The South Orange Rescue Squad (SORS) was established in 1952 by a small number of local residents and business owners as an all-volunteer ambulance service.
At the time, a single station-wagon style ambulance was housed in a garage underneath the train tracks on Sloan Street, across from the Fire Department. Rescue Squad members were originally trained in American Red Cross first aid. Eventually additional Cadillac style ambulances were purchased.
New Jersey was the first state to create an Office of Emergency Medical Services, which was established in 1967. The first aid training evolved to the Red Cross “5-point” certification and then in 1975, the State of New Jersey started the first EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) course.
EMT training has expanded greatly since that time, incorporating all of the latest advances in evidence-based pre-hospital medicine. The South Orange Rescue Squad now responds to every call with a minimum of two EMTs certified by both the State of NJ and the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians.
In the 1979, the NJ Paramedic or Mobile Intensive Care Unit (MICU) program began. For calls requiring Advanced Life Support, Mobile Intensive Care Paramedics are dispatched from local hospitals along with the Rescue Squad. The paramedics treat the patient alongside the EMTs, in the back of the Rescue Squad ambulances. This simultaneous dual dispatch and treatment protocol continues to this day.
Originally, Rescue Squad members would respond from home to the station when a call came in, and then respond with an ambulance to the patient’s location. In the early 2000s, in order to reduce response times and get immediate care to the patient, the Rescue Squad headquarters became a “live in” station. Crews now sleep in the headquarters 7 nights a week to ensure that there is always at least one staffed ambulance ready to respond. While this change was uncommon in volunteer EMS, we felt the reduction in response times was what our residents deserved.
On September 11th, 2001, South Orange Rescue Squad members were dispatched to the EMS staging area in Jersey City’s Liberty State Park, to treat victims of the World Trade Center attack as they arrived from NYC. The following day SORS crews were dispatched to “Ground Zero” along with a task force of NJ ambulances, where they would spend the next two nights providing standby EMS care to firefighters working on rescue efforts.
In 2013, the Rescue Squad moved out of our longtime home on Third & Valley Streets. For two years, we ran our operations out of a rented apartment while we raised the funds and constructed our current headquarters at 62 Sloan Street.
Originally South Orange Rescue Squad members were dispatched to emergencies by the South Orange Police Department. In the late 1990s, Emergency Medical dispatch was transferred to CENCOM, a regional 911 dispatch center based at Overlook Medical Center in Summit. In 2015, medical dispatch was moved to REMCS, the Regional Emergency Medical Communications System based at University Hospital in Newark. When a 911 call comes into the South Orange Police Department, if an ambulance is needed, REMCS call-takers give instructions to the caller and dispatch Rescue Squad and paramedic units.
Four years after moving into our new station in 2016, the Coronavirus Pandemic struck. While many volunteer EMS departments closed their doors permanently, the brave members of SORS ramped up service– even adding an additional ambulance in service to assist neighboring communities with their surge in COVID-19 related calls.
The South Orange Rescue Squad has expanded greatly in size and scope since our humble founding in 1952. We now have four ambulances and a First Responder Vehicle, all stocked with the latest state of the art medical equipment. We respond to medical emergencies in South Orange, Maplewood, Newark, Orange and the surrounding communities and as part of regional EMS Task Forces respond to larger disasters in Essex County and beyond.
LIFE MEMBERS:
Larry Bernstein
Sharon Mayer Schwarz
