HUNDREDS PACK BASSETT HALL

EMTS SALUTE

BEST OF BEST

Everyone who was anyone in the world of Otsego County EMTs – hundreds of them, past and present – gathered at Bassett Hall in Cooperstown for four hours this afternoon and evening to celebrate Fred Lemister, primer inter pares in the local EMS world, who recently stepped down after 48 years of service to Cooperstown’s emergency squad, where he responded to 9,600 ambulance calls.  Even more significant, a top-notch instructor, he trained nearly every EMT serving in Otsego County over many years.  In top photo, Brinton Muller, Bassett Healthcare’s network director for emergency preparedness, announces the EMS Room in the ambulance bay at the Cooperstown hospital’s emergency room will be renamed in Lemister’s honor.  As Muller congratulates Fred, wife Karen examines a souvenir aerial photo of the hospital presented to the honoree.  At the podium is Cooperstown EMS Captain Eric Pierce, who helped organize today’s testimonial and emceed the event.   Inset right, David Butler, former Hartwick town supervisor and EMS mainstay there, pours 100 M&Ms into bowl that, by evening’s end, contained one M&M for every call Fred made over a half-century of service.  In concluding remarks, Lemister, inset left, praised his EMS colleagues, comparing them to the Biblical Good Samaritan.  “Life is a gift, people,” he said.  “And we need to give back for that gift.  You people here have given back for that gift.”  (Jim Kevlin/AllOTSEGO.com)

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