EMT to the stars: Paramus native Justin Tsai rubs elbows with celebrities

It’s the rare EMT who’s on IMDB.

But Justin Tsai has that distinction. Coming from a family involved in health care — his sister and her fiance are doctors, and his father worked at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital in IT — Tsai, 26, planned to work as an EMT as a teenager, training at the Bergen County EMS Training Center and serving for several years as a lieutenant in the Township of Washington Ambulance Corps. In August 2020, he launched his own company, Tsai Mobile Health, to provide standby first aid services to clients on a freelance basis.

What he never considered was that his work would lead to a specialty and regular gigs working for celebrities and producers in locations ranging from private hotel rooms to movie sets. Past clients include musicians Lorde and Phoebe Bridgers, actors Neil Patrick Harris and Ben Foster, and well-known corporate executives like Barbara Corcoran.

Sometimes, the jobs lead to social perks. “If anyone had told the teenage me that in less than 10 years, I’d be attending private parties with celebrities, I would have been surprised!” he says, referring to a Thanksgiving celebration hosted by Matt Rogers, a comedian and co-host of the "Las Culturistas" podcast with "SNL's" Bowen Yang.

Tsai includes his middle initial of G. in official communications, he says, because there is actually another Justin Tsai operating a medical firm in Paramus, his hometown. But only one of them has had his photo taken with "Terminator" and "The Walking Dead" star Michael Biehn.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

While attending Seton Hall University, Tsai used his summer vacations in the southwest to gain more skills and insights into trauma care. He spent one summer in Area 22 north of Las Vegas doing counter-terrorism training, and two in New Mexico learning about nuclear and bomb threats; all three opportunities were subsidized and run by FEMA, and made possible because Tsai was a Township of Washington EMT. The summer after his junior year of college, he held a trauma nursing internship at University Hospital in Newark.

Weeks before he received his bachelor’s degree in nursing, while public relations coordinator for the Township of Washington Ambulance Corps, Tsai connected to a production supervisor who needed first aid oversight on some food commercials being filmed in Jersey City. The business arranging for his services would eventually go bankrupt, but the experience connected Tsai to a manager who continued to hire him for repeat assignments.

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As word of mouth spread, Tsai’s reputation as a young man dedicated to keeping clients safe during filming and public events grew. The demand for on-site EMT workers has gone up in recent years, he says, due to an increase in regulations. “If you have a cat or dog in a show or commercial, you need someone from the Humane Society and an EMT present,” he notes.

Sometimes the risk is obvious, as when the Discovery Channel flew him to Seattle to work with the crew of the reality show "Deadliest Catch". A workplace he’s covering might have overhead machinery or involves fireworks, a gun going off or drag-racing.

Crowds are potential sources of danger — and COVID. (Since his company took off during COVID, it has taken on the added component of coronavirus safety consulting; Tsai keeps COVID tests on-hand, and sometimes has to enforce coronavirus protocols.) He was hired as a standby EMT to monitor a pre-New Year’s event in Times Square, when the carmaker Kia delivered the numerals that would be seen behind the annual ball-drop to a gathering of reporters and onlookers. “It was a couple days before Christmas when the Omicron variant was out there, and people were lining up to take pictures,” he says. “I had to tell people they were too close to each other.”

The unexpected is also a source of risk. In October, Tsai was working on a movie set in a hotel when an actor reached into his backpack and inadvertently impaled his finger on a knife blade. “I told the owner of the company making the movie that we needed to get to a hospital because he was bleeding out, and we couldn’t stop it by ourselves.” Fortunately, a hospital was only 15 minutes away.

Other times, individuals need an EMT present in a setting that looks decidedly unthreatening — say, the apartment where the 2022 Academy Award nominees were announced in February. “There’s a person speaking through a videofeed, a camera crew, a detective first grade from the NYPD and me there, and we’re all focused on the VIP,” says Tsai.

Well-known people such as "Shark Tank’s" Barbara Corcoran, whom Tsai has covered when she returns to Bergen County to meet in a hotel with other real estate executives, are at risk because they’re potential targets, he says. The same goes for live performers. “God forbid someone would come to one of these shows, like when Phoebe Bridgers was at Stone Pony, and I’m responsible for the damage someone might do with a gun," he says.

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On with the Show

As with most health care professionals, Tsai believes in continuing education to stay current and prepared. Over the last eight years, he has expanded his skill set by attending seminars and becoming licensed and/or certified in specialties such as wilderness first aid, advanced stroke life support, use of hazardous materials and psychological trauma emergencies.

Sometimes, when he is already committed to a job, he will outsource work to other EMTs on a per diem basis — as he did when he was working for the Discovery Channel in Massachusetts for two months, and was invited to provide first aid coverage to the singer Lorde at a Roosevelt Island concert during the same period of time. “Between the pandemic and lots of movies being made, fall 2021 was the busiest time,” says Tsai. When he hires others for coverage, he says, it’s a “win-win-win, for myself, the person being hired and the customer. I want the client to know that someone’s going to be there.”

Tsai takes pride in being able to say “I take care of everybody.” Noah Williams, a producer and director for Vox Media who has worked with him on several projects, has observed how Tsai is well-matched to his chosen field. He recalls a shoot for Toyota conducted during a massive snowstorm. “Justin is a jovial spirit who cares deeply about his work and those who are in his care," says Williams. "He's taken to the production landscape like a fish to water.”

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: North Jersey EMT, Paramus native Justin Tsai helps celebrities