First published in The Record, April 8, 2020

Low on money and support, volunteers battle COVID alone

The white ambulance backed into the garage at 2:21 p.m., its red and blue and yellow lights still blazing. At 2:23 p.m., bells inside the garage began to buzz.

Another possible coronavirus patient. Another emergency call.

On Anna Street, a mile away, someone couldn’t breathe.

Leah Kahan pulled on a white jumpsuit, then took the driver’s seat. Joseph Kaplan threaded his boots into a pair of blue coveralls and climbed in beside her. Kahan hit the lights. She didn’t need the siren — the streets of Teaneck were empty.

They arrived at the house on Anna Street at 2:28 p.m. Kahan swung herself down to the pavement. Spinning, she grabbed a green canvas bag from the ambulance and trotted into the house, Kaplan running ahead.

Inside, the patient was already dead.

Twenty-one minutes later, Kahan emerged. She carried a clear plastic bladder. It was the tool she’d used to pump oxygen into the lungs, trying to bring the patient back to life. Now the tubes of the bladder dangled around her thighs.

Kahan walked slowly. She was alone. It was warm in the sunshine, cold in the shade. Across Anna Street, the pink bulbs of a magnolia tree seemed to bloom in a different season, a spring when nothing at all was wrong.

Kahan and Kaplan are members of the Teaneck Volunteer Ambulance Corps. This spring, that means tending to victims of the coronavirus. Teaneck was among the first communities in the United States to experience cases of COVID-19, and it remains among the most badly hit. All over town, people need rides to hospitals.

It seems that every day, more people die.

“In a given year we’ll go to between 50 and 60 cardiac arrests,” Izzy Infield, 25, a volunteer for nine years, said last week. “Yesterday we had one dead. Today we had two. Saturday we had three. That’s unheard of.”

Tests for the coronavirus aren't available for Teaneck EMTs to use, even here, even now. Most people in Teaneck with fevers, headaches or labored breathing have no idea whether their symptoms are caused by the coronavirus, pneumonia or simply the flu. Just in case, members of the ambulance corps treat every person they meet as a carrier, wearing white masks and blue gloves on every call.

If patients can walk, Kahan and Kaplan take them by the hand. Together they shuffle to the ambulance. If a patient’s heart has stopped, the ambulance riders drop to their knees and start CPR wherever the body fell. They risk their lives on every call.

Kahan is 21. Kaplan is 17. He is a child, and she’s so young that she can pass for one. They buy their own uniforms. As volunteers, they receive no health insurance and no pay. You know they are heroes because they don’t talk like heroes. They talk like young people who are afraid.

“There’s definitely fear on every call,” Kahan said. “It’s definitely scary that we have hundreds of cases just in our town alone.”

Founded in 1939, the Teaneck Volunteer Ambulance Corps has five ambulances, 120 members and a drafty garage squeezed hard against the railroad tracks. The headquarters sits between Route 4 and Cedar Lane, Teaneck's main shopping strip, both of which are quiet now, and mostly empty of traffic. Ten members already have tested positive for the coronavirus or have the symptoms, said Jacob Finkelstein, captain of the corps. Another 15 have underlying medical conditions of their own, or vulnerable family members at home, so they can’t come outside to help.  

The volunteers just had the busiest week they have experienced since Superstorm Sandy in 2012, or maybe ever, Finkelstein said. The corps is fielding 25 calls a day, about seven more than normal, he said. In normal times the corps sends an ambulance for every call, including times when residents stub their toes or fall down.

Now that a pandemic is bearing down, few people bother to pick up the phone for such minor problems, Finkelstein said. That means that on average, volunteers are treating more severe cases, and spending more time on every call.

Those still able to ride are volunteering to work every shift they can.

“We’re down about 25 members. It is challenging,” said Finkelstein, 24, a member for eight years. “It scares me. I don’t want anyone to burn out.”

The pandemic also forces the corps to spend more money. Wearing a mask to every call means the volunteers use 50 masks a day, said Perry Maier, a member who manages supplies. Usually the corps spends about 70 cents to buy an N95 mask, he said, but now replacements cost up to $10 a piece. Volunteers also wear white Tyvek disposable suits to every possible coronavirus call.

Normally the corps spends about $300,000 a year, Finkelstein said, including $20,000 on supplies. Due to the pandemic, the supply budget is mostly spent. It’s only April.

“At our burn rate, we have about a month’s worth of masks,” said Maier, 34. “So what should I do? Spend the money now to get those masks now? Will they be $15 or $20 next month? I don’t know.”

The corps receives $70,000 a year from the township of Teaneck. Every person transported by the corps rides for free. A few weeks after they return home, patients receive a letter asking for a donation. The other big fundraiser of the year is a weekend brunch — an event that's been postponed due to the pandemic.

“When you run on a shoestring budget to begin with, and you’re running through 50 masks a day, it adds up very quickly,” Finkelstein said.

Support arrives in unexpected ways. Working from home, one Teaneck resident has enlisted two of her children to make 10 plastic face shields a day. Volunteers whose schools or businesses are closed by the pandemic have taken on extra shifts.

Jason Hagler is a friend of Finkelstein’s and a former volunteer firefighter who lives in Flushing, Queens. With his job installing fire alarms on hold, Hagler applied to become a volunteer with the ambulance corps on a recent Sunday.

He was accepted on Monday, got his CPR certification on Tuesday. He drove from Queens to Teaneck and spent all night Tuesday driving ambulances.

“Jacob said they were short-staffed,” said Hagler, 30. “I’m out of work, so I’m trying to help out as much as I can.”

For an hour and a half last Wednesday, there was a lull in the ambulance garage. No calls came. Volunteers sat around a scarred conference table made level by a scrap of cardboard crammed under one leg. Infield sat among his friends, using an engraving tool to engrave TVAC, the ambulance corps’ initials, into a newly purchased pager. 

“My God, that is loud!” Finkelstein said. “Can you stop?”

“What?” Infield said, laughing. “I could pay somebody do it, but it would cost 50 bucks apiece!”

The buzzer rang. It was 6:21 p.m., the first call of the evening. A 3-year-old boy fell and hit his head. An ambulance was dispatched. At 6:30, another call came. A senior citizen in an assisted-living facility complained of “flu-like symptoms.” Someone on Rutland Avenue called at 7:46 p.m. Difficulty breathing. More ambulances left.

The next call hit at 8:11 p.m. Finkelstein answered.

“Another one? That’s 26 for the day,” Finkelstein said to the dispatcher. “Yeah. What do you got?”

Finkelstein pulled on a white suit. When he left, the garage was empty. All five ambulances were out on calls. It was 8:18 p.m.