Darien EMS – Post 53

Darien EMS – Post 53 (often referred to simply as "Post 53") is a nationally recognized ambulance service staffed mostly by teenagers in the town of Darien, Connecticut.

It operates with the cooperation of local police, hospitals and the high school. In any single year, there are about 50 participating teenagers in the program who are trained as emergency medical technicians.(In 2006, there were 58.) Post 53 also has about 25 adult volunteers.

Post 53 is an Explorer post, a part of the Boy Scouts of America, Connecticut Yankee Council.

Operations
The teenage volunteers are certified by the state as emergency medical technicians and operate the service in shifts 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, sleeping overnight in dormitory rooms in the Post 53 headquarters at 0 Ledge Road. The teenagers drive the post's three $100,000 ambulances, staff the radio room that responds to calls, and help run an operation with an annual budget of $200,000. Post 53 was responding to about 1,400 calls a year as of 2006. According to one news account, they "live by a rigid set of rules they set and enforce themselves. To be part of Post 53 is an honor; fewer than one in 10 who apply are accepted."

During school hours, so-called "day ladies" staff the ambulance service.

Teenage volunteers, called "Posties" (or "young adults" on the organization's Web site), serve at least two 24-hour shifts a month. All get mandatory EMT training of more than 150 hours before a member reaches 16. The volunteer work includes time maintaining the ambulances and the building, raising money and doing other chores. The group also offers first-aid training.

Mandatory training begins the day a teenager is invited to join (usually at age 14), and continues throughout the volunteer's membership. After 120 hours of classroom study and more than 20 hours of practical training, 16-year-old volunteers take the Connecticut state examinations for basic level EMT certification. Adult volunteers take the same training. Adults can also get EMT intermediate level certification, which includes invasive advanced life support procedures.

History


Post 53 was conceived in 1969 and began offering service in 1970.

John "Bud" Doble, founded Post 53 in 1971 with several other Darien fathers who wanted to find something useful for their teenage children to do. "Doble and other concerned parents wanted to teach their children about the devastating effects of drug and alcohol abuse," according to the Post 53 Web site. "They felt there was no better way to learn about drugs and alcohol then through direct care, by teenagers, to the victims themselves."

In the 1970s, the service merely provided back-up support a few hours a day to the town's regular ambulance service, then run by Darien police. With 40 volunteer teenagers, the first crews used a converted telephone truck for transportation and Doble's basement for a headquarters. In the first year they responded to 100 emergency calls and the budget totaled $150.



In 1972, the organization moved into the former Noroton Heights train station (now occupied by The Depot youth center). By 1975, the police decided to drop their own service and Post 53 became the town's first responder. The crews worked backup for Norwalk Hospital ambulance services during the day and performed from 6 p.m. to midnight.

In 1976, Post 53 received its first new ambulance, a donation from a local businessman. At that time, the annual budget was $12,000 and crews were responding to 250 emergency calls a year. By 1985, the town made Post 53 its 24-hour first responder throughout the year and the town's only regular emergency ambulance service. In 1989, when it was handling about 1,000 calls a year, the Post moved into a new headquarters, across the train tracks.

Through 2004, about 325 Darien High School students have been volunteers in the organization. The post does not receive town funding, instead relying on fund-raising at its annual art show and at its Memorial Day Food Fair, held at Tilly Park after the town's Memorial Day parade. Individual residents of the wealthy town occasionally donate $100,000 for a new ambulance.

Recognition
"The Oxford and Cambridge of the youthful emergency volunteers' universe can be found almost four exits up I-95, in Darien, in a rambling two-story building just off the southbound entrance ramp that houses what is almost certainly the most remarkable outfit of its kind in the country," wrote Peter Applebom in a 2006 article in The New York Times. "In other communities, youths help adults staff the volunteer ambulance corps. At Darien Emergency Services Post 53, they pretty much are the volunteer ambulance corps."

The Post was awarded the 822nd Point of Light by former President George H.W. Bush in 1990. In 2002 Post 53 was featured on the Canadian Television CTV program, "The 21st Century", or "21C", and in 2001 and 2002 the post was also covered on featured on Bryant Gumbel's "Early Show" on CBS and on Channel One Educational TV from Los Angeles. The American Medical Association has called the Post one of the “top ten volunteer organizations” in the country.