Deptford Township Councilman Wayne Love and Linda Tramo are living proof of how normal residents can become heroes.
Tramo and Love were honored as Deptford Township’s July Citizens of the Month for their actions on a hot June afternoon. Tramo and Love helped save a woman who had suffered a stroke while sitting in her car in the parking lot of the municipal building.
The event took place in the late afternoon of June 24. Tramo and Love both serve on the township’s municipal drug alliance committee and were arriving to attend a board meeting just before 5 p.m.
Love arrived about 15 minutes before the start of the meeting and noticed a woman sitting in her car. Tramo, Love and township officials declined to identify the woman to maintain her privacy, saying only that she was a township resident.
Thinking the woman was just changing the radio station, Love walked inside the building.
“I’m the only one who knew she was there,” Love said.
Just before the start of the board meeting, Love walked back out to the parking lot and noticed the woman in her car again. This time, he saw an alarming sight. The woman was slumped over her steering wheel and her hands were shaking. Love immediately went back inside and asked Tramo to assist him. The two opened the woman’s car door and called for help.
“We went out and got EMS, stayed with her and tried to keep her breathing,” Tramo said. “It was not good.”
Love said an ambulance arrived on the scene within five minutes of the phone call. They were able to transport the woman to Cooper Hospital. Love doctors were able to get the woman stabilized and she is currently recovering.
“If I didn’t see her before I walked in, it would have been something different,” Love said. “I just happened to be, luckily, in the right place at the right time.”
Love and Tramo’s selection as Deptford’s Citizens of the Month came as a surprise to both. Tramo, who also serves the township in other capacities as the zoning board chair and municipal utilities authority chair, was informed to be at the meeting last Monday, but was not told why. Love was also kept out of the loop despite serving on council.
After receiving their awards, both Love and Tramo said they simply did what anyone should do when they see someone suffering from a major medical ailment and believe others would have done the same thing in their shoes.
“I would have done it for anyone,” Tramo said. “It’s just what you should do.”
“We were just doing what, I think, any citizen would have done,” Love added. “If you see someone in distress, we expect all residents to help out each other.”
In other news:
· Deptford Township recognized Chilly’s Heating and Cooling as its July Business of the Month. Mayor Paul Medany said company has done extensive work at a number of the township’s buildings, including the municipal building, the public works building and the recreation center.
· Medany expressed his happiness with the number of roads Deptford Township plans to re-pave this summer as part of the road program. At the meeting, township manager Tom Newman said he was finalizing the dates for when roads would be done this summer and expected work to begin on July 8. He estimated the number of roads in this year’s program to be in the low 20s.
“It’s the largest municipal road program that Deptford Township has ever done,” Medany said.
· The next Deptford Township Council meeting is a work session scheduled for Monday, July 15, at 6 p.m. in the municipal building’s conference room.
