83-Year-Old EMT Still Saving Lives Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

HOLMDEL, NJ – Holmdel First Aid Squad Chief Christopher Trischitta says that he would call any member of his team a hero. By volunteering dozens of hours a week to answer hundreds of calls during a pandemic, Trischitta says that anyone giving their time to help others should be recognized.

Yet, one member continues to stand out among the rest. That's 83-year-old EMT and former First Aid Squad Chief Bob Bliss, who continued volunteering his services amid the coronavirus pandemic “despite the significant risk to his health.”

“Bob has continued, despite being the ex-chief and despite coronavirus,” Trischitta told Patch. “He’s riding at least 40 hours per month assigned to a nighttime duty crew so he rides overnight. So continues to be extremely dedicated to our community. He’s an enormous asset to us.”

An asset he is: Bliss serves as the squad’s chief IT officer, helping the team stay active and up-to-date on the latest in live-saving information technology. He maintains all squad servers as well as all IT equipment on hand. He runs the squad email servers, pioneered voice-to-text software that transcribes calls, manages the squad's website and even assisted Holmdel Township in upgrading a multi-million dollar radio system for first responders.

He answers emergency calls during the day when he can, but his staple shift is with the late-night Wednesday crew.

“I enjoy doing it and people need help. I’m pretty old so I cut back a little bit, but I ride my one night a week and I do a few day calls,” Bliss told Patch. “Mostly, I just ride one night a week, but I do all the radio work, all the computer work ... I'm qualified to do anything and everything.”

While volunteers are required to complete 40 hours per week, Bliss goes “above and beyond” for the team with his time, effort and experience, Trischitta says.

“One of the reasons why we’re so successful is that, even though we’re required to do 40 hours, it’s the people that go above and beyond that we continue to exist and thrive. Without those people, we would not exist,” according to the current chief.

“I continue going to Bob for questions. Being an ex-chief, there are only a very few amount of people that are willing to continue riding later in life. He is one of those people."

"The Biggest Thrill"

During the pandemic, Bliss chose to continue pursuing his passion of helping others, albeit with added safeguards. Trischitta told Patch that the squad has taken additional safeguards to prevent the transmission of COVID-19, such as implementing extra cleaning guidelines and minimizing the number of EMTs to retrieve a patient when a positive case is suspected.

As Bliss falls within an increased risk group for severe COVID-19 illness (the CDC notes that risk increases steadily with age), specific precautions to protect the veteran EMT are being taken as well.

“We had to make a balance of what he was able to do and what he was willing to do,” says Trischitta. “I think we continued to utilize his talents and utilize his commitment and balance it with his safety and the squad’s safety and the patient’s safety … we encounter hundreds of emergencies and some of them are COVID-19 positive calls. So we are notified [of the risk], and we always take the proper safeguards. Bob recognized this and continued and wanted to ride on his Wednesday night duty crew. He just continued through.”

That’s why on a typical day, Bob will drive the ambulance and position the ambulance for acceptance of patient if a sufficient number of EMTs also respond to a call. However, if his life-saving experience is needed, the former chief will not hesitate to help.

“I was almost a year on the squad before I had my first CPR call. Fortunately they don’t happen too often,” Bliss says. “The biggest thrill is that if you’re doing CPR on patients and you’re doing compressions, and all of a sudden you feel a patient’s heart beating back against your hands, it’s just an awesome feeling. I can still remember the first time it happened to me – it was unbelievable.”

"I Have No Plans Of Stopping"

Although his extensive experience may lead others to believe otherwise, Bliss has only been a part of the Holmdel First Aid Squad since 2006, going on to serve as chief from 2012 until 2016.

Before becoming a certified EMT, Bliss was an electrical and computer science engineer at Bell Labs from 1959 until 1967, then again from 1978 to 1989. He returned to the complex throughout the following years to do consulting work.

The former chief didn’t find his passion for saving lives until much later in life, until his wife suffered a medical emergency in January 2006.

“I called 9-1-1, and Holmdel First Aid came, and I nonchalantly said to one EMT that I was thinking of becoming an EMT,” Bliss told Patch. “She didn’t say ‘oh, we need members.' She just sort of shrugged her shoulders and I didn't think anything more of it.”

It was only when Bliss received an impromptu email advertising for an upcoming EMT class while on vacation in the South Pacific that he took the necessary steps to join the squad.

According to the ex-chief, the rest is history.

Given his value to the community and passion for helping others, Bliss has no plans of stopping anytime soon. While his EMT certification is set to expire in 2023, the former chief says he has every intention of renewing it.

“The only difficult thing right now is with COVID-19, the in person classes are hard to come by,” says Bliss. “But even if I can't continue [being an] EMT, I can still drive the ambulance. I have no plans of stopping, no.”

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