A bill is now before the Oversight Reform and Federal Relations committee of the NJ state Assembly, which, if approved, would require all towns to provide basic emergency services similar to current laws that ensure police, firefighting and sanitation services.
The bill was introduced last year by Assemblywoman Carol Murphy of Burlington County, and was recently approved by the Assembly’s Public Safety and Preparedness Committee.
Basic life support services are defined as care for stabilizing a patient, transporting that person to a hospital, providing cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR, controlling bleeding, stabilizing fractures or wounds and other techniques.
“This bill simply makes the law match what common sense already tells every taxpayer and every parent who has ever dialed 911,” said Chief Kevin Beyrouty, a leader with the New Jersey Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association, which represents firefighters, emergency medical technicians and emergency dispatchers who support the proposal.
Murphy wants volunteers included in the scope of the legislation and said she is working with various stakeholders on amendments. She advanced the bill last week in spite of that, she said, so it can be done before lawmakers break for the summer. A companion version, with bipartisan sponsorship, is also undergoing changes in the Senate, she said, where it cleared one committee in March.
“It is the idea of being able to ensure that people have access to healthcare, access to medical care and EMS service as well. And the best way to do that is to make sure our volunteers are part of that,” Murphy said. The bill now goes to the Assembly Oversight, Reform and Federal Relations Committee for its approval.
Advocates for the measure said it is needed to strengthen a growing fragile emergency response system, a patchwork of volunteer and paid squads associated with fire departments, hospitals and private companies. Statistics show that while there were approximately 400 volunteer rescue squads in the early 2000s, today there are fewer than half that many in 2026.
To meet the bill requirements, municipalities could contract with a licensed company or non-profit entity, enter an agreement with a hospital or fire department, or create a mutual aid pact with another town or communities in a region.
The Public Safety Committee also approved a bill calling for the state Department of Health to create a statewide emergency medical services plan that would require the state to assess the level of EMS services available in each community and create a coordinated statewide plan with goals for improvement, performance and timelines for reporting data. That bill now heads to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
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CHAPTER 1 LOOMINGS. Call Me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme down-town is the Battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?
CHAPTER 1 LOOMINGS. Call Me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme down-town is the Battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands
