PIONEERS OF PARAMEDICINE

Here is your opportunity to see and hear the “Pioneers of Paramedicine“. Learn the story of how Emergency Medicine came to be, spoken by the men who were the visionaries with the idea to bring pre-hospital care to the public in a way that had never been heard of or thought of at the time. The story of the Paramedic program began in Los Angeles County, and was spread throughout the world through the television program EMERGENCY!. Here is the full story, from the first idea, to getting the politicians to buy into it, to the first paramedics to respond, to watching the program become accepted worldwide.

Hosted by Baxter Larmon and EMERGENCY! television stars Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe The Pioneers are Dr. J. Michael Criley, Dr. Walter Graf, Dr. Leonard Cobb, and Dr. Eugene Nagel. You can read more about these gentlemen at http://pioneersofparamedicine.com/

The Inaugural Pioneers of Paramedicine Lifetime Achievement Award honorees: Eugene Nagel, MD, medical director for the City of Miami Fire Dept from 1964-1974, Leonard Cobb, MD, who established the first paramedic-staffed mobile intensive care units (Medic One) in Seattle in the late ’60s, J. Michael Criley, MD, who founded the Los Angeles County Paramedic Program in 1969 and the Los Angeles County Paramedic Training Institute at Harbor General Hospital in Los Angeles, and Walter Graf, MD, founder of the Daniel Freeman paramedic training program in Los Angeles and developer of one of the first MICU services in the U.S.

Randolph Mantooth, who starred as paramedic Johnny Gage on the hit TV series Emergency!, and an active member of the board of the County of Los Angeles Fire Museum, stated at the awards event that that the Emergency! series catapulted paramedicine into every living room in the U.S. and into the thought process of government leaders who soon demanded that a similar level of ALS system be implemented in their community. But Mantooth, ever aware of the show’s history and humble beginnings, was also quick to point out the TV show was mirrored on the efforts of several EMS systems being developed and expanding in scope at the beginning of 1970, and said the true credit belonged to the four physicians honored with the inaugural Pioneers of Paramedicine Life Time Achievement Awards.

Mr. Mantooth stated that the passing of EMS visionaries like Peter Safer, MD and James O. Page made him and fellow County of Los Angeles Fire Museum board member at that time, Nancy McFarland, realize that EMS was passing up the opportunity to record and preserve its history by not capturing the work, words and wisdom of the early pioneers of EMS. So the County of Los Angeles Fire Museum decided to establish a project that would record the historical contributions of key EMS leaders in an effort to preserve their stories for future generations of EMS providers to view and learn from.