Geneva officers honored with lifesaving medals

GENEVA – Geneva police officers and sergeants were presented with lifesaving medals Sept. 19. Chief Eric Passarelli told of three events in the past year in which officers’ actions gave three people a second chance at life.

“Every member of the Geneva Police Department has been called to this profession,” Passarelli said. “This amazing, challenging, rewarding profession is indeed a calling. When we ask our officers why they do what they do and what they hope to accomplish, they hope to make a difference, impact a life, make a difference in this community.”

Passarelli said it is hard to pinpoint when an officer has made a difference, but the differences they made in three instances this year were concrete, obvious and impactful in that they saved three lives.

Medals were presented to sergeants Brad Jerdee and George Carbray and officers Bob Peck, Hunter Winterstein, Erica Bolger, Quantrell Priest, Megan Solner and Matt Adam.

The first incident was a call from a neighboring department about a person who was suicidal and missing.

“Officer Bob Peck, who was serving as a detective at the time, had a connection with the family,” Passarelli said. “They reached out to him to ask if there was anything that we could do because anyone who knows Detective Peck … knows how thorough he is at what he does.”

Peck began to draw maps and used investigative techniques to try to figure out where the person might be. Jerdee was working that night and the two worked together on it, Passarelli said.

The missing person was found in a Geneva park. The car was locked and the person was unconscious and unresponsive.

“Sgt. Jerdee forced entry into the car, removed the victim from the car into the parking lot and provided first aid to the victim,” Passarelli said. “The victim stopped breathing. He continued to provide CPR and further first aid until paramedics arrived to provide an advanced level of care.”

Because of their intervention, the person in the car survived, was treated and released from the hospital, Passarelli said.

The second incident involved Winterstein and Bolger, who rescued a person who was unconscious, not breathing and possibly choking on food, Passarelli said.

The officers arrived in less than one minute from the first call.

“As we all know, in these critical medical incidents, timing is everything,” Passarelli said.

The officers determined the person had an airway obstruction and began the Heimlich maneuver and the person gasped for air. When paramedics arrived, they removed a large piece of steak from the victim’s throat, Passarelli said.

“The victim was transported to the hospital where they spent several days, but then was released and made a full recovery,” Passarelli said. “This is another case of without the immediate response and intervention of our officers responding to that call, I’m absolutely convinced that the victim would not be here today. And to have him walk out of the hospital is a huge testament to officers Bolger and Winterstein.”

The third incident involved a teen who was on the Union Pacific railroad trestle nearly 100 feet above the Fox River, threatening self-harm. He displayed two knives and threatened to hurt himself and put his leg over the railing, Passarelli said.

Officers Adam and Solner went up on the trestle for more than an hour to convince the young man not to harm himself.

“This call was dangerous for so many different reasons,” Passarelli said. “It’s dark. You have officers on that bridge trying to interact and de-escalate the situation that certainly had the potential to be extremely, extremely dangerous.”

The young man finally put the knives down and turned himself in to receive further assistance, Passarelli said.

“He made a full recovery,” Passarelli said. “It was a dangerous situation that could have gone so many way. A true credit to those officers that were on the bridge that night because it could have gone much worse. It could have ended in harm to them or the victim – let alone him jumping off of the bridge.”

All of the officers received standing ovations from the public present at the meeting.

Answering questions from Mayor Kevin Burns about how they handled the stress of the situations, the officers said they relied on their training and their support of one another.

“It’s step by step by step – what do you have to do and you rely on your training. In terms of after the incident is over, we had a really nice moment,” Solner said of the trestle incident. “I believe it was myself, Sgt. Carbray and Officer Adam all like had a hug and a ‘good job’ and we had calls to go to, we were busy. We kind of had that nice moment and then you keep moving on. I think it could have been very hard for us to deal with if it had gone another way. But fortunately, that young gentleman is still with us here. We did our job and everybody went home safe that night. That’s our goal.”

Bolger said that after an “adrenaline dump” officers check in with one another.

“We are truly a family. So after each call, we will ‘Are you all right?’ We will check in with each other even weeks afterward,” Bolger said. “We all feel comfortable enough to say, ‘No, I’m not OK.’”