I contacted former Rescue Squad President (now Captain) Reid Edles yesterday and again this morning but he said he is "unable to provide any information on this." New president Susan Lagano is vacationing and cannot be reached.

You must be a flat out idiot....another political opportunist looking to capitalize on the misery of others. Why not make your agenda stand on it's own merits without trying to hijack this event without regard for the families or the fine work done by our outstanding Rescue Squad to make another losing Union argument. Your methods are at the least despicable.

Hi David, thank you for sharing that. I'm sorry for your loss. Many readers reached out to me to express their concern and sorrow in hearing of his death.

I was a runner in this race and happen to be a volunteer EMT in another town. When the man when down, over a half dozen bystanders sprung into action and began CPR. The PD and EMS were on scene within minutes. While I do not know the issues you are referencing, a volunteer squad by the nature of being volunteer is not deficient. I know a lot of "paid" ambulance departments and fire departments that are both competent and not; your status of whether or not one earns a paycheck is not germaine to your argument. This was a tragedy, plain and simple and it was heartening to see so many bystanders help out a fellow runner in extremis.

There were no deficiencies.......and you remain a shameless Union hack.

The runner is correct. I was part of a group participating in the run. We all passed the scene at different times, but since it was a timed race we know about how far apart we were. We estimate that the police were there in less than 5 minutes and the rescue squad in less than 10, despite the fact that the roads were clogged with runners, runners' & coordinators' parked cars, and diverted traffic. My sympathies to the family.

Actually if the Fireman's Union allowed all the men to be at one station, or for us to incorporate volunteers with the paid force, that would allow for proper response to the fires. Once again it's the Union bosses at fault, not the men.

Aren't there usually ambulances standing by at organized events like this? I don't think it would have mattered anyway - it sounds like this poor guy had a very fast and massive attack. May he rest in peace.

The Rescue Squad did not have to page out for a crew to respond this call. From when the call came in to when there was a WVRS ambulance on scene was only a matter of a few minutes, an exact length of time I don't have however. For a response from our building, located right next to the traffic circle on South Avenue, to the location, I would be very surprised if it took longer than 4-5 minutes from when the call came in to when the ambulance got on scene.

The WFD, from my personal experience, when they are dispatched to standby on ALS (Advanced Life Support) EMS calls, are often quite slow to respond and get on scene. Therefore, I highly disagree with your statement that the FD would have responded faster.

Lastly, there is almost always an ambulance on standby at events like these. The WVRS appears on standby at these locations when we are requested. It is truly a shame that the event organizers did not call for an ambulance on standby at this particular event, and it happened to be the one event where an incident did occur. I commend every efforts of those on scene who rushed to Patrick's aid after he collapsed and initiated CPR and rescue breathing. I am deeply sorry for his families loss, and wish the turnout could have been different.

You need to take into consideration that the Rescue Squad was not dispatched by the police department at the exact moment he collapsed. Any delay would have been caused by the dispatchers, which the Rescue Squad has no control over. From the moment the squad is dispatched to when they got on scene was, and I source this to I was listening to the police radio at the time of the incident and I talked to the driver of the ambulance that responded from our building, it was about 4 to 5 minutes from dispatch to on scene. I don't recall ever touting a 3 minute response time for every call, though it is easily achievable for a majority of locations within Westfield.

Well, I'm not sure then. I don't know what changed for this specific race from every other event that resulted in, as far as I'm aware, no one at the squad receiving the notice. A quick Google search turned up the Rescue Squad's telephone number, (908-233-2500). I question if the event organizers got a response from the Rescue Squad, because if they didn't, they should have sought an alternative method to contact them. If they did get a response, well then that's a whole different story but I don't see any evidence suggesting such.

In terms of the website, I'm actually not even sure about who runs it or who has access to it. I don't believe any of the officers at the time had access to it at all (The Squad had new officers go into effect on January 1st, which is why Reid Edles is no longer permitted to comment on these matters and it seems that Susan Lagano, our new president, is out of town at this time.) so I wonder if the Contact Us page works at all. If it doesn't that's something that should be changed...

They were there within minutes of when the police department dispatched them. Any delay before that would be due to caller delay, dispatcher delay, something similar, or a combination of those.

There was a crew in the building when the call came in, there was no delay due to that.

Time for FD to take over Rescue Squad, out of respect for Mr. Brady we ask that you choose a different forum for this discussion. If you'd like to submit a letter to the editor, you can do so by sending it to liz.alterman@patch.com. Funeral arrangements for Mr. Brady are contained within this article: http://patch.com/A-0MrB
Thank you.

Well said Ms Alterman.

Well done Liz