ABOUT US

Source: Spring 2008 Glen Ridge Town Talk  

1890 - 1950

In 1890, using a horse-drawn wagon, the first ambulance service was provided to the Glen Ridge community by Mountainside Hospital.

That service was discontinued in 1948, and the town then responded to emergency calls with police officers and members of the Glen Ridge Volunteer Fire Department arriving in a fire truck. If an ambulance was needed, a call was made to the dispatcher for the Montclair police ambulance, however its availability was not assured as it was on call to Montclair, Glen Ridge and also to Bloomfield at the time. If it was not available, backups included the Red Cross ambulance and what was delicately referred to as the “Gorny and Gorny service.” Since Gorny and Gorny was a local funeral parlor, one can easily imagine how medically counterproductive it must have been to be transported to the hospital in its available conveyance!

The Glen Ridge Volunteer Ambulance Squad was organized in 1950 as a “functional memorial” to the thirty-two men from town who fought and died serving their country during World War II. In the wake of that war, members of the Glen Ridge Battalion Forum were looking for a suitable way to pay tribute. The idea of establishing a memorial ambulance service in town was logical since Glen Ridge had single-handedly raised money to purchase an ambulance for the British during the war.

1950 - Today

THE FIRST AMBULANCE

Fundraising began for the town's first ambulance in early 1950 and the response was overwhelming. Even before letters of appeal were sent out, money poured into the fire station at the rate of $500 per day. In the end, 1,600 households in town (out of a total of 2,100) made donations. The $12,000 amount raised exceeded the set goal by $2,000. This allowed the purchase of an ambulance built by Cadillac that was then state-of-the-art, equipped with oxygen, a resuscitator and inhalator. There was also a brass plaque inside bearing the names of the 32 individuals from town who had died in the war. The new ambulance was manned by the volunteer firemen, two on call at all times, and in its first three years of service, it responded to over 650 calls.

The ambulance squad was run by the Glen Ridge fire department until the early 1990s when the fire department was dissolved and fire services were contracted to Montclair.  Ambulance service continued without interruption as volunteers, representing a broad cross-section of the town in terms of gender, situation, and age from 16 to 70+ came together to build and evolve the ambulance squad into what it is today.

TODAY

Today, the squad has approximately 60 active members (including many nationally certified high school student EMTs) who donate their time and skills 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year to provide support and professional pre-hospital care and transport to those in need in Glen Ridge and neighboring communities. We are constantly training our volunteer organization to continue to provide the best and most proficient emergency care possible.

Our goal is to be someone’s hero every day.