Port Jervis Ambulance Corps

08/11/2026

COULD YOUR CHILD CALL 911 FOR YOU?

It’s something we hope they never have to do, but something every child should know. We’ve responded to emergencies where a child was the one who called 911 and they were able to tell the dispatcher their street, who needed help, and what was happening. That information helped get responders where they needed to be. 🚑

Take a few minutes today to make sure your child knows:

📍 Their home address or street
👤 Their parent/caregiver’s full name
📞 How to call 911, even from a locked phone
🗣️ To stay on the line and answer the dispatcher’s questions

We made a 911 Safety Sheet for our littlest community members!

👇 It’s completely FREE. save the image below, print it at home, and fill it out together.

Then ask them: “If I needed help right now, could you tell 911 where we live?”

A few minutes of practice today could make a big difference during a real emergency. ❤️🚑

— Port Jervis Ambulance

08/10/2026

🚑 WEAR YOUR SUPPORT. HELP US ANSWER THE CALL. 🚑
Port Jervis EMS is proud to serve our neighbors across Port Jervis, Deerpark, Matamoras, and the surrounding tri-state community. Now you can show your support with our new Port Jervis EMS Proud Supporter fundraiser shirt!

Every shirt purchased helps support the equipment, training, and readiness our personnel need to be there when a 911 call comes in. As a nonprofit EMS organization, community support makes a real difference.

Grab yours today, wear it with pride, and stand behind the crew that answers the call—24/7/365.

👇 Order here: [Insert Bonfire link]
https://www.bonfire.com/answering-the-call-port-jervis-ems/

Every shirt helps Port Jervis EMS stay ready to answer the call.. Port Jervis Volunteer Ambulance Corps is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit providing emergency medical services ...

08/10/2026

439 calls. Countless critical decisions. One mission: your care.

In July 2026, Port Jervis Volunteer Ambulance Corps responded to 439 EMS incidents across the communities we serve. Behind that number were time-sensitive assessments, advanced cardiac monitoring, medication administration, IV and IO access, lifesaving CPR, and critical emergency interventions.

Our crews performed 240 ALS assessments, 142 BLS assessments, 98 12-lead ECGs, 176 medication administrations, and 122 IV administrations—care that requires highly trained providers, medications, cardiac monitors, medical supplies, ambulances, and equipment ready around the clock. We also provided CPR on four occasions, established IO access four times, and performed a needle decompression when a patient’s condition demanded immediate action.

Emergency medical care is not simply a response when someone calls 911—it is a community resource that must be staffed, equipped, trained, and ready before the emergency happens. Sustainable funding helps ensure our providers can continue delivering timely, advanced, and lifesaving care to the City of Port Jervis, Deerpark, Matamoras, and our surrounding communities.

Thank you for supporting Port Jervis Volunteer Ambulance Corps and the dedicated EMS professionals who answer the call every day.

08/07/2026

Free food distribution, tomorrow, Friday 8/7 @ 9:45 -11am between the HS & MS.

You can pull your car right through the driveway by the custodial area to the left of the little red building & we'll bring the bags out to you! ! Thank you to the Hudson Valley Food Bank for their partnership to help serve & our community!

08/07/2026

We spent this week on dollars and certifications. Today, the part that actually matters.

Nobody dialing 911 is thinking about reimbursement rates or scope of practice. They are having the worst day of their life, and they are counting on somebody to come.

What kind of human beings would we be if we left a call unanswered?
So we go. We always have. We always will. Our volunteers built this corps and still run it. Our EMTs and AEMTs give this community care it should be proud of. And we are telling you plainly that this community deserves paramedic care of its own.

We just think you deserve to know what it really takes.

Thank you for reading this week. If you have questions, ask us in the comments — we will answer honestly.

Port Jervis Volunteer Ambulance Corps — One Mission. One Team.

