Shore Memorial Ambulance Squad Keeping it in the Family

When you have been working at one place for so long, some of your coworkers can start to feel like family. But what if your coworkers are your actual family?

This happens to be the case for Shore Memorial Hospital’s Ambulance Department, which has had several sets of families, from husbands and wives to fathers and sons, working together since it’s inception in 2008.

“Having family members working together on a squad is more common among volunteer squads, but it’s just like a business. If the dad’s a plumber, the son’s going to be one too,” explains Steve Grecco, coordinator of Shore Memorial’s ambulance services.

Department Sergeant Dorset Camper, a Hammonton native, has been volunteering with local EMS squads since he was 16 years old. He joined Shore Memorial’s Ambulance Department when it opened in 2008. His son Darnell Currington, 24, joined two days later.

“I love working with my son,” Camper says. “We click and just work well with each other.”

The father-son bond will be severed later this month when Currington, a member of the Army Reserves, leaves for a deployment to Iraq that will last more than a year.

But the Camper family continues to grow within Shore Memorial’s department. Camper’s future son-in-law, Jose Berlanga, also works as an emergency medical technician at Shore Memorial. And Camper’s daughter, Winifred, will be joining once she turns 18 in April.

Working with family members can be challenging, whether it’s father and son or husband and wife, but according to Grecco, they make it work.

“It’s interesting for the families,” Grecco says. “They find themselves asking ‘Is this my coworker or my family?’. But if they can draw the line, it’ll get them through the day.”

Pictured above (l to r) Shore Memorial Ambulance Department Sgt. Dorset Camper of Hammonton and his son, emergency medical technician Darnell Camper, 24, of Pleasantville, have both worked together at Shore Memorial since 2008.