We are proud to house artifacts that were used by first responders in our county. Come and check out the equipment that was used, including the resuscitator pictured.

Resuscitators are used to keep a person oxygenated by using positive pressure to inflate the lungs. In 1907 the first portable resuscitation device was made by Johann Heinrich Drager with his son, Bernhard. This sparked the invention of many different types of resuscitators, including manual and automatic types.

In 1947 an application for a patent of the Stephenson Resuscitator, Goodner Model (pictured), was filed. This was invented by and named after Monroe Harry Goodner (1898-1962), of Glendale California. Goodner first patented a resuscitator in 1928, and invented many devices in the years following, including two patented through the Stephenson Corporation in 1947. This company made resuscitators, respirators and other equipment from the 1940s to the 1960s. By 1952, Mr. Goodner had moved to Red Bank to become the Research and Development Director at the Stephenson Corporation.

Resuscitators and the people trained to use them helped to save many people's lives, and advances in technology have allowed for new devices to be made with similar premises which are able to save even more people.