United Rescue, United Hatzalah of Israel’s affiliate organization in the United States, is launching its sixth international chapter and its second in New Jersey, to provide fast neighborhood-based emergency response as a complement to the regular ambulance service.

United Rescue Englewood will be directly integrated with the local 911 system and will be run in partnership with the City of Englewood’s Emergency Medical Services organization, Englewood Health EMS.

This new chapter run by United Hatzalah/United Rescue will join existing chapters in Jersey City, NJ; Panama City, Panama; Uman and Kyiv, Ukraine; and Cartagena, Colombia.

United Rescue Englewood’s initial class of 25 volunteer trainees begins 10 weeks of training this month to become registered Community Based Emergency Caregivers (CBECs) equipped to respond to nearby 911 calls and provide pre-ambulance emergency care.

In keeping with the model successfully implemented in 2006 throughout Israel, all the volunteers live or work in the neighborhoods where they will respond to calls.

Mark Gerson, cofounder and chairman of United Hatzalah of Israel and United Rescue USA, said, “I commend the team at Englewood Health and EMS Director Rick Sposa for his vision, leadership, and ingenuity in bringing United Rescue to Englewood — as well as Mayor Michael Wildes for his strong support and his inspiring dedication as a volunteer first responder himself for almost three decades. The launch of United Rescue Englewood is helping to fulfill our vision for United Hatzalah’s lifesaving model of crowdsourced first response to be one of Israel’s great gifts to the world.”