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Grand Rapids Fire Department's Emergency Medical Services honored with Ford proclamation

Grand Rapids Fire Department accept framed copy of 1974 Emergency Medical Services Week proclamation signed by President Gerald R. Ford.
Patrick Center
/
WGVU

As part of Emergency Medical Services Week, the Grand Rapids Fire Department and it Emergency Medical Services was honored Thursday at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum with a copy of President Gerald R. Ford’s 1974 proclamation.

“President Ford was always a champion for those who served to protect our communities; the fire, the police, EMS providers and first responders.”

In 1974 President Gerald R. Ford signed a proclamation Emergency Medical Services Week. It reinforced the need at the time to improve emergency medical care.

“Today we want to honor the first responders here in Grand Rapids and thank the members of the Grand Rapids Fire Department for their service and their frontline protection of our citizens of Grand Rapids.”

Joe Calvaruso is executive director of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum.

“With that I would like to present to the firefighters, the EMS personnel present today, a copy of the original 1974 document that declared EMS Services Week.”

Steven MacBride is Captain of GRFD’s Emergency Medical Services.

“Every day our members provide EMS support to the callers, most of them Grand Rapids residents, people passing through, and it’s an honor to be recognized for that.” Next year will mark Emergency Medical Services Week’s 45th anniversary.

Calvaruso says the Ford Museum will begin a new tradition by honoring an American city’s EMS department worthy of President Ford’s proclamation.

Patrick Center, WGVU News.

Patrick joined WGVU Public Media in December, 2008 after eight years of investigative reporting at Grand Rapids' WOOD-TV8 and three years at WYTV News Channel 33 in Youngstown, Ohio. As News and Public Affairs Director, Patrick manages our daily radio news operation and public interest television programming. An award-winning reporter, Patrick has won multiple Michigan Associated Press Best Reporter/Anchor awards and is a three-time Academy of Television Arts & Sciences EMMY Award winner with 14 nominations.