#911

08/07/2026

Port Jervis Volunteer Ambulance Corps answered 439 EMS incidents during July 2026, including 186 in the City of Port Jervis, 159 in Deerpark, and 17 in Matamoras. Thank you to our crews, mutual aid partners, and the communities we serve for your continued support.

08/06/2026

Behind every ambulance is a person carrying the weight of countless calls.

Su***de among EMS professionals is a difficult topic—but one we cannot ignore. Research suggests that the unique combination of repeated trauma exposure, high operational demands, irregular schedules, organizational stress, and stigma surrounding help-seeking can place EMS clinicians at increased risk for mental health challenges and su***de.

While no single factor explains su***de risk, the evidence points to several opportunities for prevention:

🚑 Normalize conversations about mental health before a crisis develops.

🤝 Build strong peer support and leadership that encourage early help-seeking.

🧠 Ensure access to confidential, culturally competent mental health care that understands EMS culture.

🏢 Create organizational policies that view psychological wellness as an essential part of operational readiness—not an optional benefit.

Every shift may end, but the experiences accumulated over a career do not simply disappear. Supporting the mental health of EMS professionals requires more than responding after tragedy—it requires a sustained commitment to prevention, education, and a culture where asking for help is seen as a sign of strength.

If you or someone you know is struggling, reaching out early can make a difference.

Reference

Vigil, N. H., Beger, S., Gochenour, K. S., et al. (2021). Su***de Among the EMS Occupation in the United States. Western Journal of Emergency Medicine, 22(2). https://doi.org/10.5811/westjem.2020.10.48742.

***deprevention

08/06/2026

When an ambulance pulls up, the level of care that just arrived depends entirely on who is on it. New York has three certification levels, and each one is authorized to do different things.

An EMT can do CPR and use an AED, give oxygen and breathing treatments, control bleeding, blood sugar testing, splint fractures, give epinephrine for a severe allergic reaction and reverse an overdose. That is a great deal of good in a bad moment.

An Advanced EMT adds IV access and fluids, additional emergency medications, and advanced airway devices.

A paramedic adds the things that change outcomes on the worst calls. Reading your actual heart rhythm in your living room and interpret it. Manual defibrillation. Cardiac and pediatric emergency drugs. A breathing tube. Controlled medications for pain and sedation.

Port Jervis runs EMTs and Advanced EMTs, and we want to be very clear: they are outstanding. Some of the best providers we have ever worked beside are on this roster. This is not about ability. It is about what the State authorizes each level to carry and to give. An excellent AEMT still cannot give a cardiac drug, because the certification does not permit it. That is a limit on the toolbox, not on the person.

Here is our reality. Our service area rarely sees a paramedic, and when it does, that paramedic is not ours. We request one from another agency and wait. On the calls where minutes decide the outcome — cardiac arrest, a heart attack, a stroke, a child who cannot breathe — the waiting is the whole problem. And three things in that arrangement are outside our control: how they are trained, how fast they arrive, and whether one is available at all.

We are grateful every time one comes. But gratitude is not a plan.

With our own paramedics, all three of those become ours. We would control the quality of the care, the education and continuing training behind it, and how fast it reaches your door — because they would already be here, in your neighborhood, when the call drops.

That is part of why the new building has a classroom in it. Training our own paramedics is not a someday idea — it is the whole point of having a place to teach.

That is the difference between hoping advanced care arrives and knowing it will.

Tomorrow we close this out.

#911

08/05/2026

Before COVID, we ran roughly 2,500 calls a year.

In 2025, we handled 4,682.

Our call volume nearly doubled — and it never came back down. Everyone expected the surge to be temporary. It was not. This is simply the new normal.

Nearly twice the calls, and not one of them optional.

That is why yesterday's numbers matter. A shortfall you can absorb at 2,500 calls a year becomes something very different at 4,682.

Tomorrow we are going to explain something most people have never had explained to them: the difference between the crew that shows up, and the crew a serious emergency actually needs.

#911