Albe Bassett

NCHS Sophomore Earns Fire Department’s ‘Community Hero Award’

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Marlena Ericsson, 15, was walking home from Youth Group at the Congregational Church of New Canaan on a Tuesday afternoon in late October when she spotted an elderly woman on Heritage Hill Road. It had started to rain and “you could tell she wasn’t able to walk,” Ericsson, a New Canaan High School sophomore, recalled during a Fire Commission meeting held Tuesday night at the firehouse. 

“She reminded me of my grandma, who is 101,” Ericsson told NewCanaanite.com. “So I kind of wanted to help more than anything else.”

She did. The teen brought the woman into the nearby firehouse and waited for the Police Department to come and bring her back home safely, according to Fire Chief Albe Bassett. “Marlena was able to bring her to the firehouse and get her help,” Bassett said while presenting Ericsson with the department’s Community Hero Award.