Hillsdale Volunteer Ambulance Service

12/14/2025

Our ambulance is staffed with volunteers and ready to serve the community today! If you don’t need to travel, please stay home and stay off the roads! Our Sunday volunteer crew is currently on the department’s 987th emergency call of the year. This weekend, our Saturday crew took an early morning call officially surpassing our busiest year on record which was 982 answered calls in 2016!

12/09/2025

Ambulance 36 and the duty crew was out tonight in Veterans park celebrating the tree lighting! Our crew enjoyed interacting with the community we serve and ensuring prompt medical assistance as needed during the event due to the below freezing temperatures. Even with it being so cold, Santa was able to brave the trip and arrived at the ceremony!
We wish everyone a safe and happy holiday’s!

12/08/2025

We hope to see many community members at tonight’s Holiday lighting event in Veteran’s Park! Our crew will be on standby along with some additional personnel!

If you see anyone in Hillsdale EMS gear, ask about becoming an EMT and how you can make a difference in the community! The next round of classes open for enrollment this Thursday, so do not delay!!

12/05/2025

Today our per-diems answered 3 calls for service. The crew also spent time checking out the local response area and pre-planning incidents at various locations that they may encounter. They took a trip up to the Garden State Parkway to evaluate the access points, turn around locations, enhanced familiarization with mile markers and discussed NJ Traffic Incident Management guidelines.

While on the way back from one of their transports to the hospital, the crew came upon a vehicle in Westwood that was smoking from under the hood and appeared to possibly be on fire, the crew called it into Westwood police dispatch. Luckily the vehicle was overheating due to a lack of coolant and not actively on fire.

12/02/2025

This Giving Tuesday, our members are on call 24/7 — ready to respond, ready to serve, and always here for Hillsdale. Your donations help keep our ambulance equipped, our members trained, and our community safe.

💙🚑 Support the Hillsdale Ambulance Service today by donating at www.Hillsdaleamb.org and clicking on Donate. Every dollar makes a difference and is directly reinvested in our mission of serving the community by providing emergency medical response!

❤️📸Our day crew was spotted today on the road after their 3rd of 4 calls for the shift (so far)! Remember if you see us out and about, give us a wave and snap pictures of us in action!

12/02/2025

Do you have what it takes to make a difference in the community?! Consider signing up to become an EMT and serve Hillsdale and the Pascack Valley area. Contact us today for details on membership requirements and training opportunities. These are the general details for training with Bergen County EMS training center, but there are more options available too! Registration fills up quickly after opening on December 11th so please don’t delay in getting in touch with our agency ASAP!! EMT students must be 16+ by the start day of the course beginning. Visit www.hillsdaleamb.org for department details and to fill out an inquiry form and visit https://emsregistration.bergen.org/ for additional details regarding course specifics for Bergen County.

11/27/2025

On this Thanksgiving, we’re especially grateful for our dedicated Hillsdale Ambulance volunteers, per-diem members and department officers that continue to serve others in the community!! We are especially thankful for our two members spending their holiday answering the call during the day. Special thanks to our night crew too! We hope you don’t require our services, but if you do, we will be there! Happy and healthy Thanksgiving to all! 🧡🚑🦃🤎

11/26/2025

Our volunteer Tuesday night crew out at Hackensack after a cyclist vs auto in the rain this evening.

Please remember to drive carefully and watch for bicyclists in the roadway, especially when it is dark and raining.

11/24/2025

Captain Chris Martino spent the last few days at the National Conference on EMS held in Atlantic City, NJ. Captain Martino was able to attend several training sessions on various topics including: pediatric respiratory problems/assessments, mental health for first responders, recognizing and administering care for overdoses, differentiating shortness of breath calls, preparing for response to large scale events, prehospital care for TBIs, use of physical restraints, caring for different behavioral emergencies and more! Additionally, he was able to visit the vendor/demonstration area to evaluate various pieces of new equipment and build connections with vendors for our agency’s needs. We look forward to seeing all the ways that Captain Martino is able to bring his knowledge back to our department to enhance operations and response protocols!

11/20/2025

October was the busiest month yet for our agency this year! We had 123 total emergency calls handled by Bergen County Dispatch and Hillsdale EMS answered 118 of the dispatches (96%). 66 patients were handled by our volunteers, while 52 were taken care of by our daytime per-diems. We responded to mutual aid 21 times (18% of calls answered).

We missed 5 calls for the month, 2 covered by paid EMS and 3 by volunteer mutual aid. Of the 5 missed calls, 3 occurred while our crews were already on another emergency call.

As of today, Hillsdale EMS has responded to 918 out of 952 dispatch events this year, thus missing 34 calls which is a 96% response rate. This is a massive improvement from prior to the implementation of the combination service model for our department. This also represents a significant increase in the call volume and handle rate as a whole. Last year, we responded to 514 calls meaning at this point in the year we are at 178% of our prior year volume, a number that will continue to grow with 6 weeks left until New Years Eve! Thank you to the community for your continued support of our efforts and thank you to all of our members for making our truck get out the door!

We are always looking for new and experienced EMTs and those that wish to become EMTs to join our agency ranks! With our numbers posted above it is clear that you will gain valuable experience, make a difference and serve the community regularly! We look forward to hearing from you!

11/15/2025

Great work by the Hillsdale Fire Department and mutual aid companies overnight. Our crew responded and established EMS branch on scene. Our crew requested an additional ambulance from Westwood that was released after the fire was extinguished. Our crew operated on scene for about 1 hour.

This morning at 1:37, the HFD received a 911 call from an employee reported a fire in the bakery area of the store. A Battalion 7 Box Alarm was transmitted adding Rivervale FD, Westwood FD, and Woodcliff Lake FD, as well as a Hillsdale Ambulance. 27 Car 2 arrived on scene shortly after dispatch, he....

11/14/2025

Hillsdale EMS would like to extend a huge thank you to our DPW and Superintendent Barry Peterson for their efforts to help beautify our building grounds with a much needed clean up. Additionally, we extend our thanks and appreciation to the Borough Administrator, Mayor, & Council for approving and funding the replacement of our building’s concrete apron/driveway. The previous concrete pad was suffering significant damage, worn out sections and cracked areas which made access to our building dangerous especially in times of inclement weather. Lastly, thank you the fire department for working with us to try to relocate our ambulance indoors and subsequently adjusting your response plans for your building access when we ended up taking over part of the parking lot.

We’re proud to be part of such an incredible community and appreciate the borough’s investment in our building and efforts beyond the support of our daily mission of providing emergency response to the residents.

If you have what it takes to join our team, visit us online at www.hillsdaleamb.org or give us a call at 201-358-5075!