Monthly Archives: November 2013

Looming in the shadow of the LIRR trestle, sits what used to be Forest Hills’ most prominent community service, the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps, or FHVAC. The single-story building housing the corps, located at 92-29 Metropolitan Avenue, is the second location of the forty-year-old organization, and most passersby don’t think twice about the unimpressive structure or the hardworking volunteers within. Back in the seventies, FHVAC experienced an unbridled rise in communal esteem, a night rarely passed without Forest Hills 1 darting out of the brown garage, sirens shrieking.

The creation of the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps was instigated by unreliable municipal, emergency medical care. Throughout the seventies, eighties, and most of the nineties, city ambulances were contracted out to The New York City Health and Hospital Corporation. Communication was poor within this system, and initially, relied on manual operators to connect emergency calls, delaying response times. The average city ambulance arrived to emergencies twenty to thirty minutes after distress calls were made. Felix Cabrera, an EMT, crew chief, and four-year member of FHVAC, said, “After FHVAC was created… [ambulance] response times dropped to three to four minutes in the Forest Hills area.”

Up until the late nineties, the Forest Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps was the main provider of emergency medical services in Forest Hills, but in 1997, Mayor Rudy Giuliani awarded the FDNY oversight of all city ambulances. With the resources of one of the most respected organizations in the world, the city finally offered reliable emergency medical care. Cabrera said, “The fire department taking over EMS hurt us because the city could actually respond to calls rapidly.” He continued, “but when they cut us off from their radio-dispatch… That really hurt us.” Cabrera refers to the FDNY removing “vollies” from their CAD (dispatch) system in 2010, making the existence of volunteer ambulance corps, within the city, superfluous.

In the three years since the FDNY cut-off volunteer ambulances from their dispatchers, rumors have spread throughout the “volly” system about ambulance corps shutting down. One member of a volunteer ambulance corps said, “Glendale [Volunteer Ambulance Corps] has no money, and Corona [Volunteer Ambulance Corps] has legal trouble. It’s starting to look like dominos.”

Despite the dismal outlook on the future of ambulance corps in New York City, members of the FHVAC are not concerned about the future their organization. Unlike most of their sister corps, FHVAC has accepted the FDNY “isolating” themselves, and manages to stay financially viable and relevant in their community by nurturing a relationship with the local 112th Precinct.

“We’re not totally cut off here,” Joe Cannova, a volunteer dispatcher said. Forest Hills’ dispatchers and ambulance crewmembers can listen and even respond to NYPD dispatchers, something no other ambulance corps is privileged to. “The local 112^th Precinct gives us their radio frequency because… we’re the local community guys. They want us at their calls.” added Cabrera, the six-year EMT.

Other FHVAC volunteers attribute the relationship between the volunteer ambulance corps and the NYPD to the identical credentials of “vollies” and FDNY EMTs.  “We have the same EMT certification that those EMTs have—nothing different,” Jeremy Davis, a three-year member of FHVAC and EMT, said. It’s true all EMTs in New York State must pass the same state final, but FDNY EMTs undergo an additional three months of training at an FDNY facility. Davis claims that the NYPD doesn’t care who shows up to emergencies, as long as they have a New York State EMT certification.

Due to an influx of calls coming from the NYPD, FHVAC manages to stay busy, but still has been forced to adjust some of the ways they generate revenue. FHVAC used to only ask for donations from patients and the community. But now, the organization implements third-party billing. “We only bill patients if it won’t affect them in anyway,” said EMT Davis. “If they don’t have insurance or can’t afford it, they’ll only get a one-time call asking for a donation.”

Davis and Cabrera, like the other fifty active FHVAC members, are on several of the organization’s committees. Cabrera heads the youth outreach program, while both EMTs lend their medical expertise at community events, like the Metropolitan Avenue Fourth of July Parade and the Austin Street Fair. According to the two veteran EMTs, being active participants in community events helps maintain FHVAC’s bond with the NYPD, but the two volunteers also acknowledge personal bonds as well. Cabrera said, “They know us. That’s why they want and like having us at their calls.” Davis, his partner, added, “We see the same guys all the time. We know them and they know us.”