It’s been years in the making, but NEQALS will soon have a beautiful new home to call its own.
NEQALS (Northeast Quadrant Advanced Life Support) has been providing emergency life support in Webster, Ontario, and Penfield for 35 years. The agency’s roots go back to 1985, when a handful of Xerox employees were trained to provide emergency services to the Xerox campus.
In the years since, NEQALS became a separate entity and expanded to meet the growing need for emergency services in our area. But they’ve never had a permanent home, bouncing around among several locations in town, each with varying amounts of space for staff members to sleep and have meals.
That will finally change, with the construction of a new, dedicated headquarters building on Jackson Rd. next to the Ukranian Cultural Center.
The land was purchased almost six years ago, kicking off a long period of fundraising. Thanks to community donations and a grant from Senator Pam Helming’s office, enough money was finally raised for the project’s down payment.
The handsome new facility will have space for ten fly cars and ambulances, office space, bunk rooms, conference rooms, a kitchen, and more. Construction should be completed by next April.
Our dedicated first responders deserve this space, and I’m thrilled to see they’re finally getting it. Most of us don’t think much about our local EMTs and ambulance service until we need them. But when we do, it’s comforting to know they’re just a phone call away.
I experienced this personally last month when I took that spill off my bike and had my first-ever ambulance ride to the hospital. We didn’t have our car, so knowing that transportation to get medical treatment was going to come to ME took away some stress during what was a pretty traumatic experience.
I hope you’ll never need to call NEQALS, never have to have one of their ambulances respond to your home or auto accident. But if that terrible day does occur, you’re going to appreciate having these dedicated first responders at your side.
Fundraising continues for the new facility. Please consider throwing them a a few dollars next time you have the chance.
Here are some more photos from the ground breaking:
webster on the web 
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