Members of a volunteer ambulance service took part in an emergency training session on Saturday, learning the ins and outs of helicopter rescue. NY1's Natalie Duddridge filed the following report.
Landing at the Staten Island University Hospital Heli-Pad, the NYPD Aviation Unit helped train emergency services volunteers in Helicopter Rescue.
"How to put stretchers, backboards, scoop stretchers into the helicopter to make it secure," said Robert Hakius, a training officer with Volunteer Heart Ambulance.
In the last year on Staten Island, police choppers have been needed for at least rescues.
"There was a container ship someone got injured on, and also an incident where you had a cruise ship launched from Manhattan, that made it halfway to sea by the Verrazano Bridge, and now how to we get the patient of there?" said Richard Alavarces, the president of Volunteer Heart Ambulance.
Volunteer Heart Ambulance is one of the two volunteer ambulance services on Staten Island.
Officials said it helps take the pressure off full-time emergency responders.
"With us out there, it shortens response times and gets us to patients that are in need a lot quicker than, say, a city ambulance that may be on the other side of the Island," said Alavarces.
There are about 50 volunteers with Volunteer Heart, but they say the more people who sign up to be trained, the better they can help people on the Island.
"I've been doing this for 27 years. I just joined with both my children, who are both emergency medical technicians," said EMT Roseanne Giovansanti. "And I just want to give back with them, to our community."
But now the volunteers are in need of the public's help replacing the three aging ambulances in their fleet.
"Our newest one is 11 years old, our oldest one is 17 years old, so we are in need of donations from the community," one EMT said.
The group set a fundraising goal of $400,000.
If you want to help, you can check out the group's GoFundMe page.