Joseph Magnus Way (Queens)
Present name:None
Location:At the intersection of 75th Street and 58th Avenue
Honoree: Czech-born Joseph Magnus was the co-founder of the Middle Village Volunteer Ambulance Corps. As a 13-year-old in 1944, he and his mother were captured by Germans, escaped, fled into the woods, dodged bullets while scrounging for potatoes at abandoned farms. Magnus was wounded by an exploding shell. A few months later, he was shot through his arm, the bullet barely missing the bone. Unfortunately, calling a doctor was out of the question as all the doctors had been called to serve the Allied troops on the front lines. Emergencies had to be taken care of by people with little to no training in medicine. In 1952, he immigrated to America. In 1973, he was working on computer mainframes for a government agency full time, but spent his free time learning first aid and soliciting donations so the original group of twelve Middle Village Volunteer Ambulance Corps (MVVAC) members could buy an ambulance. Within a short time, they had a $500 vehicle and were ready to assist those in need. Today, MVVAC has dozens of volunteers and its service area is home to more than 70,000 people. The corps’ services are free of charge and they do not take insurance. Shortly after the first strike on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, he and members of MVVAC dropped what they were doing and rushed downtown to help save people. For the heroism displayed by MVVAC on that day, they received $5,000 from Emigrant Savings Bank. (Holden)
LL:2022/54