Maplewood Firefighters Get Valor Awards for Rescuing Construction Worker During Building Collapse

Nobody knows how they’ll react under pressure in a life-or-death situation until it happens.

But several Maplewood firefighters now do.

Multiple Maplewood public safety workers were recently honored by the 200 Club of Essex County, which held its 2015 Valor Awards in West Orange.

According to a release, an award was given to the firefighters for their 2014 rescue of a construction worker who was trapped beneath the debris of a building collapse.

Honored firefighters included Maplewood Fire Captains Michael Demartini and Kevin Hayes and Firefighters Joseph Alvarez, Michael Amato, Richard Salkowski and Dennis Weust, and Maplewood Police Sergeant Vincent DeCicco and Officers Kraig Huncken, Rodney Tannenbaum and Henry Wasielewski.

THE MEANING OF VALOR

Nominations for The 200 Club’s Valor Award are made by chiefs of Essex County’s municipal fire and police departments and the commanding officers of federal, state and regional public safety agencies.

Valor Award recipients are selected by The 200 Club’s Executive Committee.

This year’s award winners were:

• Detective Nicholas Rizzitello of the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office and mounted Newark Police Officer Erich Schroeder, for the capture of an armed suspect who was holding a victim at gunpoint on Mulberry Street during Newark’s evening rush hour
• Essex County Sheriff’s Officers Richard Alberto, a resident of Nutley, and Erik Udvarhely, a resident of Belleville, for risking their lives while jumping across three rooftops at a height of three stories to capture a major narcotics distributor who was armed with three, semi-automatic handguns
• Irvington Police Lieutenant Stewart Townsend and Detective Andres Lebron for the capture of an armed bank robber
• Newark Police Captain Richard Perez and Officer Dennis Dominguez who engaged in a shoot-out while capturing an armed robbery suspect (Dominguez was wounded during the incident)
• Newark Police Detective Louis Weber for the pursuit and capture of an armed suspect
• New Jersey State Police Sergeants Fidiberto Soto and Damon Crawford for the pursuit and capture of an armed robbery suspect
• Nutley Patrolman Davis Schus for the capture of a knife-wielding suspect who had killed one male victim and severely wounded a second male victim
• Roseland Fire Captain Douglas Yates and West Caldwell Fire Captain Tom Webber and Firefighter Brian Drastal for the rescue of a female victim of a residential fire who subsequently succumbed to her injuries
• Newark Fire Captains Danny Farrell and Kevin Reilly and Firefighter Khalif Boyer for the rescue of an unconscious female victim from a two-story residential fire
• Newark Fire Captain John Norvis and Firefighters Reynard Gasavage and Wilson Vasquez for the rescue of an unconscious female victim from an apartment house fire at Georgia King Village

• Millburn Fire Battalion Chief James Boyle, Captains Chris Beady and Shawn Daly and Firefighters Marlin Adams, Andrew Dante, Peter DiCostanzo, David Hammond, Steve Jason and Joe Tobia for the rescue of a construction worker who had fallen through the floor of a residential garage and was trapped in a trench beneath the structure