LYNN — City workers collected more than $1,000 Thursday on behalf of Boston terror victim Martin Richard as Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy and the City Council prepare to honor a local firefighter who aided people injured in Monday’s attacks.
Kennedy will commend firefighter paramedic Matt Patterson on Tuesday at 7 p.m., said mayoral aide Mary Fountain.
“She will thank him for his heroic deeds,” Fountain said.
Patterson described Tuesday how he ran out of a Boston restaurant after the bombs exploded and, with the aid of another man, aided attack casualties, and applied a tourniquet to a boy’s amputated leg and rushed the child to an ambulance.
Patterson assisted at least one other bombing victim as emergency medical workers converged on the explosion scene.
Patterson will also be recognized as “Lynn’s finest hero” by councilors at Tuesday’s 8 p.m. meeting. Council President Timothy Phelan, and councilors Buzzy Barton and Rick Ford took the lead in honoring Patterson for “courage, bravery and caring in protecting and saving the lives of the victims of the Boston Marathon tragedy.”
Thursday’s effort by City Clerk’s office employees to raise money on behalf of the Richard family represented a slight departure from what Clerk Mary Audley called an annual spring fundraising tradition.
The office’s Boston Red Sox “hot dog” day has benefitted in past years the Relay for Life cancer research initiative and other initiatives including the Giving Hope Foundation and Got Wheels.
Everyone who bought a hot dog Thursday for two dollars contributed to a donation that topped $1,000 by 4 p.m.
“We did this one for the Richard family,” Audley said.
Audley said the money will be donated to the Richard Family Fund, established on Tuesday by Salem Five bank with a $5,000 contribution. The family lives in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, and Salem High School graduate Bill Richard’s wife and daughter were also wounded in the bombing attacks.
“This family will have this money with no hoops to jump through,” Salem Five Chief Marketing Officer Martha Acworth said Thursday.
Patterson is not the only Lynn public safety worker to dash into the aftermath of Monday’s attack to aid bomb victims. Police Officer Brian Chisholm worked as a medical sweep team member assessing runners who had just crossed the finish line when the bombs exploded 100 yards down Boylston Street.
He continued aiding runners until a medical worker called for help and Chisholm ran to the bomb scene to render assistance.
“We worked with really badly injured people,” he said.
The 24-year veteran police officer drew on emergency medical experience that preceded his law enforcement career to aid wounded people. A 2011 Marathon finisher, Chisholm said he will be at the 2014 Marathon as a runner or sweep team worker.
“One way or the other, I’ll be there. The race can’t just be the same as it was this year, it’s got to be bigger,” Chisholm said.
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
