For years the Township of Washington had been served by Westwood’s ambulance service, but in 1956—amid a postwar population boom—volunteers formed the Township of Washington Ambulance Corps.
The first ambulance, a donation of the town’s Republican Club, was a used 1939 LaSalle purchased from a town in upstate New York. The vehicle is shown above along with an ambulance corps volunteer.
The ambulance was parked in founding member and President Ben Sajkowsky’s driveway for several months before the corps received permission to use the road department’s garage. Because the garage had neither heat nor hot water, the ambulance would be washed down with a rag and cold water. When the space was needed for meetings, the ambulance would be driven out in the driveway. It must have seemed luxurious when the corps got its own headquarters on Hudson Avenue with a fully equipped kitchen in 1963.
The vintage ambulance wasn’t in use in the township for long. The volunteers started a fund drive in 1957, canvassing the town with the goal of collecting $5,000 to buy a modern ambulance and pay for insurance and additional equipment.
In 1958 the corps purchased a new Cadillac, shown below outside the road department garage. Its first run was on March 31, 1958, when the corps took a 13-year-old to the Hackensack Hospital (this was a year before Pascack Valley Hospital opened in Westwood). The teen had received a minor injury while participating in a Boy Scout program at Washington Elementary School.
—Kristin Beuscher