A History of Flatlands Volunteer Ambulance Corps

A History of Flatlands Volunteer Ambulance Corps

In 1974 Dan Dede, in addition to his livelihood as a carpenter, was active as an EMT with the Lindenwood Volunteer Ambulance Corps in Queens.

He relocated to Brooklyn and soon felt there was a need for improvement in response times and quality of ambulance service here. He organized a small group of people through a network of local activists and civic groups. Joe and Terry Santangelo of the Mill Basin Civic Association together with Lou Elrose, also a former Lindenwood member assumed primary leadership roles.

The first organizational meeting was announced primarily in the local Civic Association newsletters and was held on March 5, 1975 at the Kings Plaza Community Room. They soon set about establishing an officership. Dan was the Captain, Lou was First Lieutenant, Janice MacCormack was Training Officer, Philip Liebowitz was Safety Officer, Joe Santangelo was Treasurer, and Terry Santangelo was Financial Secretary.

Their first goal was recruiting members and Membership Chair Renee Migliore was a little surprised when her home phone became the official FVAC phone number on posters all over the neighborhood.

General membership meetings were set for the first Wednesday of each month based on the fact that none of the Civic Associations had meetings on that date. The second meeting was held on May 7, 1975. They distributed actual membership applications, which had been printed on a borrowed ditto machine and discussed raffles and other fundraisers. An instructor from the Rockaway Point Fire Department taught an American Red Cross Advanced First Aid class. The class met Sunday mornings at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Mill Lane and East 63rd Street.

Susan Eagle and Bob Stonehill each took half the Lindenwood VAC Constitution and by-laws and retyped them replacing “Lindenwood” with “Flatlands”. The originating committee also borrowed the idea of a uniform of green pants and white shirt directly from Lindenwood.

The fledgling group then put down a deposit for rental of a former Laundromat the corner of Avenue N and East 33rd Street. It was then discovered that we did not have enough money to pay for the removal of the concrete foundations on which the washing machines had stood and the landlord refused to remove them. We rented a former Hand Laundry at 4904 Avenue L, which had no concrete slabs. The owner lived in the apartment upstairs after retiring and closing the laundry. Dan did the carpentry. Nobody ever explained to outsiders why the bottoms of the storage closet doors were one foot from the floor.

With $1,000 in hand, Safety Officer Mark Peck contracted for the purchase of a 1968 Miller-Meteor Ambulance on a Cadillac chassis.

With a headquarters, an ambulance, and a membership champing at the bit, Flatlands responded to its first patient on February 28, 1976. By 1977 24-hour service was in place. If you were an EMT, you were a Crew Chief. If you were a Crew Chief, you did a minimum of two shifts per week. Radio communications consisted of two CB radios provided by Mark Peck and Susan Eagle (now Mrs. Peck).

In 1974 the State of New York had enacted the Lombardi Act which empowered the State Health Department to issue operating certificates based on their determination of need for additional services. Flatlands had applied but was denied at the February 1976 meeting of the Emergency Services Council. Service had been started pending the anticipated approval of the application. A second application, 198 pages long, was prepared with the help of the New York State Association of Volunteer Ambulances. This was denied at the June 24 council meeting. It didn’t take long for the letter, threatening an injunction, to come from Albany. Service stopped on July 4thafter 198 calls. A brand new $21,000 Horton Ambulance on a Dodge van chassis was bought just in time for the Corps to be closed down by the state. Private ambulance service operators had opposed the corps.

Staggered and reeling form this snafu, FVAC responded by holding its first “annual” dinner-dance on June 25, 1976 at the Glen Chateau on Flatlands Avenue & East 56th Street. Shirley Weiner and Meade Esposito of the Kings County Democratic Party were given special thanks for their donation of more than $12,000 in memory of Murray Weiner. The first Horton was always affectionately known as “Murray.” The American Legion Floyd Bennett Post No. 1060, the Kings Lawn Civic Association, the Flatlands Lions, the Bergen Beach-Mill Basin Lions, the Kings Plaza Kiwanis International, the Bergen Beach Civic Association and the Mill Basin Civic Association were also recognized for donations of more than $2,000 each.

At the August 12, 1976 meeting Assemblyman Stanley Fink led a contingent of FVAC members to the council meeting in Albany for an appeal. Certificate #7192 was issued. Throughout the period of shutdown FVAC members responded in private vehicles and provided diagnostic workups and supportive intervention until EMS arrived with an ambulance.

The Board of Trustees was organized in 1979. It was designed to maintain Fiscal stability, membership recruitment, and publicity for the Corps. One of the people involved in the development of the Trustees, Carl Kruger, is now well known as our State Senator.

On October 10, 1982 Captain Jim Behan officiated as a new headquarters at 4623 Avenue N was dedicated in honor of Joe and Terry Santangelo. Jerry Bisogno, who was president of the Mill Basin Civic Association and Chair of the FVAC Board of Trustees, co-chaired the event. It was an open secret that Jerry had gotten more than twenty-five people to sign guarantor notes with their own homes as collateral for the FVAC mortgage. The mortgage was paid off early. This time a team headed by Peter McGovern, Sr. did the carpentry. Sal Caruso is presently rehabilitating it.

Several years ago we were able to modify the garage attached to our building to allow it to be used for our two Ambulances.

Since the beginning, Flatlands has been in the forefront in providing quality care to our community. We were one of the first corps in the state to be authorized to use defibrillators. We were the first New York City Volunteer Corps to participate in the study of field administration of Albuterol Sulfate for bronchospasm. We were involved at the beginning in training our members in Critical Trauma Care and Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Situation management when these courses were first developed. We developed a multi-agency on-site Medical Response Unit for the Brooklyn County Fair involving eight Ambulance Corps. We routinely provide a stand-by ambulance for community fund-raising runs. We can be found at block parties and schools providing blood pressure screenings and familiarizing children with the ambulance so that they will be better patients should they ever need emergency care.

We train our members and the community at large. In 1999 we completed the renovation of an upstairs apartment in our headquarters and turned it into a training center under the direction of Fred Wilken, Sr. Several CPR courses, a defensive driving course and an EMT refresher have already been completed. Our first EMT class will graduate in June 2000.

In compiling a listing of alumni to invite to this dinner dance the initial list contained more than 500 names. Our total call volume by the end of 1999 was approximately 30,000.

FVAC HistoryCreated by Bob StonehillPage 1 of 3