Jersey City Set To Roll Out Life-Saving 'United Rescue' Program
JERSEY CITY, N.J.(CBSNewYork) -- Jersey City is about to be the first in the country to embrace United Rescue, a program that reduces emergency response time.
As CBS2's Vanessa Murdock reported, its success hinges on an app and community volunteers.
Emergency response time in Jersey City stands at just under 6 minutes, Mayor Steven Fulop hopes to cut that time in half.
"We're excited about a program that's going to save lives in Jersey City," Fulop said.
The community based emergency response program was established in Israel, 10-years-ago. Dov Maisel is the COO.
"It's a concept that we understood, it's not ambulances that save lives, it's the people," Maisel said.
The non-profit pairs willing volunteers with training and technology, specifically a GPS enable app called Now Force.
When an emergency call comes into dispatch, volunteers get an alert. If they are able to respond they acknowledge, and it sends a message to dispatch that you are responding.
Dispatch can track your progress and know when you're on the scene, that's when the response clock stops.
"Professional volunteer that walks through the door and can bee the difference between life and death," Maisel said.
Sherifa Abdalla and Heb Alateek are now professional volunteers in Jersey City. Both went through 85 hours of training.
"We got it down, we worked hard, continuously repeatedly worked on it and we got it," Alateek said.
"They gave us the training, the tools we needed. I'm ready to go out there and make a difference," Abdalla added.
Paul Sossman, the United Rescue Program Supervisor at Jersey City Medical Center said each volunteer is armed with the gear and know-how to respond.
"They are confident and we are confident in them to deliver the best care until our ambulances arrive on scene," he said.
The care could be life saving, because response time should be 3 minutes or less when this technology is in the hands of Jersey City volunteers.
Jersey City trained 51 volunteers and they should start using the app and responding to calls early next week.
Nearly $2-million in private donations made United Rescue possible.
