Traumatic Incident Spurred First Aid Squad President's Membership

It was just after midnight on New Year’s Eve four years ago when future Maplewood First Aid Squad President LaVerne Peterson saw a man lying in a heap in the middle of Route 21 in downtown Newark.

He was dying and the car that hit him had not stuck around long enough to see what would happen.

Peterson just missed the car speeding away when she stopped at a red light directly across the street. It took a few seconds, she said, to register what had happened. “When I first came up to it,” Peterson said, “I thought it was kids playing around or someone playing in the street, just lying down for some reason. Then [I was] like, ‘Oh my God, am I seeing what I’m seeing?’ One lady was screaming – she saw the whole thing transpire.”

“I would have had to drive around him to continue home,” she added.

The man reportedly had been running diagonally across Route 21, not using the crosswalk, when a car struck him, flipping him up and over its hood and hard onto the street. One witness said the car came out of nowhere, another said the man came out of nowhere. The bottom line for Peterson was that someone needed to help him.

This was the experience that ultimately prompted Peterson to join the squad. Though she’s seen countless other tragic scenes since joining, there are few she remembers as clearly as this one.

A few people started towards the injured man. Peterson was closest, however, and without seeming to think, she jumped out of her car and grabbed a blanket from the trunk to help keep the man warm in the chilly January night. She yelled to someone to call 9-1-1 and knelt down beside the injured man, taking his hand into her own.

“There was blood coming from his nose, ears and mouth,” said Peterson. “His breathing was erratic and slow. I grabbed his hand, put the blanket over him and started to pray for him. I told him people were coming to help him.”

Though Peterson said she will often stop on the side of the road to help someone change a tire or call a tow truck, she had never helped anyone in a medical emergency. She was CPR certified, but this man’s injuries were well beyond her abilities at the time.

A Newark police officer was first to arrive on the scene. Together, the two tried to soak up the blood and stop the bleeding where possible. Peterson remembers helping to apply an oxygen mask when the officer, impressed with her demeanor, asked if she was a nurse.

“No,” Peterson said, “I’m just good in stressful situations.”

The man was rushed to the hospital and Peterson said she remembers little about the drive home, other than coming to the realization that the man could die of his injuries. “I was in a daze,” she said. “I was crying and then I was in my driveway.”

The following morning, after telling her coworkers what had happened, a few encouraged her to join her town’s first aid squad. She spoke to Capt. Bruce Mandel and went on her first ride-along one day later.

Peterson is now president of the squad. It's a non-paying job, of course, as the Maplewood squad is all-volunteer, but she said the reward she gets from helping the community is very real and much better than money.

Every day when she’s around town she sees faces of people she's helped. In some cases, the faces of people whose lives she helped save, whose children's lives she helped save. “[Joining the FAS] goes a long way towards helping the community,” said Peterson. “You never know when you’re going to need us.”

Peterson completed the accelerated training for the squad in three months and has been an active member ever since.

After Mandel passed away last year, several volunteers resigned from the squad, putting them in a difficult position — understaffed and underfunded.

As a result of the staff shortage, the squad only responds to calls five days a week, leaving the fire department responsible for the other two days.

Peterson said her goal is to get people involved in the squad, whether they are volunteers or donators. The squad will need between seven and 10 more volunteers to once again operate seven days a week.

For more information about joining, click here.

To donate, go here.