By Peggy Carroll
Their first ambulance was an old delivery truck donated by Frank’s Fish Market in Morristown.
The year was 1941 and the world was at war. The men who were driving the ambulance were Red Cross- trained corpsmen who had first worked with the Morris County Sheriff’s Office preparing for the clear possibility that the war would reach this country’s shores.
And they saw a need for an ambulance squad to serve the area.
They called themselves the Morris Minute Men – a name promising a quick response to community need and reflecting the area’s colonial history. And they soon had as their logo the famous Concord statue of the Minute Man at the ready
It was to appear on every ambulance they came to own.
The group’s official founding was September 1941. And shortly after the war began, the all-volunteer crew was driving its fish wagon ambulance, and carrying its own first aid kits, to the aid of neighbors in Morris Township and Morris Plains.
The charge to their patients: Not a cent.
That was 75 years ago.
Some things have changed, said Dave Schulz, who is in his fifth year as president of what is now called the Morris Minute Men Emergency Service.
Slideshow photos courtesy of the Morris Minute Men
The original crews all were men; today 50 percent are women and several have headed the organization. For years, (for reasons unclear) the membership was limited to 30, all aged 21 and older. Today, there are more than 80 members, who range in age from 16 to 70-plus. And they are better trained than the first corpsmen; each is a state-certified emergency medical technician (EMT).
abandoned garage on the grounds of the old Morristown Memorial Hospital in Morristown,
behind Mid-Town Plaza.
They respond to some 2,700 calls per year, an average of eight a day. Altogether, they volunteer about 35,000 hours a year, providing 24-hour service – seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.
And they serve not only residences, but many Morris County facilities, including the county jail, nursing homes, a homeless shelter, and parts of Route 287 and 24.
They have four ambulances, all the same distinctive shade of blue as the $7,000 Cadillac ambulance they bought in 1953 (they call it Minute Men blue).
And instead of parking them in various spots around the towns, they are in the former public works garage on Mill Road that they bought from Morris Township.
They have been chosen as the best-of-kind in the state and best of their kind in the nation..
On thing has not changed, Schulz said.
They still charge not a cent.
This Saturday, July 16, 2016, the Minute Men will mark their diamond anniversary with a picnic for current and former members at Community Park in Morris Pains.
And they will have an opportunity to record their memories of their service and create an oral history of where they have been and what the group has meant to them and to their communities.
A FAMILY OF VOLUNTEERS
A picnic seems the right kind of celebration. It’s what families do.
And the Minute Men, as Schulz pointed out, have the kind of cohesion and camaraderie shared by extended families. They have the same skills set, the same goals and a history of teamwork.
And like many big families, the Morris Minute Men encompass a wide variety of people — from teens to retirees, from high school- and college students to executives, from a mother of four to a tradesman to a former journalism professor.
Some are new, experiencing their first taste of health care and their first volunteer stint. Others have been members for 30 or more years.
From their ranks have come surgeons and physicians, flight medics, nurses and paramedics, physicians assistants, physical therapists and career EMTs.
Schulz became part of it 12 years ago.
“I used to work at the University of Medicine of Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark,” he said. “University Hospital was part of it. And University Hospital is the EMS provider for the city of Newark.” He knew folks who worked in EMS and they urged him to look into volunteering in his hometown.
“So I got my EMT training at University Hospital, “ he said, “and I liked it so much that I joined the Morris Minute Men. “
For others, the motivation comes from an interest in medicine, because they have seen the ambulance crew at work – or because they are looking for a way to help out in the community. Others have been recruited by Minute Men – through mailings, talks, or by example.
It is not a light commitment.
WHAT AN EMT DOES
It’s a complex job. The emergency medical technician provides on-the-scene immediate medical care to patients in emergency situations, traffic accidents, falls, heart attacks. They stabilize the sick and injured and then transport them to a hospital. They must know how to assess an emergency scene, control bleeding, apply splints, assist with childbirth, administer oxygen and perform CPR and other basic life support skills.
