THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, January 15, 1995 TAG: 9501130265
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY BILL REED, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 146 lines
THE CITY'S BIGGEST and most active emergency medical service - The Virginia Beach Volunteer Rescue Squad - was born by accident on a spring day at the Oceanfront in 1952.
It gestated in the mind of J. Peter Holland III, a young lawyer and a World War II combat veteran, as he watched helplessly as a middle-age woman lay at the side of Atlantic Avenue writhing in agony.
She had been struck by a car while crossing Atlantic Avenue and Holland, who was walking to the Post Office on Atlantic at 24th Street, saw what happened and ran to her aid.
A first call for help to the local fire department produced frustrating results. The ambulance was inoperable and thus unavailable.
Next, Holland telephoned Fort Story for assistance, but was met by bureaucratic resistance.
``They asked me if she was a military dependent, and I said, `Hell no, what's that got to do with it? She needs help,' '' a still feisty Holland recalled.
Finally getting an officer on the line, Holland convinced him to send an ambulance to transport the woman - who was suffering a broken leg and some internal injuries - to a nearby hospital.
``If they hadn't sent somebody, she would still be lying there by the side of the road,'' Holland said.
The next day, he went before the Virginia Beach City Council to solicit help in forming a volunteer rescue squad.
With a fledgling membership of five to seven local men, a squad was organized almost immediately. For $1, the crew was allowed to use a small, vacant metal building at Arctic Avenue and 20th Street as its headquarters. For another dollar, the membership bought the broken ambulance from the fire department. Shortly thereafter, a local businessman donated an aging laundry truck to the organization.
A mechanic from a local automobile dealership was enlisted to put both vehicles in working order.
Now, 43 years later, the squad numbers 100 volunteer members, has 11 pieces of up-to-date rolling equipment and is well on its way to new housing in a spacious $1.4 million headquarters, five blocks from the Oceanfront.
``Now it's the largest rescue squad in the city,'' an obviously proud Holland said last week.
He was captain of the organization for the first two years of its existence and remained with the organization for six more years before resigning to give more attention to his budding law practice.
On Wednesday afternoon, Holland, now retired but still living near the Oceanfront, took part in ground-breaking ceremonies for the new squad headquarters on a 1.4-acre tract at 17th Street and Arctic Avenue. Manning bronzed shovels alongside him were Mayor Meyera Oberndorf and other city dignitaries.
The one-story masonry building will contain 17,500 square feet of space and will be part of a cluster of municipal service buildings to be built for an estimated $10 million at an 11-acre 17th Street site over the next two or three years.
A slew of existing Beach Borough services will be housed on the four blocks, bounded by Cypress and Washington avenues and 17th and 19th streets. They include a fire station, the 2nd Police Precinct, the rescue squad and emergency services headquarters, a branch office for the city treasurer and a public library branch.
The transfer of the multiple city functions to a complex to be known as the ``Beach Borough Service Center'' has been in the planning stages since 1987.
The rescue squad headquarters will be the first of the proposed projects to be built. When completed some time near the end of the year, it will replace the 38-year-old brick structure abutting the municipal services cluster at 20th Street and Arctic Avenue.
That building was built in 1957 by the rescue squad, but time, nature and progress have made it obsolete, said Peter A. Agelasto III, chairman of the capital campaign to raise $1.4 million to pay for construction of the new building.
Several of the existing buildings, including the 20th Street fire station, the emergency services headquarters and treasurer's office were built in the 1930s and '40s when Virginia Beach was a small seaside resort.
The fire station at one time housed both the town's fire and police departments.
In 1967, four years after Virginia Beach merged with Princess Anne County to become the city of Virginia Beach, the city bought and renovated the old Virginia Electric and Power Co. office at 18th Street and Arctic Avenue and converted it into the 2nd Police Precinct.
Next door is the public library branch, which was built in 1978.
This structure along with the recently razed Dome - a convention and entertainment center - are being eyed as the site for a major entertainment complex.
So far, Agelasto has raised about $1.1 million in cash and pledges, but he and his fellow campaign members are pushing hard to reach a $2 million goal. The additional funds will be needed to maintain squad operations, he explained.
While public donations produce a big chunk of the rescue funds, the city has been a big contributor as well. Last year the City Council agreed to make an interest-free $1.25 million loan to the squad to defray the cost of buying the land for the new headquarters and paying for the architectural fees and the site work.
The loan is to be paid off in 10 years.
Also provided by the city is insurance coverage, utility and fuel costs. The rest of the 10 volunteer squads in the city receive the same city support, said Agelasto.
All city rescue squads are organized and operated basically by their members, but their day-to-day service calls and training fall under supervision of the city's Emergency Medical Services office, said Bruce Edwards, chief administrator for the agency. There are nearly 890 volunteers in the city's 11 rescue squads, said Edwards, and they operate on annual contributions totaling nearly $900,000.
The Emergency Medical Services office is supported by a $1.2 million annual budget, which covers the cost of training and coordinating emergency calls. It also covers the cost of training city fire and police personnel in basic and advanced lifesaving techniques.
The city's volunteer rescue service is offered free to users, said R. Bradshaw Pulley, chairman of the Virginia Beach Volunteer Rescue Squad in opening remarks at groundbreaking ceremonies Wednesday.
``Ambulance services across the country make up a $5 billion industry, because they charge ambulance fees,'' he told an audience of nearly 100 people huddling under a white canvas tent.
``It's a cut-throat business - but not in Virginia Beach. It is free here.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
TO THE RESCUE
Beach Squad Breaks Ground on $1.4 Million Headquarters
Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN
Forty-years after it began, the Oceanfront squad boasts 100
volunteer members and 11 pieces of up-to-date rolling equipment. But
the current building, built in 1957, is obsolete.
Staff photos by MORT FRYMAN
A one-story masonry building with 17,500 square feet of space will
replace the cramped quarters of the existing Oceanfront rescue
squad.
ABOVE: Peter A. Agelasto III is chairman of the capital campaign to
raise $1.4 million to pay for construction of the new building.
RIGHT: Virginia Beach Rescue Squad Capt. Stewart Martin addresses
dignitaries during groundbreaking ceremonies for the new facility.
NEW CITY PLAN
STAFF Map
by CNB