A blue light is an emergency warning light. Only active members in good standing of a volunteer fire company, rescue squad or first aid squad may display a blue emergency warning light. The volunteer must also have a permit from the State of New Jersey. The blue emergency warning light may only be used when the volunteer is responding to an emergency within their town.
The blue light does not grant the driver of the vehicle any special privileges. They are required to follow the same traffic rules as all other drivers. HOWEVER, New Jersey State Law requires that vehicles MUST YIELD to emergency vehicles when you hear a siren OR see a flashing red or blue light. A driver should move over to the EXTREAM RIGHT of the roadway, STOP AND WAIT for the vehicle to pass. You should always keep at least 300 feet behind a signaling emergency vehicle.
For the most part, yielding to a blue light is a matter of courtesy. Please avoid pulling out, slowing down, or coming to a dead stop in front of a vehicle when you see an emergency blue light flashing. If volunteers were responding to your home, wouldn’t you want the peace of mind knowing they would arrive quickly?
Have you ever wondered what the blue star is for on ambulances and EMS personnel uniforms and jackets is for? Have you ever wondered what the meaning behind the STAR OF LIFE was and where it came from?
Each of the six “points” of the star represents an aspect of the
EMS System. They are:
Detection – Reporting – Response – On Scene Care – Care
in Transit – Transfer to Definitive Care
The staff on the star represents Medicine and Healing. The snake and staff in the center of the symbol portray the staff Asclepius who, according to Greek mythology, was the son of Apollo (god of light, truth and prophecy). Supposedly, Asclepius learned the art of healing from the centaur Cheron; but Zeus (king of the gods) was fearful that because of Asclepius knowledge, all men might be rendered immortal. Rather than have this occur, Zeus slew Asclepius with a thunderbolt. Later, Asclepius was worshipped as a god and people slept in his temples, as it was rumored that he affected cures of prescribed remedies to the sick during their dreams. Eventually, Zeus restored Asclepius to life, making him a god. Asclepius was usually shown in a standing position, dressed in a long cloak, holding a staff with a serpent coiled around it. The staff has since come to represent medicine’s only symbol. The Caduceus, used by physicians and the Military Medical Corp., the staff in winded and has two serpents intertwined. Even though this does not hold any medical relevance in origin, it represents the magic wand of the Greek deity, Hermes, messenger of the gods.
The staff with the single serpent is the symbol for Medicine and Health and the winged staff is the symbol for peace. The staff with the single serpent represents the time when Asclepius had a very difficult patient that he could not cure, so he consulted a snake for advice and the patient survived. The snake had coiled around Asclepius’s staff in order to be head to head with him as an equal when talking. The winged staff came about when Mercury saw two serpents fighting, and unable to stop them any other way, placed his staff between them causing them to coil up his winged staff.
The Bible, in Numbers 21:9, makes reference to a serpent on a staff: “Moses accordingly made a bronze serpent and mounted it on a pole and whenever anyone who had been bitten by a serpent looked at the bronze serpent, he recovered.”
(*Taken from Milton First Aid Squad website)