Volunteers serving Richmond since 1960
A squad founded by three neighbors with one ambulance, still run by neighbors, just with better medicine, better equipment and a lot more calls behind us.
It started with a need nobody was meeting
In 1959, emergency medical care in Richmond's West End depended on whoever happened to be nearby. Three residents decided that was not good enough. Their answer became a squad, and that squad became an institution.
Early problems centered on training and fundraising, two problems that still exist today. Members sometimes filled the gas tank and bought supplies with their own money. A second ambulance was purchased through a loan secured by individual members.
Sixty-five years later, the squad is still volunteer, still community funded, and still the only volunteer agency exclusively serving the City of Richmond.
Led clinically by
Dr. Jeffrey Ferguson
Medical Director, recipient of the Governor's Award at the Virginia EMS Symposium.
Sixty-five years, one call at a time
Three neighbors, one need
Donald Davies, Reginald Ray McLawhorne and Edward Donald Lewis set out to bring emergency medical care and transport to their neighborhood.
First unit in service
The West End Volunteer Rescue Squad marks its first unit in service on February 18, running out of a Texaco station on West Cary Street with 24 members and one 1955 Cadillac ambulance.
A $500 house trailer
The squad relocates to a 27-foot trailer on West Broad Street (purchased for $500) while members buy fuel and supplies out of their own pockets.
Chantilly Street
The squad buys the land at 1802 Chantilly Street, where headquarters still stands today. The first duty crew runs a call from the new building on November 23.
Advanced Life Support
The first ALS ambulance hits the street. From 1979 to 1983 the squad also staffed and maintained the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit transport for the Medical College of Virginia.
First into the 9-1-1 system
West End Rescue becomes the first EMS unit dispatched to a 9-1-1 call as part of the new Richmond EMS system.
Richmond Volunteer Rescue Squad
The West End name no longer reflected the community we serve, so on December 6 the squad becomes the Richmond Volunteer Rescue Squad.
The only all-volunteer agency serving Richmond
We respond citywide alongside the Richmond Ambulance Authority, train new providers, and maintain equipment to answer disasters across the Commonwealth.
Neighbors helping neighbors, on purpose
Our members coach little league, run into former patients at the grocery store, and come back the next week to do it again. Around the ambulance sits a whole community that makes the work possible: donors, sponsors, event hosts, and the families who lend us their people.