Since 1939, The Teaneck Volunteer Ambulance Corps has been Teaneck's Emergency Medical Service. 1998 was another busy year. There were 3418 calls last year, an increase of 7% over 1997, and an average of 9.4 calls a day. The calls involved a wide variety of medical and trauma emergencies, including an accident on Rt. 4 on beautiful spring afternoon that killed a 32 year-old woman, and left us to deal with her sister, with a broken neck, her fiancee, and 6 month-old and 13-month-old infants to care for. Or, a cardiac arrest in the bathroom of a single-family home that left two EMT's with the duties of CPR and other resuscitative efforts while tunneling through a pile of clothes and shoes that clogged the house. Or a call that was reported as an auto accident on State St. and Lozier Place, where the crew found that the collision had been caused because a motorist's heart had stopped. He was resuscitated by TVAC personnel.

Perhaps, the most challenging call was in late autumn, after midnight, on Route 95, at milepost 119 North, where the driver of a tractor trailer had lost control of his truck, left the roadway, and overturned, impaling the top of the cab on a guardrail post, severely entangling the driver, and causing major bleeding from his wrist. The TVAC crew worked closely with the Fire Department, and tried valiantly to save the patient even while another emergency medical entity at the scene only stood back, apparently in fear of the danger of the truck toppling or going on fire. Unfortunately, the degree of entanglement, and the patient's desperate injuries overcame the rescue effort, but the valor and dedication of the Fire Department and Teaneck Volunteer Ambulance Corps members were never lacking.

A happier outcome occurred in October, when a woman fell asleep with a cigarette burning in an apartment on Teaneck Road, touching off a working fire. There, fast and courageous fire department rescuers, working in thick smoke quickly plucked the woman, burned and not breathing, from her blazing bed, and carried her outside. Quickly, TVAC members performed a seamless transfer of patient care from TFD resuscitative efforts, and immediately transported the patient to Hackensack Medical Center, where she recovered. In a community with slower response, or less capability, of either the Fire Department, or the Ambulance Corps, this woman would have probably died. The close cooperation, joint training, and mutual respect between the Teaneck Fire Department and TVAC, results in lifesaving benefits to Teaneck's residents.

Good Emergency Medical Service is no accident. Unlike most ambulance corps in Bergen County, TVAC maintains on-duty personnel in Ambulance Headquarters around the clock. The ambulance building at 855 Windsor Road includes sleeping and eating facilities, with the goal that an ambulance responds to each call within 45 seconds and arrives within six minutes (nationally-recognized good practice calls for an ambulance to arrive within 8 minutes). We met that goal 85.7% of the time in 1998, an improvement of 232 calls from 1997.

Most responses that take longer than six minutes are the result of simultaneous calls. Two out of every seven, and three out of every 30, calls arrive at the same time. Residents can help solve this problem. DO NOT WAIT TO CALL THE AMBULANCE. Many simultaneous calls arrive at or near 8 AM because people experiencing pains, breathing problems, or falls during the night wait until morning to call the ambulance thinking that they are doing everyone a big favor, but by bunching the calls, they are delaying ambulance service, doing both themselves, and the rest of the community a serious disservice. DON'T WAIT TILL EIGHT! To call the ambulance, dial 911 or call 837-2600. There has been an increasing problem with calling 911 from cell phones, as they do not always reach a cell in Bergen County; even when they do, the call goes through one or more other agencies before it reaches our dispatch center. You may wish to program 837-2600 into your phone, particularly your cell phone.