Things: Ambulances
The original way doctors treated patients in the days before hospitals was to see patients in their office, or, as was often the case, a doctor would take a horse-drawn carriage and bring their medical kit to a location where a patient was located.
Horse-drawn Elizabeth General Ambulance
From the earliest days, Elizabeth General Hospital and Dispensary had its horse-drawn "ambulances" stationed at Keenan's Stables, a business located on what is now W. Jersey St., right off Broad St. This was also located near the Free Dispensary for the Treatment of Surgical Diseases of the Poor (April 17,1877), which was what we would refer to today as a free clinic that was open three days a week, also on W. Jersey St. three doors down from Broad St. Dr. James S. Green and three of his colleagues opened the Free Dispensary as a pre-cursor to finding and equipping a larger venue. That venue was a large house found on Jaques St. that was renovated and set up as a larger space. They even had to convert a building in the back of the property into a "Surgical Pavilion," and the larger house was where patients were admitted to convalesce. When the larger Elizabeth General Hospital and Blake Memorial was constructed on the corner or E. Jersey St. and Reid St., ambulances were, at some point, located on site.
Elizabeth General Horse-Drawn Carriages
Years later, when we viewed photos of the Elizabeth General "ambulance" and a similar one located in front of Alexian Brothers Hospital, we realized the "driver" was one and the same person, Prosper Redel.
Brother Prosper at the reins
As fate would have it, this gentleman decided it was his calling to become an Alexian Brother and was forever known to the residents of Elizabeth as Brother Prosper. For more than 50 years, Brother Prosper and many other ambulance drivers/operators provided emergency transportation to the hospital and transitioned from the horse-drawn to the mechanical ambulances that were later introduced.
Motorized Ambulance Circa 1913
These dedicated ambulance drivers, using a wide variety of vehicles, were tasked with the important job of getting to the scene of a medical emergency and getting the patient back to the hospital. Along the way, doctors, interns and later EMTs and paramedics exhibited talent and bravery in the face of extremely difficult and sometimes calls that included fires, explosions and other disasters and calamities.
Elizabeth General Ambulance Circa 1940
Elizabeth General Hospital Ambulance Circa 1955
Very often, the ambulance driver was among he first faces a patient or family member in distress would see, and Elizabeth General Hospital and Dispensary, Elizabeth General Hospital and Elizabeth General Medical Center were always aware of, and sensitive to, personal tragedies that required our ambulances.
This information was last reviewed or updated on October 15, 2024. Adjustments may be made to this page as new information is added, making this a continual work in progress.
Elizabeth General Medical Center ER Entrance
From the EGMC 100th Anniversary Salute (1979)
Two horse-drawn ambulances kept indoors
Elizabeth General Mid-Century Ambulance
This information was last reviewed or updated on January 1, 2025. Adjustments may be made to this page as new information is added, making this a continual work in progress.
1930 OpEd Salute
In the 1930 Elizabeth Daily Journal spotlight on National Hospital Day, the editors described the state of healthcare in Elizabeth as follows:
"Your Elizabeth hospitals have gone a long, long way since a young fellow, in white clung, like an ice man, to his precarious perch on the horse-drawn General Hospital ambulance and the beloved Prosper put aside his boots and saddles to become an Alexian Brother.
There was no great National highway bisecting East Jersey street then, only Spring street with an abandoned racetrack, and grass beginning to show through the idle running surface, out where Route 100 will meld into 25.
Riding an ambulance over the uncertain surface of Elizabeth streets back there was sheer adventure--and only sheer and dark adventure brought people to hospital cots. We were learning, but we hadn't yet learned that, instead of institutions to which folks turned, usually, in utter desperation, hospitals were havens where suffering was eased and from whence patients returned hale and sound and facing a suddenly broadened span of life.
The records prove that as the true appreciation of the hospital's place in a community took hold life grew longer and the way became a lot smoother--thanks to our emergence from the provinciality's of the past and the ever forward progress of medical science.
Today the pendulum has completed its arc in traveling away from the past. Today a sensible people turn naturally to our hospitals in time of illness. So sharp has been the awakening that there is hardly a hospital of standing in the whole State that remains unconfronted with a multitude of problems born of staggering operative costs, of staff shortages, of bed shortages that were natural and inevitable once an enlightened public realized that hospitals are places where sensible ill people go to get well."
While this was written almost a century ago, the words and sentiments ring true today as hospitals have evolved to provide what is now considered, to just about everyone you ask, an essential service that provides care, comfort and great benefits to the community.
Click here for a link to the graphic of the editorial.
Early fundraising for purchase of ambulance
In the Beginning...
"The Ambulance is housed at the Stables of Mr. Henry Keenan, on West Jersey Street. Permission for its use may be granted by any member of the Board of Managers or of the Staff; and in case of emergencies, the House Physician or other officer in charge of the Hospital, the Chief of Police, and the Station Masters of the Pennsylvania and Central Railroad Companies may also authorize its use. In every instance the Hospital must be notified before the Ambulance leaves Mr. Keenan's Stables. A charge of $2.00 per hour is rendered for the use of the Ambulance, but subject to distance and condition of roads, where the call is beyond the line of paved streets. It is the aim of the Managers to see that the charges are reasonable, and as low as circumstances will permit."
Click here to see the image from the Elizabeth General Hospital and Dispensary's 13th Annual Report for year ending January 1, 1894.