| By SYLVIE MULVANEY Correspondent |
|
|
| 1st Responder Newspaper |
WEST CALDWELL, NJ – There were few women on the West Essex First Aid Squad when Barbara Ashton joined in 1975. More than three decades later, Ashton has distinguished herself again by answering her 10,000th call as a volunteer EMT for the organization.
Her frequent ambulance partner, Jerry Gordon, has been a West Essex FAS member for 43 years, and is on track to answer his 10,000th call some time in 2007. Combined, they’ve provided 75 years of volunteer EMS service.
A nurse for more than 50 years, Ashton moved from her native England to West Caldwell with her husband and raised three daughters. She began volunteering with the squad after several EMS-affiliated friends convinced her to join the organization. But she hit a bump in the road to official membership.
\”According to squad bylaws, I had to be a U.S. citizen to be sworn in as an active member,\” she explained. \”It took two years, but I wanted to help my neighbors, so I did what I had to do.\”
In addition to answering calls, Ashton serves as the squad’s vice president and currently runs its fund drive.
Ashton, a grandmother of seven, still works in a local physician’s office. She is reluctant to talk about herself and downplays her 10,000-call milestone, which she reached in October 2006. She credits her family for enduring many late calls, cold dinners and less-than-perfect housekeeping.
\”It’s my other life, my other family,\” she said of the squad. \”So many volunteer EMS families go through the same thing. When you think of all the people you’ve helped over the years, though, you realize the sacrifices were worth it.\”
Ashton said she’s had many rewarding experiences during calls, including the time she persuaded a patient with \”indigestion\” to consent to a ride to the hospital. Several days later, Ashton saw the grateful man’s wife in the hospital. Her husband was in the intensive care unit following a massive heart attack.
Ashton also remarked that, after so many years answering so many calls together, she and Jerry Gordon function as a well-oiled machine, often anticipating each other’s actions without even talking.
Despite her wealth of knowledge and decades of health care experience, Ashton conceded she doesn’t know everything.
\”You learn something new on every call,\” she said. \”I’m still learning.\”
Jerry Gordon, 79, of Essex Fells, joined the West Essex FAS in 1964 after responding to a full-page local newspaper ad for volunteers. His wife was a borough councilwoman at the time.
\”It was a way for me to put back into the community, and it’s been one of the best ways I’ve ever found,\” Gordon said. \”It gets into your blood. If I didn’t like it, I couldn’t keep doing it.\”
Gordon, father of two and grandfather of three, says he has \”retired\” three times during his career as a businessman, including years as president of a public company. Despite his business demands and frequent trips around the world, Gordon’s commitment to the squad never wavered. He still rides 53 hours a week when he’s not spending time at his second home in Florida.
\”I’m a Type A personality,\” Gordon said. \”If I’m going to join something, I put all my energies into it. Besides, you can’t hit a moving target.\”
Though most calls are \”ho-hum,\” Gordon said the most rewarding ones involve reviving a patient and seeing him or her still around several years later. One call last fall, memorable for its tragic outcome, involved a 16-year-old football player who collapsed on the field from a congenital condition, he said. Four squad members arrived on scene in minutes. There was even a physician at the field, but despite their best efforts, the teen didn’t survive.
\”We did everything perfectly, but we couldn’t save him,\” Gordon said. \”That was a very difficult call.\”
Gordon recommends community service to everyone, particularly young people.
\”Being an EMS volunteer is a great way to formulate a life path,\” Gordon said, adding that young people who join the squad learn about following rules and shouldering responsibility. \”It’s nice to see that kind of growth.\”
Reflecting on his colleague’s recent accomplishment, Gordon has nothing but praise for Barbara Ashton.
\”She is the best diagnostician, the best EMT I’ve ever seen,\” he said. \”If she’s answering your call, you’ve got a real professional.\”