Coronavirus isn't stopping these volunteer EMT's from serving their community

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Volunteer E.M.T.s won’t let their coronavirus fears stop them from helping those in need

Captain Mat Gachetti and his volunteer ambulance crew in New Jersey are on the frontlines of fighting the coronavirus but the protective gear they need is scarce. Now they aren’t just concerned about helping their community but for the safety of their families.

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Captain Mat Giachetti and his crew at Wall Community First Aid in New Jersey are all volunteer E.M.T.s on the frontlines of the coronavirus pandemic.

These volunteers are used to risking their lives for the sake of assisting other people. Even the novel coronavirus won’t stop them from helping those in need.

“I probably wore masks more in the last two weeks than I've worn in probably the last two to three years,” Giachetti told Fox News.

Giachetti said the N95 masks they use to keep themselves safe were rarely used before the pandemic, so they never thought they would need more.

“We're a volunteer agency. We depend on the kindness of our citizens and strangers giving us money. We get a few shekels from the town every year.”

In his spare time, Giachetti said he has been scavenging for gear to protect his crew.

“I've been hunting through paint stores, hardware stores looking for gowns were getting minimal of," he said. "Our OEM [Office of Emergency Management] in the town is getting minimal because there's not all this gear out there to share from the federal level to the state level to the county level.”

Giachetti is not alone, there are hundreds of thousands of volunteer ambulance corps that are going through the same struggle. In New Jersey, volunteers respond to a quarter of calls but some volunteers stopped responding to calls after running out of supplies, according to an NPR report. However, these devoted volunteers all keep coming back. Giachetti says the reason they keep showing up every day to do their jobs is simple.

“We're helping. We're making a difference. But there's thousands of us out there,” Giachetti said. “There's so many people just like me who are giving their time and given their effort to try to help their fellow man.

As of Wednesday, New Jersey, one of the hardest-hit states in the U.S., has confirmed nearly 69,000 cases of the novel coronavirus and more than 2,800 deaths.