For weeks, first responders have been racing across Paterson to try and save lives in one of the hardest hit cities in the state by the COVID-19 outbreak. During the height of the pandemic in early April, Paterson Fire Department’s EMTs saw about 180 confirmed cases daily.
“I don’t think initially people realized how serious it was here,” said Paterson firefighter and FMBA Local 2 President Kyle Hughes. Over the past three months, Hughes said “a lot of the focus was on New York City,” where more than 200,000 residents tested positive and 16,000 died.
But Paterson – which has the highest COVID-19 case rate of any New Jersey city with a population over 100,000 residents, “was always a few weeks behind” New York, he said. Each shift, EMTs put themselves into constant danger, responding to the homes of residents potentially sick with coronavirus.