Gregory Sun and Dan Casale, both 19, are
students at Rutgers in New Brunswick and are also employed as
Emergency Safety Officers by the Rutgers University Emergency
Services Department. When not in class, they are in uniform,
inspecting the smoke detectors and fire extinguishers of the
dorm
s
at Rutger’s Cook Campus, and serving as EMTs at Rutgers football
games. Anna Natenzon, 20, is a student at Columbia University in
New York City. When not in class, she is an Emergency Medical
Technician with Columbia University EMS. Doug Gazzale, 19, is a
student at the University of Maryland, where he also serves as a
firefighter with the College Park
Volunteer Fire Department. Allison Ring, 19, is a student at the
University of Miami who also serves as a Team Leader on the
campus Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). All five
of these Bernards Township residents gained their first
experience and training as Emergency Medical Technicians and
Firefighters while still in high school, as members of the
Basking Ridge Fire Company’s Junior Membership Program.
The Junior Membership program allows teens
to join the Company at age 16 and become trained as Emergency
Medical Technicians, with the same New Jersey Department of
Health certifications that adults receive. When they reach 18,
they can also take the training necessary to become a New Jersey
State-certified firefighter, as Greg Sun, Dan Casale and Doug
Gazzale did. The experience received providing emergency care to
Bernards Township residents pays off with their current roles.
As Greg Sun puts it, “Becoming an EMT in an
environment like Basking Ridge was a great way to learn about
EMS. Now at Rutgers, we get an insane number of calls at events.
At my first football games I ran into some crazy situations and
I think the reason I could handle it was because of the
experience I gained with Basking Ridge EMS."
Anna Natenzon also credits her experience
as a Junior Member with her success as a New York City EMT: “My
experiences as a member of the Basking Ridge Fire Co. have been
very different from my experiences with Columbia University EMS.
The nature of the calls in Basking Ridge and at school are very
different - at home, we have many geriatric calls, while at
school, we have many calls involving young people, often
involving alcohol and drug use. On both departments, however,
it is not unusual to have calls to people I know, people who are
members of my community.”
Allison Ring's experience is a little
different: "CERT is an organization
that mobilizes to help other agencies such as fire or first aid
if there is a disaster. Because it is based on campus, CERT
would be the first responding organization to such a disaster.
CERT also helps with evacuation for hurricanes if necessary, and
traffic management. CERT can also triage patients."
Doug Gazzalle has put his training as a
firefighter to good use at the University of Maryland: “Geographically,
College Park is less than 10 miles from Washington, DC. We
cover an area that includes the University of Maryland, the city
of College Park, and the other surrounding areas. As a result of the area, we
run a large number of calls in a very diverse region. It's a lot
different from Bernards Township, where it is more of a small
community setting."
Greg Sun may have summed it up for all five
when he said: “Being in the Basking Ridge Fire Company made me
part of a family of volunteers, and it feels really good to take
that training and to help people when they are in their darkest
hour.”