And that mean extensive training and a level of duty not usually found in a volunteer job.
From the start, Schulz said, volunteers need to understand what will be asked of them
First step: Qualifying. Most new volunteers attend a 240-hour course at the Morris County Public Safety Training Academy and then 10 hours in the hospital emergency room. And they must pass not only the course exam, but the state certification test.
Then comes the amount of time they are on duty. Typically, Schulz said, that’s a minimum of 12 hours a week, and can rise to 20. For senior officers and board members, who are involved in administration, it may climb to 30 hours – almost a full-time job.
The reason: Someone is on call at the Minute Men headquarters quarter 24/7.
“The minimum staffing is two people,” he said. “That’s what we need to get an ambulance out.
We try to have at east four.” Often, he said, there are two ambulances on the road at the same time.
IN RAIN…OR SNOW… OR…
The blue ambulances carry whatever the EMTs will need : Medical equipment, gurney, snow shovels. At times, there may be an urgent need for the latter.
For like postal workers, the ambulances and EMTS go when they are needed – middle of the day or middle of the night, hurricanes and blizzards not withstanding.
Hanover Avenue, next to the Mennen arena.
Don McKenna, a retired journalism professor who serves as the Minute Men’s de facto historian, recalls times when just getting to the patient meant finding a way through storm-blocked streets and over mounds of ice and snow.
“Heavy snow makes it difficult to gain access to homes as well as to use the gurney,” he said, talking about the stretcher on wheels used to move patients.
On more than one occasion, he said, the Minute Men have had to call municipal public works teams to plow a route to the patient.
Ice makes their work even a greater risk. There have been occasions, McKenna said, when they needed a local fire department’s help, even using their ropes to steer a gurney safely down an icy driveway or hillside.
And the snow shovels? They are used by the crews themselves to clear a path to the patient.
Squad members remember vividly a call to an outdoor event. Suddenly, the heavens opened, unleashing a downpour so heavy that crew members at the back of the stretcher couldn’t see those at the front. No one, McKenna said, could see where they were going, including the crowds of people who were trying to leave. Just getting the patient to the ambulance was like running through flood waters.
Nor was that the end of the trouble. On the same call. The ambulance barely swerved around a falling branch and had to detour twice because of downed power lines before it made it to the hospital.
And then there was Superstorm Sandy.
Some parts of Morris Township were cut off, roads clogged by branches and fallen trees and wires. Then, at 4 a.m. there was a call for a fall victim. After an hour, the crew returned, unable to find a route. The patient’s family said they could care for the patient. But at first light the next morning, the family called again and another ambulance was dispatched.
This time, after trying six different approaches, the crew found a side road where they could move the branch themselves– and finally get through.
KEEPING IT FREE
There is no wonder, Schulz said, that the highest bill the Minute Men get is for insurance.
“Even though we are volunteers,” he said, “it is considered a high-risk job.”
It takes about a quarter of a million dollars a year to cover expenses – from gasoline and ambulance maintenance to medical supplies, utilities and oh yes, the insurance. The Minute Men receive small grants from both Morris Township and Morris Plains and from Morris County, Schulz said, but the funding comes mostly from its neighbors, individual donations from the people in the towns it serves.
The Minute Men have not only won local support, but state and national recognition.
In 2010, they were declared New Jersey’s best volunteer service by the state Office of Emergency Medical Services, and in the same year won the same award from the National Association of Emergency Medicine. That was the year, too when its captain, Mark E. Wintle, won the Association’s EMT of the year award.
It also keeps up a tradition that is becoming an anomaly – or as McKenna says, “something of a dinosaur”: It is independent and all-volunteer – not affiliated with government or institutions – and in a time of constantly rising costs for all things in health care, it is serving without cost.
The only thing required to get their help — in just a minute:
Dial 9-1-1.
Morris Minute Men transported my mom many times from the hospital to home. Wonderful, dedicated group of people!!