Bill Madden, 84, of Freehold Borough, is making history in 2012 as the first person to serve as a 60-year active volunteer member of the Freehold First Aid and Emergency Squad. For more photos, see Photo Galleries at www.gmnews.com. JEFF GRANIT staff Bill Madden is Freehold Borough’s quintessential “hometown boy.” Madden, 84, has lived in the borough for 75 years after moving from Freehold Township at the age of 9. He attended schools in the borough, joined the Navy to serve his country, came back home, married the girl next door (well, the girl around the corner), worked in the town’s two leading sources of industry, the A&M Karagheusian Rug Mill and Nestlé USA, and joined the first aid squad. He and his wife raised six children in the borough.
In 2012, Madden is making history as the first person to serve as a 60-year active volunteer member of the Freehold First Aid and Emergency Squad. He is the first person to have achieved the 60-year milestone.
Madden joined the first aid squad in April 1952. He has served as the squad’s captain, vice president, president and chaplain, and currently serves as a trustee.
The squad’s president, Jim McAllister, has served the volunteer organization for 38 years. He spoke about his relationship with Madden.
“I look to Bill as a surrogate father, McAllister said. “I always look to him for advice on first aid matters. Bill knows everyone and knows so much about the squad. We have worked together well over the years. Our relationship is like that of a grown child and a parent,”
He said while they may not see eye to eye on every issue, they “always come back to the table together.”
First aid squad life member Phil DeAngelis worked side by side with Madden for years on the squad’s rigs. DeAngelis joined the squad in 1953. He worked with Madden at the rug mill as a weaver, and then at Nestlé. The men were good friends who also spent time together with their families during social events.
“We were pretty close,” DeAngelis said. “I had six kids and Bill had six kids, too.”
De Angelis, who remained active with the squad until 1982, said Madden “is an amazing man who would do anything for you. I can’t say enough about the man.”
In an interview in the first aid squad building on Spring Street, where Madden has spent so much of his time, he reflected back on his training, his years of service, the changes and the memories, good and bad, that have literally shaped his life.
In 1952 he was asked by several of his co-workers at the rug mill who were members of the first aid squad to join the organization.
“It was a privilege and honor to even be asked at that time.” Madden said.
Madden worked at the rug mill for 13 years as a weaver before taking a job with Nestle, where he worked for 31 years and retired as foreman of the filling lines division. He then worked at the Freeman Funeral Home for 19 years doing various jobs, finally retiring three years ago.
Madden talks of his time as a new first aid squad member with respect and fondness for those who taught, trained and mentored the “new kids.”
“The older men accepted us and we learned everything from them,” he explained.
He said the requirements to be a first aid squad member back then were a knowledge of basic first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Today, the requirements for a squad member include an EMT certification and 120 hours of training.
Madden said that early in his squad career, after returning from each call, the captain of the squad, Bob Bennett, would sit the members down and review the call and everything they did, using the first aid book as a guide.
Madden said local doctors would come in and provide training for and information about the types of emergencies the volunteers might be called upon to handle. He learned from one doctor to give thumps on a patient’s back in order to jump start the heart. That was long before the first aid squad had defibrillators to handle that task.
He remembered a call when he put a splint on a patient’s broken arm and transported him to the hospital.
“The doctor said I did a great job,” he said proudly.
Madden said the first aid squad relied on Freehold’s family doctors to handle minor injuries.
“We were able to bring the patient to the closest and most available doctor,” he said, adding that Dr. Glenn Barkalow, Dr. Jacob Lewis, Dr. Louis Zlotkin and Dr. Benjamin Richmond all made themselves available to patients when the need arose.
While Madden and other squad members have responded to their share of serious accidents over the years, happier incidents included delivering babies, one of whom was his own little girl.
“Marilyn and I were on the way to Monmouth Medical Center” in Long Branch, Madden recalled, adding that his daughter was born on Route 36 in Eatontown.
Since a “rule” was in place that a member who delivered a baby had to buy beer for the squad, Madden had to buy his own beer for his baby’s delivery.
Madden still visits the first aid squad headquarters on a regular basis. Part of his responsibility as a trustee is to oversee the maintenance of the interior and exterior of the building and to make sure things inside the station are running the way they should be. Madden takes on special capital improvement projects as well.
Watching and listening to the 60-year squad member, it is clear that being in that environment, one of helping others in time of need and helping to raise funds for the organization, something he is passionate about, is a part of the very fabric of who he is and who he has become — family man, squad member, officer, and hometown boy, one who so many know and respect.