The Most IMPORTANT Thing in Town
After 40 years in Cornwall’s fire department, the town’s first selectman on keeping paramedic care local, free, and reliable.
As a longtime Cornwall resident and 40-year member of the town’s fire department, Gordon Ridgway understands firsthand the importance of a community’s social fabric. Woven from the relationships and shared commitments that bind neighbors together, it’s shaped by everything from housing and healthcare to infrastructure and school enrollment. When any one system falters, residents lose a vital source of security and the fabric begins to fray. In late 2025, a series of abrupt changes affecting Northern Dutchess Paramedics (NDP), the region’s longtime paramedic provider, exposed the vulnerabilities of rural EMS systems, where small communities must sustain round-the-clock emergency response with limited resources, key decisions are often made far from the communities affected, and state policies leave towns largely responsible for sustaining essential services. For towns like Cornwall, the upheaval raised fundamental questions about the reliability and cost of emergency response, and how much control local leaders have over a service residents depend on in their most vulnerable moments.
“It’s critical that the community retain a robust, 24/7 response when somebody calls for help,” says Ridgway, noting that for a person experiencing a medical emergency, it may be the worst day of their life. He learned from members of Cornwall’s ambulance squad, with whom he maintains close communication, that Sharon Hospital was ending its 28-year agreement with NDP. The announcement, delivered two weeks before Christmas last year, left the community facing sudden uncertainty about emergency medical services.
“[The news sounded] a little bit Grinchy, but there was no public panic,” recalls Ridgway, nodding to the self-reliance among folks in town. Deep trust in Cornwall’s volunteer ambulance squad proved equally beneficial.
“Numbers are actually up and our average age is down,” says Ridgway, who reports success in both recruiting new and retaining experienced members over the past year. As first selectman whose family—including a wife, two daughters and one son—are active first responders, Ridgway has a personal stake in the future of rural EMS.
“Having paramedic service on the most serious calls is a municipal issue that cuts across borders,” says Ridgway of a situation that is somewhat fluid and still evolving. To maintain paramedic coverage, Cornwall relies on two providers serving the Northwest Corner: Empress, the ambulance company that acquired NDP in 2025, and Charlotte Hungerford Hospital’s MedicOne, an Advance Life Support (ALS) and paramedic intercept program. Cornwall has chosen not to join the Northwell paramedic service that Sharon Hospital launched after ending its agreement with NDP, because its patient-billing model conflicts with the town’s commitment to not charging residents for ambulance care. Under Northwell’s model, the cost of paramedic service is billed to the patient’s health insurer or, if they are uninsured, directly to the patient.
“We want to make sure that residents feel they can call the ambulance at any time,” says Ridgway, emphasizing that no one should hesitate because they lack insurance. In Cornwall, one third of ambulance calls require paramedic services—which are available most of the time but not always.
Ridgway’s remaining concern is ensuring seamless paramedic coverage without requiring multiple calls and mutual aid arrangements to get a crew in place. But Cornwall isn’t waiting on a regional fix. Even as call volumes climb—the town’s squad responded to more than 200 calls last year—Ridgway describes local coverage as excellent, challenging to sustain, but strong. Much of that comes down to what has long held Cornwall together. “In small towns, volunteer [ambulance] squads are irreplaceable,” says Ridgway.
Illustration by Michelle Newman.
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