Kudos for Captain Vecsey

Taylor K. Vecsey, a captain with the Bridgehampton Fire Department’s ambulance company, received two awards earlier this month from the Southampton Town Emergency Medical Services Advisory Committee. 

Ms. Vecsey, who is also the deputy managing editor of The Star, received the Nancy Makson E.M.S. Award of Excellence and the Ralph Oswald Distinction for Inspirational Leadership. She was nominated by her company in recognition of “her dedication and commitment to our department but also in honor of her service to the greater E.M.S. community,” according to her fellow volunteers. 

When Ms. Vecsey joined the department in 2010 as a member of its fire police, she was the only woman in the company. She became an emergency medical technician six years ago and joined the department’s E.M.S. company in March 2014. She was elected first assistant captain in 2015 and ’16 and has served as company captain since 2017.

In nominating her for the two awards, her company praised her dedication and motivation as well as her work behind the scenes, calling her “an advocate who is constantly on the lookout to advance the level of care we provide.” They also commended her efforts to engage and recruit new volunteers.

As an American Heart Association CPR instructor with the East Hampton Town Police Training Center, Ms. Vecsey retrained members of her own department in 2018 in this lifesaving skill and trained some 100 others from the general public in hands-only CPR. Through her work as the department’s continuing medical education coordinator, she has brought training programs to Bridgehampton and other agencies on the 

South Fork.