Jersey City Medical Center EMT's and Paramedics better start looking for a new job.
Maybe the medics can pic up some part time work as coach drivers at Amb-U-Car.The pain will be unbearable if Gov. Jon Corzine's proposed $108 million cut in charity care funding for hospitals is adopted, according to Hudson County hospital officials.

This reduction - proposed in the 2009 budget that legislators are now reviewing - would hit the Jersey City Medical Center and Hoboken University Medical Center especially hard since both facilities treat a large number of uninsured and under-insured patients each day, the officials said.

Charity care coverage for JCMC would be slated to drop from an estimated $83.5 million in the 2008 fiscal year to $55.4 million in 2009, according to projections by the New Jersey Hospital Association.

Hoboken University Medical Center would be dealt a $4.5 million cut and receive $11.9 million next year, based on estimates of claims data that will be released in June.

The final numbers could change, but as things stand, programs would have to be cut, said John McKeegan, spokesman for LibertyHealth Systems Inc., which owns JCMC.

"The Jersey City Medical Center would not be able to essentially absorb these cuts," McKeegan said, noting two-thirds of the hospital's patients are uninsured or on Medicaid. "These are people in desperate need of services."

HUMC spokeswoman and state Assemblywoman Joan Quigley, a member of the Assembly's Health Committee, warned the effects could ripple from one hospital to another.

"I believe it would be foolish for the state government, which has already sunk so much money into (HUMC) to save it, to put it so close to the cliff," Quigley said. "If any one hospital closes, it could swamp the others."

Heather Howard, commissioner of the state Department of Health and Senior Services, has said the state is trying to break with past practice of "operating in a culture of crisis management...to a culture of strategic planning."

The state's new charity care formula puts hospitals in three tiers. The group with the most uninsured patients will get a 5 percent cut in funding, those in the middle will get an average reduction of 34 percent, and the hospitals that provide the least charity care will no longer be given any funding.

The formula would mean a cut of almost $591,000 at Palisades Medical Center in North Bergen, to $3.4 million.

Christ Hospital and Bayonne Medical Center would see slight increases. Christ Hospital's funding will be raised by about $235,000 to $10.3 million, while BMC's will go up $310,000 to $4.3 million.

Meadowlands Hospital Medical Center in Secaucus, another LibertyHealth facility, has relatively few uninsured patients, but would get a $61,000 bump to almost $681,000.

The Assembly Budget Committee, on which Quigley also sits, will hold a public hearing on the proposed budget at Liberty Science Center on Wednesday at 9 a.m.

A Jersey City man's ear was partially cut off when he was slugged in the head with an aluminum baseball batafter an argument over $20 on a Marion section street last night, officials said.

When police arrived at the 45-year-old victim's Nunda Avenue home around 9 p.m. they found him being treated by New Jersey emergency medical technicians for injuries to his left ear, reports said.

He said he'd been arguing with a man over money on Dales Avenue and when he began walking away, the man hit him on the side of the head with the bat, reports said.

He told the officers he was knocked to the ground by the blow and from there he saw the man walking away holding the bat, reports said. The victim was taken to the Jersey City Medical Center for treatment of the non-life-threatening injury and he was listed in stable condition

Shot to death

Francis Scott Walker Jr. had a plan -- finish college, become an accountant, and start helping out his mom, a dedicated single parent who raised her children to work hard and valued education.

Around 12:15 yesterday morning, that plan came to a tragic end after Walker was shot to death while parking his 1992 Pontiac Bonneville on a street in Elizabeth, a short distance from his home

Police said there is no evidence this was a car theft or robbery attempt, and speculate the shooting may have been a case of mistaken identity.

Michelle Walker said she remembers bursting with pride when her only son graduated in 2006 from the Union County Adult Vocational-Technical School. Yesterday, she could barely contain her grief as she described the horrific scene where she held her 20-year-old dying son in her arms.

"He was barely breathing when I got there," Michelle Walker said as tears rolled down her face. "I held him and told him he was going to be all right, and I thought I heard him say something, but I knew my baby was dying."

Francis Walker was treated by paramedics and taken to Trinitas Hospital with a single gunshot wound to the torso. He was pronounced dead just after 1 a.m., police said.

Walker, a student at the Elizabeth campus of Union County College who also worked at Federal Express, had been out to a fast food restaurant with two friends and his cousin, Sharif Hawk. Walker briefly stopped at his home on Broadway before driving to Hawk's girlfriend's house on South Park Street, where they planned to play cards. Then tragedy struck.

