Michael Kirby Smith

projects: first care

The Bedford Stuyvesant Volunteer Ambulance Corps (BSVAC) serves the 79th and 81st Precincts of Brooklyn, NY. EMS workers James "Rocky" Robinson and Joe Perez started the Corps in 1988 to cover a lack of emergency services in a community with limited access to health care. The organization is entirely volunteer-run and is the first African American ambulance service in the country.

   
BSVAC volunteers assist paramedics in connecting a patient to an electrocardiogram in order to monitor the patient's heart.
   
An empty street in Bedford Stuyvesant."In 1988, every other call was crack- or drug-related," recalls Robinson. "People were getting shot, stabbed, seizures, heart attack, comas — and the ambulance would take forever to come. We were running through the street with oxygen tanks on our backs, trauma kits in our hands — we were the laughingstock of the community."
     
  
The BSVAC ambulance named "T-Wolf" sits on the corner of Nostrand and Fulton.In its early days, BSVAC responded to calls largely on foot until its first ambulance was donated in 1989. Throughout the years, the organization has worked closely with the Hatzolah Volunteer Ambulance Corps in an attempt to promote harmony and ease racial tensions between neighboring black and Jewish communities in Brooklyn.
  
A patient is transported to Kings Hospital by BSVAC volunteers.The group responds to as many as 1,500 calls per year, the largest call volume for a service of its size in the nation.
   
BSVAC and the FDNY-EMS respond to a traffic accident on Marcus Garvey Boulevard.
     
  
BSVAC volunteers transport an elderly woman and her family to Woodhull Hospital after she complains of chest pain.
  
Commander Robinson's son, Chief Rock-el Robinson, waits outside Upper Room Baptist Church.
  
Family and friends carry the casket of community leader and "mother" of BSVAC Janet Hart at Upper Room Baptist Church.
     
  
A dove rests on the gravesite of Janet Hart.
   
The city demolishes two condemned buildings next to BSVAC headquarters. Shortly after the arrival of two new trailers, donated by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, the City condemned the buildings adjacent to BSVAC's headquarters. BSVAC was not allowed to move into their new space until the neighboring buildings were destroyed. The trailers sat exposed to the weather for three months while the Commander pleaded with the City to remove the decaying buildings.
   
     
  
BSVAC Chief of Staff Ron Davis speaks to high school students on career day. In addition to providing emergency care, BSVAC runs a youth program to help at-risk teens pursue medical-related professions, including EMTs, paramedics, and doctors.
   
Cheif Muhhamad holds up a police map of the 79th precinct.Over the years, the organization has struggled to find a permanent home. It has had headquarters in dilapidated trailers, tents and shacks as well as Robinson's car and apartment. When it moved into a pair of trailers set on the site of two former crack houses, the group was greeted with shots through the windows and arson attempts. It hopes to secure the parcels of land it rents from the city to build a permanent facility for EMT training and a neighborhood health clinic.
   
NYPD speeds down Lexington Avenue.In the late 1980s and 1990s, at the height of a nationwide crack epidemic, crime and drugs were rampant in Bedford Stuyvesant, which soon adopted the slogan "Bedstuy, Do or Die." In response to a general lack of social services and slow ambulance response times, BSVAC filled a gap in emergency medical care and became a positive alternative to life on the streets for many of its volunteers.
     
  
Volunteers monitor police scanners in the dispatch room at BSVAC headquarters on the corner of Marcus Garvey Boulevard and Greene Avenue.
  
Disco reaches for the last dollar in the Corps' donation bucket. BSVAC runs primarily on donations, and although Commander Robinson has received numerous awards and attention for his service, the organization still subsists, in part, from the pension he receives as a retired EMS Captain. Disco started volunteering for the organization upon his release from prison, after he had difficulty finding work elsewhere.
   
Commander Robinson talks with longtime friend and BSVAC supporter Sharonnie M. Perry at the Thomas R. Fortune Awards hosted by the Unity Democratic Club. Commander Robinson received a Community Merit Award, and Ms. Perry was honored as Woman of the Year for advocating for affordable housing and education and employment opportunities for underserved people in New York.
     
  
   
A girl dances at a summer block party on Clifton Place in Bedford Stuyvesant.
   
Though attempts to replicate the BSVAC have been made in the neighborhood of Harlem and Los Angeles, they have not fared well. Many attribute the longevity of the Bed-Stuy organization to Robinson's resilience, perseverance and charisma.
     
  
The BSVAC routinely transports uninsured patients free of charge. It does not yet have the administrative structure to bill the people it helps.
   
  
The demand for emergency services in Bedford-Stuyvesant has not abated, perhaps growing even more acute with the onset of the recession. It is true that "we get them to the emergency room faster," says Tamsin Wolfe, "but it's not the crisis we want to be responding to. We want to respond to the crisis that makes them pick up the phone in the first place."