Fire Department receives citation

My guys did great . . . we saved her arm.”

Brian Ferrucci

Piece by piece, members of the Oceanside Fire Department had to disassemble a cookie manufacturing machine when a woman got her arm trapped inside it last April 5. The department’s extensive training paid off, firefighters said: The woman was able to keep her arm.

“My guys did great . . . we saved her arm,” said Brian Ferrucci, who oversaw the company during the incident last year.

Getting the best possible outcome in a tricky situation is why the unit was awarded with a citation from the Nassau County Fire Commission on April 19 at the Legislature in Mineola.

Last year, a call for help came from a Linzer torte cookie factory, reporting that a woman was trapped with hooks in her arm inside a cookie manufacturing machine. She had been dragged partway into the machine, trapped with spikes puncturing her forearm and penetrating her upper arm. Oceanside firefighters sprang into action, disassembling parts of the machine and adding enough leverage to carefully remove the injured limb. 

Joe Caroccia, fire department chief, recalled, “We had to go through a bunch of processes of trying to disassemble it. We had to shut the machine down electrically to make sure that it wouldn’t come back on, keep our men safe and that the person was safe also.”

Caroccia chalked the successful outcome to the firefighters’ extensive training on man-vs.-machine events.  “The training pays off, the training that we take, and it really pays off when it comes to this and the guys with the knowledge and stuff. The men did a fantastic job, and thank goodness we were able to help her out.”

Ferrucci, then a captain who oversaw the company during the incident, detailed the efforts he and others in the department made that day last April. “We were able to take the top of the machine off and make a bunch of cuts to a sort of pretty strong metal,” he recalled. “We were able to separate it a little bit just to get her arm out from in between both pieces in a wedging that was closing her arm into the machine itself.”

Using wood shocks, a bandsaw and a Sawzall saw kit, they expertly cut the metal away and propped open the hole the woman into which the woman had been pulled. Ferrucci said there “was no way anybody was getting her out unless we did what we did, where we were able to stop it from closing on her arm even more and cutting everything to get her arm physically out.”

Michael Uttaro, the chief fire marshal presenting the awards, stated that the Nassau County volunteer fire service is among the most well-trained and best-equipped volunteer fire services in the country.

During the citation presentation, Uttaro said, “From car fires to house fires to auto accidents to overturned tanker trucks, from man-versus-machine incidents to boating accidents, the volunteer fire service of Nassau County is always response ready and up to the task, saving lives and property each and every day, proudly serving their communities.”

Among other departments honored were the Baldwin, Freeport, Massapequa, Merrick, and Rockville Centre fire departments.