Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 24, 1993 TAG: 9305240225
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: WENDI GIBSON RICHERT NEWSFUN WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
They do not practice in hospitals or doctors' offices, though. And, often they are not even paid.
But they are the ones who literally come to the rescue when you need help. They drive the ambulances, perform emergency care and get you to a doctor faster than anybody else can.
These folks are the country's 500,000 emergency medical providers. And, coincidentally, they got their start right here in Roanoke in May 1928.
This week has been declared National Emergency Medical Services Week by the American Society of Emergency Physicians. The week has been set aside to recognize the folks who often go unthanked - the people who save many lives and vanish before some victims even know what's happened to them.
The first emergency rescue team was founded by Roanoker Julian Stanley Wise, who organized nine of his co-workers to be volunteer rescuers.
They called themselves the Roanoke Lifesaving Crew.
Wise was prompted to start the crew because of a drowning he witnessed as a boy. Two men whose canoe overturned in the Roanoke River struggled to stay above water. Wise stood on the river bank with others, watching helplessly as the two men drowned. That experience told him that people should be trained to rescue victims from whatever situation leaves them in trouble.
The Roanoke Valley History Museum in downtown Roanoke has an exhibit, "To the Rescue," that details the founding of the world's first rescue team.
Now, emergency rescue services operate all over the world, sounding their sirens at a moment's notice en route to saving yet another life.
To learn more about rescue operations in our area, we visited the Roanoke Emergency Medical Services crew hall in Roanoke. REMS, which grew out of Wise's original crew, has three stations, more than 20 full-time paid workers and about 120 volunteer rescuers.
Ken Harper, president and shock therapist, and Thomas Langhorn, emergency medical technician, told us about what emergency rescue workers do and why many do it - even though working on Roanoke's rescue team is a job that takes workers away from family and home for 12 hours a week, and doesn't pay most of them a penny.
Before they could explain, however, the radio scanners, horns and beepers in the station erupted. It was about 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, and an emergency call had just come in from the city's 911 system. In a second, I was on an ambulance, seat-belted in, and speeding across Roanoke with Harper and paramedic Stephen Simon.
A ride in a racing ambulance with sirens blaring is definitely exciting, if not scary. Rescue squad drivers must negotiate every turn and intersection while making sure nobody is in their way. Plus, they must instantly recall the street names of the area while the second rescuer studies a map in search of the quickest route to the address.
Upon arrival on the scene, a doctor's office where a patient's blood pressure suddenly dropped, Harper and Simon checked the patient, put her on a stretcher, carried her to the still-running ambulance outside and drove her to a hospital emergency room.
Even as Harper drove, Simon kneeled in the back, wedged between the stretcher and the cushioned bench seat, checking the patient's vital signs, watching the heart monitor and administering medication. He spoke softly to her throughout the trip to the hospital, doing everything to make her more comfortable.
An emergency worker's job ends at the emergency room, where rescuers give doctors all the information they've learned about the patient. Fresh sheets are put on the stretcher, and the ambulance is restocked with medicines, sterile needles and other equipment.
The drive back to the station was without incident. No sirens wailed. No flashing lights warned motorists to veer to the right this time.
Once back, Langhorn joined Harper again, and they continued to tell me about why their jobs are important to them.
Langhorn, "a sucker for the red lights," does it because he enjoys helping people. He also likes working with the equipment - nine ambulances and two crash trucks complete with the Jaws of Life, a device sometimes used to free people trapped inside a wrecked vehicle, and a host of other "grown-up toys."
As for Harper? He didn't have to tell me why he and other rescue workers put in 12 hours a week here, beyond the time they already spend at their full-time jobs.
And, he didn't need to explain why rescue workers find it necessary to take time away from their families to learn how to be the emergency medical technicians, shock trauma specialists, cardiac technicians and paramedics that save lives every day.
Harper and Simon's attitude in the ambulance said it all. It's the rescue that makes it all worthwhile. Harper simply puts it: "Knowing you were there to help someone."
And for us, it's good to know they're always there.
You, too, can tour the REMS station. Or, they can bring an ambulance or crash truck (bigger than an ambulance and filled with lots more lifesaving equipment). Ask your teacher to call REMS at 344-6256 more information.
by CNB