T-L Photo/ROBERT A. DEFRANK St. John Central Academy Principal Vince Gianangeli, left, and Bellaire Fire Chief Tim Bell look over one of the Prestan Products CPR dummies donated to the Bellaire and Neffs fire departments by a school alumnus.

BELLAIRE — The Bellaire and Neffs fire departments have some new tools to train first responders in resuscitation, thanks to a generous donation from a St. John Central High School alumnus.

Principal and fiscal manager Vince Gianangeli said the values imparted to students continue now that the school is the pre-indergarten to 12th grade St. John Central Academy and no longer under a diocese of the Catholic Church.

Firefighters visited St. John Central Academy on Friday to pick up eight Prestan Products CPR dummies.

Each fire department received two adult-sized dummies and two child-sized ones.

Chris Bryniarski, a 1985 graduate of St. John and the class valedictorian, is the chief financial and operations officer of Prestan Products. He made the donation and said each dummy has a computerized system that measures the responders’ efforts at rendering aid.

“When we started the company, the mannequins that were out there didn’t have a feature that told you how fast you were going, and your rate of compression is one of the biggest issues with performance CPR,” Bryniarski said. “We came up with a way to measure how fast you were going in real time.”

He said the dummies are also easier to set up and take down. He said the dummies have heart and lung simulators to give the trainees a better ‘feel’ for how a genuine response would proceed.

“We need to get more people trained in CPR and save more lives,” he said. “These fellows can’t be everywhere at the same time, so you need to get CPR started right away, because it doesn’t take long for your brain to not respond to oxygen.”

Lt. Jeff Patterson of the Neffs Fire Department thanked the school and Bryniarski and said the dummies would be valuable tools.

“I think they’re impressive,” he said. “They’re a lot more advanced than the typical ones that we’re used to. The fact that it does give you a more exact rate of compression and depth and lets you know if you’re doing it correctly or not. The older mannequins didn’t have that availability, and this’ll go on to help us so we can help other people, and not just train our guys, but to train other people in the schools to learn how to use them.”

Bellaire Fire Chief Tim Bell agreed.

“I think it’s going to be great. I just like the fact that people who move away from the (Ohio) valley still look out for the valley and still like helping out the small fire departments in the valley. … They’re really top-notch, really good for training and really shows when you do CPR, what you’ve got to do.”

Each dummy would normally cost about $170.

Gianangeli said Bryniarski and Johnetta Yaegel, the president of the school board, were the two top alumni donors most responsible for reopening the school.

“Four years ago the Diocese of Steubenville closed the school, and we reopened it under St. John Central Academy. The alumni got together to reopen the school,” Gianangeli said. “The board of education owns the school, which is made up of alumni.”

Bryniarski said the school imparted valuable lessons to him.

“I grew up in the area. I went to school here,” he said. “My goal is to give kids like me a fighting chance to go on and do great things.

“I was raised Catholic. I’m still Catholic, and the Catholic values are important to me and I think they’re important to the folks that are here,” Bryniarski said. “We want to keep the tradition alive, keep teaching kids the right way to do things, how to do them, how to be a Christian.”