Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps
Encyclopedia
Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps provides Advanced Life Support
Advanced Life Support
Advanced Life Support is a set of life-saving protocols and skills that extend Basic Life Support to further support the circulation and provide an open airway and adequate ventilation .-Components of ALS:These include:...

 (ALS) and Basic Life Support
Basic life support
Basic life support is the level of medical care which is used for patients with life-threatening illnesses or injuries until the patient can be given full medical care at a hospital. It can be provided by trained medical personnel, including emergency medical technicians, paramedics, and by...

 (BLS) ambulance
Ambulance
An ambulance is a vehicle for transportation of sick or injured people to, from or between places of treatment for an illness or injury, and in some instances will also provide out of hospital medical care to the patient...

 services in the Hudson Valley region of New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. Beacon Volunteer operates ambulances staffed by emergency medical technician
Emergency medical technician
Emergency Medical Technician or Ambulance Technician are terms used in some countries to denote a healthcare provider of emergency medical services...

s (EMTs) and paramedic
Paramedic
A paramedic is a healthcare professional that works in emergency medical situations. Paramedics provide advanced levels of care for medical emergencies and trauma. The majority of paramedics are based in the field in ambulances, emergency response vehicles, or in specialist mobile units such as...

s. Beacon Volunteer currently covers the City of Beacon and parts of the Town of Fishkill in Dutchess County. Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps has been assigned a department ID number of "82" by the Dutchess County Department Of Emergency Response
Dutchess County Department Of Emergency Response
The Dutchess County Department Of Emergency Response has the responsibility of governing Emergency operations in Dutchess County, New York. This encompasses Police, Fire and EMS.-Dispatch System:...

.

History

The Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps was first started in 1958 due to impetus from a Beacon police officer and a Beacon Engine Company member named Walter Detwiller. He was a transplant from New Jersey, but while still living in New Jersey, his son's life was saved by a volunteer ambulance corps in the area. He thought that it would greatly benefit the community to have their own ambulance service. He enlisted the help of Joe Catalano and George Cable and the members of the Beacon Engine Company and recruited 29 people to start the Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps.

The initial ambulance was a 1948 burned out Cadillac ambulance, donated from a dealer in New Jersey, that the members refurbished. The ambulance was housed at the Beacon Engine Company, which also housed the emergency phone. Soon, they outgrew their facilities and through the efforts of the Beacon Engine Company, an old two bay garage was purchased and donated to BVAC. In 1975, construction on the current building commenced. This was done primarily by volunteers and the heavy construction was through the Naval Reserve Seabee Unit located in the area. Construction continued for five long years. The current BVAC Headquarters was dedicated in May 1980.

There was no county dispatch system in the beginning, so at first, 3, then 7 members had phones installed in their homes to receive emergency calls. They would get on the phone and call members to man the ambulance whenever an emergency call came in. In 1980 a new dispatch system came to BVAC as the Beacon Police Department began to answer the phone lines and they would, in turn, dispatch members by pagers. This continued until 1984 when they joined the Dutchess County Bureau of Fire dispatch system, which is still used to this day. In 2009, the Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps hired its first employees to handle emergency calls from 6am-6pm Monday through Saturday. In January 2010, the Beacon Volunteer Ambulance Corps became an Advanced Life Support Agency and hired paramedics for 24/7 response.
.http://www.beaconvac.org/history.html
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