Scott Kivet, commissioner in charge of personnel with the Plainsboro Fire District, said the mutual aid drill staged at the new University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro on Tuesday, April 24, was carried out flawlessly. Fire companies from Plainsboro, Princeton, West Windsor, Kingston, Kendall Park, East Windsor, Cranbury, Monmouth Junction, and Applegarth (Monroe fire district Number 2) were all present, and no logistical problems were recorded. While he initially had concerns, particularly due to the scale of the project, Kivet said he could not be more satisfied with the hospital’s progress in safety precautions.
“The hospital has done a fantastic job working with us. They have been more than cooperative with accommodating emergency services, specifically with communications and staging of emergency apparatus. They have been very safety conscious all the time,” Kivet said.
Kivet says that while the fire trucks were en route to the hospital there was open communication on both sides.
“The Plainsboro OEM worked great with hospital security. The fire company now has a transmitter frequency so that when we get a fire call, we call over to security to update them on which engine is arriving at the hospital,” he said.
Kivet says that Plainsboro fire officials are not so worried about the new hospital possibly burning down in the event of a fire because, he says, it has “the best sprinkler system out there.”
According to Kivet, the chief concerns for fire personnel responding to calls at the hospital would be evacuating and moving nonambulatory patients, containment of a fire within a particular area, and salvaging equipment.
