Squad Info
KEANSBRUG, NJ - Approximately 125 people attended yesterday’s groundbreaking ceremony in Keansburg, NJ for the EMS Council of New Jersey’s (EMSCNJ) 9/11 memorial, which will feature a steel beam from the World Trade Center. The monument -- the only one in the USA dedicated exclusively to all the emergency medical services personnel who responded that day -- will sit next to the borough’s existing 9/11 memorial on Beachway Avenue. EMSCNJ and Keansburg officials collaborated on the project.
The 5-foot-long, 338-pound portion of rusty, twisted steel measures 34 inches wide and 29 inches high. It will be mounted on a massive rock that washed up in Keansburg after Super Storm Sandy, and be displayed between replicas of the Twin Towers. Its placement will be in direct line to where the towers stood across the Raritan Bay.
The 88-year-old nonprofit New Jersey State First Aid Council, doing business as the EMSCNJ, represents 20,000 EMS volunteers affiliated with nearly 300 EMS agencies throughout the state. It was among 1,132 organizations to be awarded an artifact from the Twin Towers rubble. Since taking possession of the steel beam in 2011 from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, EMSCNJ officials have been searching for an appropriate site for a memorial to honor the dozens of EMS responders who died Sept. 11, 2001, as well as the countless New Jersey EMS volunteers and responders from several states who pitched in to help that day and for weeks afterward.
More than 400 ambulances responded to either Liberty State Park or the Meadowlands on Sept. 11, 2001. From there, many EMSCNJ member ambulances were sent to Chelsea Pier for standby. Others were paired with FDNY EMTs to respond to 911 calls in New York City. For weeks afterward, some volunteers continued assisting efforts at Ground Zero and others helped answer 911 calls in and around New York City. During that time, volunteer EMS crews continued answering calls for help in their own New Jersey municipalities.
New Jersey’s EMS volunteers answer hundreds of thousands of calls annually throughout the state. Many have been volunteering for decades.
Dedication of the finished memorial is planned for September 2018.
