Jersey City: New Program Will Give Us 'Fastest' Emergency Response In Nation

If Jersey City’s new emergency response program works, rescue attempts in the municipality may soon be among the fastest in the nation.

And it will all be thanks to citizen power.

Through a unique partnership with the Jersey City Medical Center–Barnabas Health that city officials are billing as “the nation’s first community-based emergency response program,” Jersey City will soon have a trained reserve of action-ready citizens, all capable of answering the call to duty.

The result will be dramatically increased EMS response times throughout the city, claim officials.

According to city administrators, the new program – dubbed United Rescue – is inspired by United Hatzalah of Israel, where the average EMS response time is three minutes.

“United Rescue’s model takes these response times a step further and recognizes that many victims could be saved if a nearby neighbor, coworker or fellow citizen were equipped to help during that initial window of time,” city officials stated in a release.

As in Israel, Jersey City’s program includes volunteers from all sectors of the city’s community, city officials stated.

Current volunteers include doctors, business professionals, students and retired individuals.

On Nov. 12, Jersey City officials announced that the municipality graduated its first class of 50 volunteers, with about 650 others in the signup process.

The graduated volunteers have completed a 60-hour course in medical first response taught by Jersey City EMTs, according to a release.

Training included how to effectively obtain vital signs (blood pressure, pulse, respirations, lung sounds), how to recognize the signs and symptoms of chest pain and cardiac emergencies, obtaining CPR/AED certification at the professional level, how to perform oxygen administration and have awareness of respiratory emergencies (asthma, COPD, emphysema), and the response for large-scale incidents and mass casualty emergencies that require the cooperation of multiple agencies.

HOW IT WORKS

Here’s how the program works, according to city officials:

“When residents call 911, a dispatcher will immediately deploy both an ambulance and a community-based emergency responder. The United Rescue technology uses a GPS-enabled mobile app to track and deploy the nearest volunteer responders who are able to quickly navigate through dense urban areas on “ambucycles” or on foot -- whichever is fastest.

“For example, an office worker could be suffering from a heart attack - while someone who could save his life might be, unaware, in a meeting a floor below. This lack of information exchange will no longer exist with United Rescue, as the program will ensure there is always a cadre of trained and equipped volunteers, who can be instantly located and dispatched from the 911 operator and on any scene in the city immediately.

“CBEC volunteers begin treatment in order to stabilize a patient’s condition until the JCMC EMS arrive on the scene, with an objective of reaching patients within 150 seconds from the time of the emergency call to treatment.”

The program is funded by almost $2 million in private donations, city officials stated.

Anyone who is interested in becoming a Jersey City Community Based Emergency Caregiver can register online here.