[Editor’s Note: New Canaan EMS celebrates its 50th anniversary this year. To mark the milestone, the New Canaanite is publishing profiles of members each month in 2025. This is the first in the series, written by Wendy Fog, herself a longtime EMT with the organization.]
In 1975, Russell Kimes Sr., became a founding member, driving force and leader in the creation of the New Canaan Volunteer Ambulance Corps.
Russell Kimes Sr. today.
In addition to his duties as a prominent local attorney, a Probate Court judge and a Town Council member, he rode the ambulance for 34 years. He is still actively involved in what is now called New Canaan Emergency Medical Services or ‘NCEMS.’
Normally he is a man of few words, until you steer him toward the topic of NCEMS and its history, which he recently recounted. Then you see the passion and appreciation that has sparked his dedication.
When asked why he chose to become an EMT, Kimes said, “It was to be of public and community service.”
In January of 1973, 12 local citizens, inspired by a national movement to provide regional emergency medical services, formed a committee and a board of directors to bring those services to the town of New Canaan. Kimes was one of the initial students to take the first professional EMT training course. Presented by Norwalk Hospital, It instructed students in first aid in trauma and other medical emergencies, transfer of ill patients to area hospitals and support of police and fire department operations. Initially, those first 10 EMT’s were weekend “back-ups” for police responders, then committed to at least at least two volunteers, based at police headquarters in the basement of Town Hall, to accompany the police.
The first “call” came in at 11:15 p.m., on Feb. 18, 1975 and the patient was transported to Stamford Hospital.
Russell Kimes can be seen with his head turned away, standing in front of the front passenger door of the Medicruiser.
Russ was a member of those first teams that responded to 911 calls with a police officer in an old Cadillac furnished with a stretcher and basic medical equipment. There would be a police officer as a driver and two EMT’s stuffed into the back along with the patient, making it a rather tight fit.
When asked how he felt he said, “I was glad to have a chance to use my training,” and then laughed at the size of the vehicle.
After their first operational year, membership doubled to 30 EMT’s. In March 1975 the town purchased a Dodge Medicruiser van to replace the Cadillac and with a crew of two EMT’s worked nights shifts seven days per week. Eventually the EMT’s were moved to the Red Cross building on Main Street, and the town purchased a secondhand Horton box truck which allowed for additional medical equipment and room for patient care. EMT’s rode from 6 a.m. to midnight with the police responding until the next morning shift began. The next move for the Ambulance Corps was to the Junior High School shop and garage, the site of the present-day new EMS building.
Kimes was a founder of the EMS Regional Council and a founder of the dispatch and coordination radio service for regional EMS, which is still used today.
Today, 50 years later, the New Canaan Volunteer Ambulance Corps has 60 active members and 137 additional life non-riding members who have volunteered countless hours of service. We have three state-of-the-art ambulances and medical equipment, a full-time paramedic through Norwalk Hospital and a “fly car,” and offer professionally certified EMT classes as well as hands-on CPR and first aid training to community organizations.
As it was then in 1975 and now in 2025, every one of these EMT’s devote countless hours of continuing medical education and compassionate medical care to the citizens and visitors of New Canaan.
We are indebted to our co-founders, our members and to the citizens and the town of New Canaan for their generosity of time, financing and donations. Together, this dream of our founders continues to ensure that New Canaan EMS will be the leader in Emergency Medical Services.
Thank you, Russell Kimes Sr., for your courage, time, and vision.