September 12, 1969

The lab coat felt strange to Roy. So did the blue tie.

So did the setting – the auditorium at Harbor General Hospital.

Roy and five other Los Angeles County firemen were part of the group that also included Inglewood and City of Los Angeles firemen and many nurses.

Much to his surprise, one of those nurses was Dixie McCall.

Roy smiled. "Dixie! You here for the training, too?"

"Well, don't let it spread around, Roy, but I don't know everything," replied Dixie with a smile.

"Your secret is safe with me," Roy teasingly assured her.

Dixie chuckled. "Actually, I'm here to see how the training is done," she said. "Rampart may be next on the list with paramedic training."

"You got Dr. Brackett to agree to it?" asked Roy, amazed.

Dixie shook her head. "Not yet. But I'm trying. Dr. Early certainly supports it." She sighed. "At least Kel agreed that I could come here and witness the training. I think he expects me to be a house spy."

"Does he really see us as that much of a threat?" Roy asked.

"I think the way he interprets it is as a threat because you 'hose jockeys,' as he puts it, won't know enough," Dixie said.

"Isn't that what this program is supposed to fix?"

Before Dixie could answer, another voice was heard from the front of the room.

"Good morning, Everyone….."

Roy gave a smile to Dixie and went to find a seat.

"Welcome to Mobile Intensive Care Paramedic Training. I'm Dr. Jim Parsons. Look at everyone on this stage and around you. You're going to become very familiar with each other during the next few weeks."

Soft chuckles could be heard.

"And now, let me introduce the other people on this stage," Parsons continued. The audience listened raptly as the Harbor General staff made their own introductions. Afterward, Parsons took over once again.

"Now, I know many of you already have a bit of classroom time," he said. "But hark back to your school days, because you're going to get classroom time on that level.

"After this little session is done, you're going to be broken up into much smaller groups to start those classroom sessions."

Roy and Dixie joined the line afterward. "I think it's going to take more time to find out where we're assigned than to actually attend the classes," Dixie grumbled.

After about five minutes, they finally reached the tables. "Looks like we're going to be classmates, Dixie," said Roy, looking at the paper. "You and six LA County firemen."

Actually, the class included Dixie and four other nurses and Inglewood firemen, as well as the Los Angeles County crew. Their instructor: Dr. Parsons.

The first task was collecting the textbooks. The nurses went first, followed by the firemen.

"You, uh, have all of this, don't you, Dixie?" Roy quipped.

"Don't start with me, Fireman DeSoto," Dixie grumbled teasingly. "If this goes into effect, you're going to have to be even nicer to me."

They all sat around a long table, with Parsons at the head.

"Firemen only answer this question: Who among you has any experience in treating the human body?" he asked.

Only Roy raised his hand.

Parsons smiled. "Introduce yourself, please, and talk about that experience."

Roy's eyes darted briefly around the room as he struggled with momentary terror. They rested on Dixie, who gave him an encouraging smile.

"My name is Roy DeSoto. I'm a fireman – a rescue man - at LA County Station 20," he began. "I served as a medic in Vietnam. We treated various wounds-"

"Under fire?" one of the Inglewood firemen interrupted.

"Uh, yes," Roy stammered. "Once the soldiers were wounded, we had to make them ready for transportation to the field hospitals. That meant stabilizing them."

"And that way, they'd be sent on to the field hospitals," Dixie picked up. She smiled at Dr. Parsons. "Excuse me for interrupting, Doctor. My name is Dixie McCall and I served in a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital during the Korean War. I'm the head emergency nurse at Rampart General Hospital."

Parsons smiled. "Please interrupt, Nurse McCall." He looked at the class. "I have to tell you all, she's a ringer. She's here because we're trying to get the Rampart staff to host some future training. But she'll do what you do- including the exam."

Dixie nodded at Parsons and continued.

"You are all going to be doing what the medics did in Vietnam – usually not under gunfire," she hastened to add. "But you will have difficult situations nonetheless – hysterical families, hysterical patients, weather issues and, of course, everything you already face as firemen."

"That's part of everything we already face as firemen," one of the Inglewood firemen joked. The group laughed.

Parsons chuckled. "Well, you've all got all those books you picked up this morning," he said. "But we're going to try to teach you these skills with an approach to as many real-life situations as possible. That's because it doesn't do you any good to know what lidocaine is if you don't know how to use it in a situation in which you have to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs.

"You already are a leg up on that because of, as you said, everything you face as firemen," Parsons continued. "That's going to help you become good paramedics."

During the first week, Parsons guided the firemen through the physiology of the human body. He couldn't hold back a few smiles at the looks on the men's faces – they ranged from utter confusion to downright horror.

"You know, guys, you're looking at anatomy, not 'Frankenstein,'" he joked.

"When I looked at anatomy in school, it was the girl sitting in front of me in science class," one fireman muttered. Roy, sitting nearby, couldn't help but chuckle.

Once again, he looked down at the illustrations. He actually liked learning about how the body worked.

It was the terminology he was having trouble with…..

"Have a headache, Sweetheart?"

Roy looked up from the book and smiled at his wife. Joanne was sitting in the brand new rocking chair, feeding tiny Christopher Michael DeSoto.

"Nothing I can't handle," he reassured her. "But this" – he pointed at the book – "is another story."

"Tough reading?"

"Tough words. Know what 'Anaphylaxis' is?"

Joanne grinned. "Sounds like an opera singer," she quipped.

Roy chuckled. "That's Anna Maria Alberghetti," he said. "Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction. Anyway, that's the kind of terminology we're going to have to be able to communicate with hospital staff about – under all kinds of conditions." He paused. "A little different from 'take an inch and a half.'"

"And a lot different from Vietnam?" Joanne asked. Roy nodded.

"There, we just had to follow orders, basically – 'give this guy a shot,' and all that." Roy looked down. "There were times when I wasn't sure quite what we were giving them, just knew that we had to do it. At least I felt that way.

"Now, we're going to have to know chapter and verse – almost everything the doctor does, I guess. At least in the field."

"Small price to pay to save more lives, isn't it Roy?"

"It is, if I can figure out these words."