Rockland County Catholic to the Rescue, Patiently

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He’s delivered a bouncing baby boy, consoled a dying 4-year-old girl and aided numerous ailing, exhausted elderly. Confronting life and death—and celebrating each precious breath in between—is all in a day’s work for Glenn Albin, a Rockland County paramedic and registered nurse.

A lifelong member of the community, Albin knows well the citizens, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, entrusted to his care. “My parents always said, ‘Give back to the community you live in,’” he said.

Albin wears many hats in the health care field. He is the assistant chief of the South Orangetown Ambulance Corps, a paramedic for Rockland Paramedic Services headquartered in Chestnut Ridge and a registered nurse at Nyack Hospital.

Also a lifelong member of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart parish in Tappan, where he was once an altar boy, Albin, 58, is a husband and father of three, and the third of five children. His oldest sibling, brother George, is Deacon George Albin, of St. Gregory Barbarigo parish in Garnerville.

When dispatched to an emergency, Albin is aware that God is at his side throughout the ambulance ride and as he administers care to a patient.

He cited as his hardest call an automobile accident that claimed the lives of a mother and father at the scene and, ultimately, their 4-year-old daughter who went into cardiac arrest en route to the hospital, where she later died.

Children, in particular, require that adults earn their trust, Albin said. And keeping that trust is crucial, which is why he lets youngsters know up front that a shot in the arm may hurt a little. Then he gently explains, step-by-step, what comes next.

“They’re very literal at that age,” Albin said. “If you explain, ‘I’m going to do ‘x, y and z,’ you can’t do ‘x, c and z.’”

On 9/11, Albin was riding the A train to Brooklyn when the train abruptly stopped at West 4th Street. Shortly thereafter he watched the second tower of the World Trade Center collapse. Because he had received his paramedic training at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan, he headed there to volunteer to help. He was enlisted to run the eyewash station, rinsing with saline the eyes of the firefighters and countless wounded others.

Albin considers his profession both a privilege and an honor, such as the time he accompanied his former Boy Scout leader in an ambulance two days before the cancer patient died in the hospital. As he took the man’s blood pressure, Albin thanked him for his leadership in the scouts. “He was very appreciative. He said, ‘You turned out to be a good citizen—that’s all I hoped for.’”

Years later, Albin was called to resuscitate the man’s wife after she collapsed in cardiac arrest. “She lived another five years after that,” he said.

Compassion, empathy and good listening skills are necessities in Albin’s line of work, he said, not only for the patients but for their families as well.

Albin is mindful that many of the gifts with which God has bestowed upon him are for the benefit of those most in need.

“Although it’s the 12th time they’ve called the ambulance, it’s their way of asking for help,” he said. “You can’t judge people. You’ve got to read them to figure out what’s going on with them.”

In younger years, Albin considered a career in law but ultimately chose accounting as a profession. He worked for New York State Tax Department, and for 30 years as an auditor for New York state.

During Albin’s rookie year as an EMT he helped a mother deliver a baby in her home. It was a first for him, and somewhat nerve-wracking. But when the woman asked him if he had ever delivered a baby, Albin assured her, “It’s just like doing a tax audit.”

In retrospect, Albin added, it was. “Obviously, taxes are very methodical” and, just like a delivering a baby, “you have to go through a checklist.”

And then there was the anxious father with whom to contend. “I told him to go boil water.”

After the successful delivery, the mother and father named their baby after him.

Being calm in a crisis and organized at all times are other requisites of an effective first responder, Albin said.

Albin has also found love as an EMT. He met wife Kathleen, then an EMT for a neighboring ambulance corps, at a picnic in a park co-sponsored by his and her ambulance corps.

Mrs. Albin is also a registered nurse at Nyack Hospital. Albin is a floor-to-floor floater; Mrs. Albin works in the emergency department. During the week, he works nights, she works days.

“She gets them first, then she gives them to me,” he quipped. “If I get an admission from the emergency room, I’ll look to see what nurse took care of the patient.” If, in fact, it was his wife, Albin might cleverly quiz a patient, “Remember that red-headed nurse?” and, if the answer is yes, he’ll add, “That’s my wife,” much to the patient’s pleasant surprise.

Apparently health care is all in the family for the Albins. Of their three children, two are following in their parents’ footsteps. Daniel, 22, is already an EMT. MaryKatelyn, 19, is studying to become a nurse. Erin, 18, aspires to be a teacher. Still, she is also health-care minded, as she volunteers and raises funds for a youth for hospice program and runs blood drives at her high school.