"He dropped the three of us off and said he was going to park the car. Not 45 seconds later we heard gunshots," said Hawk, 23.

Hawk and the friends dashed back outside and heard the engine of Walker's car racing, as if the accelerator was stuck. They found the car in the middle of the road, with Francis Walker slumped over the steering wheel."They shot him right through the window of his car," he said

A 2-year-old boy was critically injured

his older brother and grandfather were also hurt this afternoon when a kitchen fire sent smoke and flames throughout their two-story home in Jersey city.

Fire Chief Tim Foy said Oliver Sy, was close to death when rescue workers found him in an upstairs bedroom just before 12:20 p.m.

Two firefighters - Jose Cotty and Pat Murphy - removed the boy from the house and performed CPR on the hood of a car to revive him, Foy said.

Once they stabilized the boy, he was transported to the Jersey City Medical Center,
officials said, and was awaiting transport to St. Barnabas Hospital in Livingston. The extent of his injuries were not immediately available.

When firefighters arrived at the house on Orchard Street, they found the boy's grandfather, Bill Lee, who was not identified, battling the kitchen fire with a garden hose, officials said.

He, along with his 7-year-old grandson Antonio Sy, was also taken to Jersey City Medical Center for burns and smoke inhalation, said Armando Roman, the city's fire director.

Firefighters quickly brought the blaze under control and Roman said that investigators were inspecting the scene to determine a cause.

"This was a bona fide rescue," he said. "This boy would not be alive if it wasn't for the effort of these firefighters.

Throat slit by assailant

A 32-year-old Freehold Township woman remains hospitalized after her throat was slit by an assailant during an armed robbery attempt at her home Friday morning, according to a report in the Asbury Park Press.

Detective Lt. Roy Ruiz said the woman was attacked as she opened the vestibule door to her apartment on Stonehurst Boulevard at about 3 a.m. She suffered a 9-inch cut to her throat and wounds to her hands as she tried to fight off her attacker, he said.

The woman was taken by NJ paramedics to Jersey Shore University Medical Center in Neptune, where she was listed in serious condition. The suspect escaped on foot.

Ok I know it's not an EMS post but I just had to post this.I cant wait to see it.

The Morristown Ambulance Squad

The Morristown Ambulance Squad, Inc., which has served the Morristown community since 1961, is a non-profit organization whose volunteer members provide free service 24-hours-a-day, 365-days-a-year.
Morristown ambulance web page
Morristown ambulance Myspace page

St Patrick's Parade - Morristown

The Morris Minute Men


The Morris Minute Men(web site)

Morristown Ambulance Squad


M.A.S (web site)

I started a small clothing line called
Cyanotix Clothing.

Women run over by a 400-all-terrain vehicleA 28-year-old female sustained injuries March 11 about 12:20 p.m., when she was allegedly run over by a 400-all-terrain vehicle on Railroad Avenue.

The Rio Grande Rescue Squad was requested at 506 Railroad Ave. to attend to the victim of the accident.

Emergency medical services requested a Medevac to fly.

South Star Medevac responded to the National Guard Armory in Crest Haven to air lift the victim to AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center City Trauma Division. She reportedly sustained trauma to the groin.

A 30-year-old man drove a car into a group of peoplestanding outside a Newark bar early Saturday morning, killing one woman and injuring four others, police said.

Police arrested Wilquan Williams of Irvington, charging him with murder and several other counts, said Newark Detective Todd McClendon. The 1 a.m. incident happened outside Tremont Lounge, at Tremont Avenue and Halstead Street.

Williams had been thrown out of the same bar a short time before, police said.

Killed was 20-year-old Rasheena McCray of Newark, who was standing outside the Tremont Lounge with others when police say Williams drove a 1998 Cadillac DeVille into the group. The car belonged to a friend, police said.

Williams, who lives in a halfway house in Irvington, was scheduled to be at work that evening but instead went to the Tremont Lounge, police said. He was told to leave after walking into the women's bathroom, McClendon said.

Once outside, Williams got behind the wheel of the Cadillac and intentionally drove into the bystanders, police said. Williams fled the scene on foot but was arrested after police tracked him to his halfway house on Lyons Avenue in Irvington.

McCray died a short time after being taken to University Hospital by NJ Paramedics, police said.The other four injured were treated by EMT's and taken to the hospital.

Williams had been completing his sentence for unspecified weapons charges in Union County. Now, in addition to murder, he is also charged with four counts of aggravated assault, possession of a weapon (the car), and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.

McCray's death marks the fourth homicide in Newark this year compared to 14 during the same period last year, police said.