Preface
Once upon a time in the land of my youth there was a fire chief over the local volunteer fire Department of a very small town.
In years previous to the time about to be described, the local doctor drove a retired hearse, affectionately called 'Blue Boy', so that he had means to transport patients from their homes to the hospital when there was a need. But the old beast was costing more in repairs than it was worth and the doctor was getting on enough in years and often needed a little help to lift a patient when the need arose.
A surplus ambulance was purchased for the town and the fire chief was encouraged to take an advanced first aid class and be in charge of said ambulance. Now the new addition to the town's emergency fleet had been surplused for a reason. Not only did it seldom start when needed, it didn't smell real great on the inside either, nor was there enough room in the back to haul more than a smallish adult or a child. The wheeled gurney was real nice though. It had been donated by the local mortician and was designed so that a single person could push the gurney into the back of the ambulance and the wheels would fold up automatically and then unfold automatically as the gurney was pulled out again.
The ambulance made very few runs. It was more common for someone, usually the fire chief but sometimes a member of the patient's family, to stop by the ambulance, that was parked outside of the fire station because there was no bay available for it, and borrow the gurney to aid in transporting the patient in their own vehicle, usually a station wagon or the bed of a pickup truck. After all it was community property, right.
Well the fire chief did tell a few people, who had family members with chronic health conditions, to go ahead and use it if they needed it and word got around. Everyone was good to put it back when they were done with it and in the years this was the practice there was never a time to my knowledge that someone needed the gurney while someone else had it.
The Fire chief worked hard to see to it that all of his firemen, the biggest majority of which were between 16 to 18 years of age, were advanced first aid trained and was trying to find someone who would be a regular to go with him in the ambulance, if the need presented its self. Meanwhile a local mechanic volunteered his time to try and get the ambulance more reliable as far as starting when it was needed.
While this was going on a highway patrolman who lived in the area took advantage of a newly offered program through his work and trained to become an Emergency Medical Technician. Being a friend of the Fire Chief he suggested he take the next class that was offered and then managed to get five people from the town to take it along with them. Mostly the local law enforcement but there were a couple of people whose employers thought it would be a good idea to have someone with that training around so they paid for the course.
It was determined that the old surplused ambulance was not worth the effort or the money to maintain since there was really no way to make it more reliable even though they finally moved one of the fire engines out and made room for it in the shed.
Fund raising efforts to buy a better ambulance were started but they ran head to head against a new golf course in the area. Said golf course was much more important to the leaders in the town government at the time so there was no support there.
Then there was an historical monument that needed to be built in the town to the tune of twenty thousand dollars. Of course that was grant money from some historical society but I couldn't understand all that money going toward some little park the size of our back yard when there was such a need as a new ambulance in the town.
With the town's people as apathetic on the subject of a new ambulance as they were, it was hard to get the interest of corporate sponsors so the efforts moved slowly for some time.
Then there came a new TV Show where two fictional firemen with the names of John Gage and Roy DeSoto showed everyone watching the exciting world of Emergency rescue and what could be done to save life and limb, with the right training and equipment.
Slowly people in the town started to notice that we had an ambulance and when a prominent town folk broke his leg and needed to ride in it, the fund raising efforts gained a new spokesman.
A matching grant from the government was found, that meant that the government would pay half toward a new ambulance with strings attached, but only after the town raised the other half of the cost. Now there was hope of reaching our goal and with a deadline in place to get the grant, fund raising stepped up a few notches.
For the better part of a year there were dances, bake sales, slave auctions and baby contests where a penny equaled a vote. Those working for the ambulance fund ran concessions at every game during the county wide softball tournament and penny by penny, quarter by quarter and dollar by dollar the funds began to grow.
I was in my early teens at his time and was a big believer in the cause with visions of being on the ambulance team someday. The Fire Chief in the middle of all this was my father and I was his shadow. I helped pop popcorn in our little hot air popper and stuff it in bags to take to the games. I helped to sell what we'd made and counted the quarters people told us to keep and add toward the cause. The funds didn't grow fast but the account did move upward.
During this time I found a rough draft of a letter requesting the personal appearance of actors, Randy Mantooth and Kevin Tighe on behalf of our fund raising efforts and I thought my father was just short of insane. Why on earth would anyone so famous ever agree to come to our little town where there were no decent motels or restaurants and the cattle outnumbered the people?
I spoke my mind then popped more popcorn, sold myself as a slave for a day to do such chores as mending, garden work and babysitting, all while I continued to serve up chili dogs and sloppy Joes for a dollar a pop at every ball game and dance that was held.
In the fall of that year there were two industrial accidents, one was particularly horrid and in the end, a man of prominent standing was dead, along with his two sons who had tried to save him and two more who had tried to save them. Another rescuer was left in critical condition receiving life altering lung damage and yet another was in serious condition.
Much could have been prevented if only they had had some basic equipment, like adequate rope, oxygen, breathing apparatus, or Stokes stretcher just to name a few.
