BRAVO needs you!

Bay Ridge Ambulance Volunteer Organization (BRAVO) needs more volunteers, but wants residents to know that EMT training is not necessary to be part of the team.

“We are trying to recruit volunteers, all kinds of volunteers, which seems to be getting harder and harder with the economy and change of lifestyle,” explained Nick Nikolopoulous, BRAVO’s executive vice president and a member for 23 years.

“People seem to be worried that they have to be trained in an ambulance and that’s not the case,” he said. “You don’t have to be an EMT to be a volunteer. We need secretaries and dispatchers. People retire young these days. If you have a steady shift and want to do some extra hours, we can use you.”

Founded back in 1974, BRAVO responds to emergency calls and brings patients to area hospitals.

“We are all volunteers,” Nikolopoulos said of BRAVO, noting that those interested can be trained to be telephone dispatchers. “We don’t charge anyone anything and don’t charge your insurance for the ambulance. We rely on volunteers in the community to come in and help us out.”

Applications for volunteers can be found on BRAVO’s website, www.BravoAmbulance.org.

“If people work as an EMT for a living, we can streamline their application and can get them right on if they are already trained,” Nikolopoulos said. “We can also use EMTs.”

For more information, call 718-680-4625 or e-mail Nikolopoulos at BravoEVP@bravoambulance.org.