
Ridgewood Emergency Medical Services seeks new members
JULY 15, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2014, 12:06 AM
BY LAURA HERZOG
STAFF WRITER
This past March, on a small 50-seat plane heading out to New Orleans, three friends with Ridgewood Emergency Medical Services (EMS) training – including Ridgewood EMS Chief Brian Pullman – helped abate a scary situation.
A fellow passenger passed out as he was walking to the bathroom. The three men attended to the anxious man, who had the flu, and calmed his wife and the plane crew. Their calm under pressure prevented a possible emergency landing.
Ridgewood Police Lt. Glenn Ender also recalled how this winter he put his EMT training to important use when he was off-duty. Driving into the IHOP on Route 17 South, Ender saw an SUV flip over near the restaurant’s entrance. He put his family’s breakfast on hold, telling his children to stay put while he ran over and helped the driver, whose leg was pinned beneath the dashboard. He put pressure on the driver’s bleeding wounds until on-duty police and an ambulance crew arrived minutes later.
“Once the ambulance pulled up, I turned it over to them, and I just had breakfast,” Ender said.
Ridgewood’s fire chief, a former paid Ridgewood EMS staffer, also has a similar tale. During a family rafting trip on the Colorado River rapids in May 2001, Fire Chief James Van Goor helped fashion a splint for a young rafter who fell and broke his arm. The rafter was later escorted by a helicopter out of the area.
The EMS department is hoping that more residents see the need to learn these heroic skills and are willing to volunteer their time.
– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/community-news/clubs-and-service-organizations/ridgewood-ems-makes-push-for-new-members-1.1051478#sthash.5YuZwODK.dpuf