In the aftermath of the accidents enlightened people and corporations gave enough donations to push the fund raising over the top and the totally new, not just new to us, ambulance was ordered.
After the new ambulance had been ordered but before it was delivered, my family and I were gathered around the television to watch one of our favorite television shows, Emergency!
The episode started out with Johnny, Roy and Chet in Johnny's Rover driving down a road void of any desirable scenery talking about a miserably disappointing fishing trip.
It was my father who made the comment that they could have filmed that section on any of the roads in our area.
As the show continued, the off duty men of station 51 came upon an accident and with the meager supplies in their little in vehicle first aid kit, tried to keep the victims stable and alive while they awaited help.
When help did arrive it was in the form of a hearse with a clueless and terrified young man at the wheel. Likely his only qualification to drive this sometimes emergency vehicle was his driver's license.
(That was the common mode of emergency transportation in many a small town in those days. Before the box style ambulances were designed most ambulances were very similar if not the same make and model as a hearse anyway so why have two vehicles when one was only needed once a month or less.)
From the accident scene they are taken to a, small is an understatement, medical clinic with only one patient room and two patient beds. No doctor was currently in sight and no one knows where he is. (This is a time long before cell phones remember and even pager systems weren't in existence in such rural areas.)
It was funny to me and my family how much the flustered Ozella Peterson, the nurse at the clinic, looked a lot like the head nurse at our small hospital. They both had the same basic build and Ozella was just as gray haired as our nurse would have been if she didn't constantly die her hair black. Our nurse would never be anywhere near that easily rattled but if Ozella had been as proficient as our nurse, the off duty boys from LA wouldn't have been able to shine like they did.
Then just as things are getting critical in walks good old Dr. Frick, A shock to many in the TV world we were all sure but to my family he brought a good laugh. Dr. Frick was a decade to a decade and a half younger than our local doc, but they both had the same hair style. Where Dr. Frick was big on mustache our local doc was heavier on sideburns.
There is no way I can prove it, but even without an ounce of proof available I honestly believe that someone from the production staff of the TV Show Emergency! made a little visit to our part of the world, possibly in response to the request for a personal appearance made by my father.
After thinking about it, the miserably disappointing fishing trip was the clincher.
Just thirteen miles from my home was a manmade lake that for years was rather famous in a top secret sort of way. Pulling trout that were 12 to 15 inches long out of the lake was a common, nearly daily, occurrence and there were many an out of state license plate in the parking lot and camp ground if you took the time to notice. The place was so popular it was often said that a person could walk across the lake by just stepping from boat to boat and if you were to fish from the bank you needed to lock arms with your neighbor and bend over so that those who were behind you could cast over your heads, especially during the opening weekend of fishing season. Is there any wonder how some of our famous folk tales came to be?
Just about the timeframe that I have been talking about, there had been a major infestation of what was being called a trash fish that was taking over the lake and some powers that be at the time decided to poison out the lake. It was to take three years before they could plant the trout back in and then several years after that to get the big fish we had all taken for granted before. It was about four years after that that the ground shifted near the dam and to repair the damage the lake had to be drained to levels too low to maintain the large fish population. That once famous fishing hole never did return to its former state of greatness, at least not while I still lived in the area. Since I've moved away I have lost track and have no idea how it rates now.
Oh and that they added a rattle snake bite to that particular episode was fitting too. Seeing a rattler in my neck of the woods was as common as the big fish in the lake only the snakes didn't go away like the fish did. I was taught in my youth that the snakes traveled in pairs and if you ever saw one, be sure to look for another close by. I'm not sure that's true, but that is what I was taught.
During the next year, we did receive our ambulance, and I eventually joined the team of EMT trained ambulance attendants who were on call night and day for a week at a time, never knowing when we might be needed and seldom being called out. The pagers we carried on our belts were referred to as our warts most of the time and most of the calls we got were to take patients to another hospital where they could receive the specialized treatment they required.
The ambulance didn't solve all of our problems, there was so much more than just proper transportation to deal with, but it changed our little world in big ways.
Even though Randy and Kevin, or any of their friends, never showed their face in our little town they helped to bring about many changes in the way things were done. I'm sure they brought those same changes to every place there was a television set. Even as an EMT, I was able to do more and do it with more confidence because I had seen two actors do it all and then some for me to watch. I'm sure we would have gotten an ambulance in our little town sooner or later but those boys helped us get it sooner instead of later in addition to showing us ways to use it.
I would like to invite the boys back for another fishing trip and show them some of the changes they inspired and while I'm at it, introduce them to a few other people they didn't meet the first time around. I just might show them a better fishing hole too.
I'll come up with my own names for several reasons. First, I intend to take some creative license in an effort to create an enjoyable story. To do so I will combine attributes from several different people to make one. So if any of you from the old homestead read this and think you're seeing yourself in the story you're only partially right at the very most. Secondly, most of those I plan to spotlight in this story are gone now and can't defend themselves and there are many more reasons to do so, so I just will.