Hatzalah plans garage for Five Towns ambulances

Organization hopes to put two valuable vehicles behind closed doors

By Mayer Fertig

Issue of Sept. 26, 2008

If your teeth chatter in a car that’s been parked outside on a winter night, or you wilt in the superheated air in a car that’s been standing in the sun, you probably can imagine the discomfort of a patient strapped into an ambulance that’s been freezing or baking in the elements before the heater or air conditioner can catch up. Perhaps the person is even breathing oxygen that feels uncomfortably chilled.

“It sounds silly but you see the discomfort of the patient,” said Rabbi Elozer Kanner, a Hatzalah coordinator. “A patient was in bed, at home and you touch their skin with a freezing cold stethoscope. Sometimes it’s the smallest things.”

Hatzalah of the Rockaways and Nassau County houses several ambulances in a 10-year-old garage in Far Rockaway, but two other ambulances, which are stationed in Woodmere, including a brand-new one, are parked outside Congregation Bais Tefilah, on Peninsula Boulevard and Edward Avenue.

The shul has been “very gracious” about the arrangement, Rabbi Kanner said, but it’s time for a change. A fundraising campaign to build a garage for those two vehicles is underway and a property has been purchased on West Broadway and Grant Avenue, near the Cedarhurst-Woodmere border.

A fundraiser is planned for Sunday, Sept. 28 in Woodsburgh. The Sushi & Grill reception is to be held from 7-10 p.m. at 55 Woodmere Boulevard South, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Shlomo Mayer.

Discussions about building a new garage on the shul property, perhaps as part of a new shul building, didn’t work out, mostly for reasons of timing, according to Herb Marek, a vice president of Cong. Bais Tefilah. Hatzalah’s need was more immediate.

“Today, with all the medications we keep on our ambulances, when the efficacy of those medications are vulnerable to extremes in temperature, it’s more important than ever to keep our ambulances inside,” Rabbi Kanner said.

Plus, the replacement value of the two trucks based in the Five Towns approaches $500,000. “It’s a little funny to leave a half million dollars on the street,” he pointed out.

An architect’s drawing of the planned garage shows a fairly modest building designed to blend in with private homes. It will hold a total of four ambulances behind two bay doors, and will include classroom space for training. The Far Rockaway garage is no longer large enough to host the entire membership at once. Hatzalah of the Rockaways and Nassau County responds to about 3500 calls a year –– the volume has grown by about 200 calls annually in recent years –– and the number of volunteers has grown to keep pace.

Neighbors of Hatzalah’s new property reportedly are concerned that the building might be used for public events not related to Hatzalah training and operations. Rabbi Kanner told The Jewish Star that it would not.

“In the past 10 years in Far Rockaway we have not used [the garage there] for outside catering or events and we have no plans to do so in the future, or in our new building as well.”

Rabbi Kanner was asked if he could he offer a blanket guarantee that it would never happen.

“The honest answer is every once in a while there’s an exception. In the 10 years that we’ve had the building in Far Rockaway there have been two or three events that we deemed worthy. Once the mayor came to town and wanted to see the Hatzalah garage.” Lunch was catered for that event, he said.

On another occasion a Shabbos bris on Erev Pesach was held for the grandchild of a Hatzalah member. The family “needed a place where chametz could be used,” Rabbi Kanner explained.

“We are good neighbors,” he stressed. “There’s never been a complaint about our operation and the way it interacts with our neighbors.”

In Herb Marek’s experience there’s no cause for concern about the prospect of life near a Hatzalah garage. He owns a home just down the block from where the ambulances are currently based, and said, “As a neighbor I have never found it to be a problem.” When an ambulance departs on a call during davening on Shabbos morning, “It’s very rare that we would even know that the ambulance has left, in terms of hearing a siren,” he said.

The Hatzalah members are trained to be sensitive about how they operate emergency vehicles, Marek was told, “and they have abided by that. They are not, by any stretch of the imagination, cowboys. If you can operate an ambulance without disturbing the decorum of a synagogue then you can operate in a residential area.”

“Any visual perception of seeing an ambulance nearby is more than offset by the fact that you have a speedy response by Hatzalah personnel if there’s a problem,” he added. “It’s not a significant intrusion.” When his mother fell in his home, Marek said, Hatzalah members were on scene within “moments.”

Hatzalah is soliciting donations in memory of Mark “Whitey” Davidman, a”h, a beloved and dedicated volunteer who was killed in a motorcycle crash on Peninsula Boulevard on Sept. 10, 2007.

A fundraiser is planned for Sunday, Sept. 28 in Woodsburgh. The Sushi & Grill reception is to be held from 7-10 p.m. at 55 Woodmere Boulevard South, the home of Mr. and Mrs. Shlomo Mayer. The event co-chairs are Mr. and Mrs. Charles Alpert and Mr. and Mrs. Paul Packer.