Cheers filled the air as Steve Hines drove the Belmar First Aid Squad's 1938 Ford ambulance one last time.
As Hines pressed on the gas Friday, the sirens sung. He gave the 83-year-old ambulance as much gas as it would take to accelerate onto a truck that would drive it approximately 650 miles to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan — the ambulance's new home.
Hines said he felt a little emotional.
"You know, folks came out and it's a part of history going down the road — good history," he said. Hines was a member of Belmar's First Aid Squad since 1975. His father joined in 1938.
"Me and my brother stepped right into the first aid squad because it was something you did back then," said Hines.
The squad disbanded in March due to financial strain and now they say goodbye to an ambulance that is symbolic of the squad's history, a history that let go of many ambulances in their time, but not this one.