Field of Interest

For 58 years, volunteers with the South County Ambulance and Rescue Corps served Narragansett and South Kingstown by responding to victims of heart attacks, car accidents, fires, and much more. The volunteer group disbanded in 1997 when a professional service paid by the Town of South Kingstown took over the rescue duties full-time.

But now, the Corps is again coming to the aid of the communities' residents, this time through the South County Ambulance and Rescue Corps Fund at The Rhode Island Foundation. The Fund, created this past spring, will "support health, mental health and social service programs of non-profit charities in the communities of South Kingstown and Narragansett."

Brian Gray, president of the Corps, notes, "The Corps was set up to help people and through this Fund it will continue that mission."

Established in 1939 as a result of the Hurricane of 1938 when there was no rescue service available locally, the Corps' founders said the group's mission "shall be to improve the knowledge of its members in hygiene, sanitation, first aid and transportation of patients. The members shall always be ready in case of emergency to render aid."

By the mid-80s it was getting harder to recruit those who would be ready "to render aid," Gray shares, noting that volunteers for the day shift, when most people were working paying jobs, were especially difficult to obtain. The costs of the training, which required regular re-licensing, added to the challenge, as did the increased volume of calls that came as the South County population grew.

In 1989, the Town of South Kingstown began to supplement the volunteers with paid rescue personnel, a practice which increased through the years, until 1997 when the paid force took over all operations on a full-time basis.

Gray, who was involved with the Corps for nearly 20 years, recalls the unit in his early days. "It got pretty hectic. The state requirements (for an EMT and cardiac technician on each truck) were really strict, but it was good. We were the best in the state. And it wasn't just a job to us. It became a passion. You knew you were helping people."

The Corps was supported through subscription drives, donations, and insurance reimbursement. Starting out with one vehicle - a Cadillac station wagon - the Corps had four trucks, medical equipment, and a building and property on Christopher Street at the time it ceased to operate. The sale of these assets established the fund at The Rhode Island Foundation. "There were three of us who agreed to stick with it to the end," Gray explains, crediting Corps Vice President Robert Riccardi and Director Kathleen Castro with helping to start the Fund.

"The Corps members worked so well together, it was as though they thought as a unit. We had a lot of really good people come through the organization," recalls Gray, noting that former volunteers now are doctors, nurses, and lawyers. "They gave of themselves and took pride in what they did."