What Does It Take To Be A Member Of The Award-Winning AHFAS?
No training is necessary. We just ask for a personal commitment of your time and a willingness to lend a hand.
Once you’ve gone through the membership process - outlined in the membership guidelines - you’re a part of the team. We’ll provide CPR training, basic uniforms and access to personal protective gear to assure your safety.
At that point you’ll be able to respond to calls as an observer, where you’ll get to see your fellow men and women of the AHFAS in action. All new members begin a 12-month probationary period. During that time, they’ll be assigned a mentor, learn the inner-workings of the squad, and within that year enter an approved Emergency Medical Technician training program.
You are not alone in this process and everyone at the AHFAS is here to help. At no time do we want a member responding to a call to feel uncomfortable about the process.
Responding to a call is easy. The AHFAS is dispatched by the Atlantic Highlands Police Department. All members are supplied pagers that emit tones when a call for help has been made. We also use a supplementary message texting system that goes to your smartphone. When that happens, we ask available members to head to the EMS building for further instructions and to then respond to the call.
From the building, we’ll respond to the call in one of our fully equipped ambulances, which are stocked with bandages, supplies, AEDs and more. On the scene we’ll provide care and transport the patient to the hospital. Afterward, we’ll clean up, resupply the ambulances and return to safely to our own homes.
We do require all members commit to a duty night, which requires them to be available to respond from home to calls between the hours of 11 p.m. and 5 a.m. Doing so assures the town has coverage overnight.
Overall, the AHFAS responds to upwards of 500 calls a year. We ask all members make at least 10% of the squad’s calls, which represents about one call a week.
Some may require our members to lift immobile patients, some may require us to perform in stressful situations, and sometimes it may simply require us to provide a calming sense and to hold a hand.
Are you ready for the challenge?