Training Center Named in Memory of ‘Angel’

With his eyes filled with tears, Robert Cuomo (right) thanks John Covell for his wife’s efforts over more than three decades of dedicated volunteer EMS work. A photo of Cindy Covell and a plaque were unveiled by Cuomo and Thomas Lannon at the Emergency Operations and Training Center in Carmel during a memorial celebration last Saturday. On Saturday, Cindy Covell was remembered as an EMS angel, when the Putnam Bureau of Emergency Services dedicated its EMS Training Center in memory of the 57-year-old Patterson woman who lost a battle to cancer nearly two years ago.

Covell served as an EMS lieutenant for many years with the Patterson FD and was the agency’s second vice president.

During a ceremony at the Bureau of Emergency Services headquarters in Carmel before more than 100 emergency responders, family members, public officials, and friends, Deputy Commissioner of Emergency Services Adam Stiebeling remembered Covell as “Patterson’s angel, who will be in our hearts forever.”

Putnam’s Emergency Medical Director Robert Cuomo called it an “honor and privilege to have worked side by side with Cindy for many years, both on and off the ambulance. She was an inspiration to us all.”

Cindy married John “Snooky” Covell in 1969. Besides her husband, she is survived by her daughter Lori and two sons, Michael and Christopher, as well as her sister, Cheryl Smith, and four grandchildren—Brandon, Andrew, Danielle, and Isabella.

Michael Covell thanked the county on behalf of his family: “My mom loved her work and would think nothing of answering a call day or night even after returning home from a hard day’s work at her full-time job as Unit Secretary of the Putnam Hospital Center Emergency Department.”

Covell joined the Patterson FD 33 years ago and became the first woman member that led the way for others to serve. Snooky Covell remembered his wife as the “mainstay of the rescue squad.”

Stiebeling, a former Patterson FD chief, related a story of commanding a rescue scene and, while “holding spinal mobilization on the floor with a seven-year-old-boy who had fallen and sustained serious injury resulting in no feeling in his lower body, the chief controlled the parents’ hysteria. I told the little guy he would be OK—a promise I realized might be far fetched but I was soon relieved when Cindy and her crew came through the front door. That night Cindy wore her cape. Known for her ‘super-hero’ cavalier attitude, Cindy left her powerful stare and last word that burned into your heart. You knew where you stood and that things would turn out OK. They did—by the way!”