{"id":226570,"date":"2026-06-24T06:25:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/226570\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T06:25:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T06:25:09","slug":"the-nepa-30-a-first-aid-first-in-jermyn-saves-life-and-limb-for-workers-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/226570\/","title":{"rendered":"The NEPA 30: A first-aid first in Jermyn saves life and limb for workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

At less than a square mile, Jermyn is the second-smallest town in Lackawanna County, but at the turn of the 20th century it earned an outsized role in history as the \u201cBirthplace of First Aid in America.\u201d While first-aid training originated in Britain in the 1870s, and the Society for Instruction in First Aid to the Injured was formed in New York in 1883, Jermyn was the site of the first organized industrial first-aid training in the United States, on Oct. 25, 1899. That\u2019s when Dr. Matthew J. Shields taught 25 miners from the Hudson Coal Co.\u2019s Jermyn colliery how to provide quick, effective medical care pending the arrival of a physician. The training took place at the Windsor Hotel.<\/p>\n

National ripple<\/p>\n

Shields was born in Georgia in 1862. He came to Pennsylvania when he was 19 to join his brother, who was practicing medicine in Carbondale. After graduating from medical school in Philadelphia, he set up his practice in Jermyn. At the time, mining injuries and deaths were common; quick attention to the victims wasn\u2019t. At the Jermyn colliery, for instance, the ambulance was drawn by the same team of horses that delivered coal to homes; when a miner was hurt, the horses were switched to the ambulance wagon and the injured worker carted home to wait for a doctor. Shields\u2019 training led to the establishment of the American Red Cross\u2019 industrial first-aid program, which spread through the mining and other industries.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Founders of First Aid in America historical marker on the grounds of the Jermyn Community Center on Jefferson Avenue in Jermyn. (SUBMITTED)
\nLiving legacy<\/p>\n

Shields later moved to Scranton and continued training miners in first aid, writing a textbook and contributing to other manuals. He served as a major in the Medical Corps during World War I, after which he returned to the area to work with the Red Cross.\u00a0In \u201cAmerican Red Cross Abridged Text-Book on First Aid, Miner\u2019s Edition, A Manual of Instruction\u201d (1913), Shields and co-author Major Charles Lynch wrote, \u201cNowhere has first aid been learned better and nowhere has the good from knowledge of the subject been greater\u201d than in the mines.\u00a0Shields died Jan. 23, 1939, at age 76; his grave is in Dunmore Cemetery.<\/p>\n

Sidelight<\/p>\n

In 1949, Jermyn held a 50th anniversary celebration of the birth of first aid, with a parade of area high school bands, firefighters and ambulances. Also on hand were eight members of Shields\u2019 original first-aid class.<\/p>\n

About the series<\/p>\n

No. 10: As the nation approaches America250, we are counting down ways NEPA has powered American history. Missed a day? Read the full countdown as it unfolds at standardspeaker.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"AnAn article in The Scranton Times on March 23, 1999, about Dr. Matthew J. Shields, the founder of first aid. The article focused on a presentation that was to be given by George Rose, Shields\u2019 grandson, at the Century Club in Scranton on April 11, 1999. FILE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At less than a square mile, Jermyn is the second-smallest town in Lackawanna County, but at the turn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[91500,3078,201,182,139,28,29,178,180,179,6519],"class_list":["post-226570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-america250-nepa","tag-jermyn","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-top-stories-hzs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}