DATE: Friday, June 13, 1997                 TAG: 9706110088

SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER      PAGE: 03   EDITION: FINAL 

COLUMN: THUMBS UP! 

SOURCE: BY LIZ SZABO, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   94 lines

DYNAMIC DUO WINS ACCOLADES FOR PARAMEDIC LIFE-SAVING WORK

Eric Brown and Lisa Crouch seem to live dangerously.

While on the job, Brown has been punched, kicked, spit on, vomited on and worse. Sometimes all three at once. Sometimes unintentionally.

As a store manager for a Norfolk 7-Eleven, Crouch has been robbed at gunpoint. Sometimes she chased shoplifters into the parking lot with a broom. Now she often drives into darkened streets after a shooting or a knife fight.

Boy, do they love their jobs.

They are paramedics, and in two years they have saved the lives of many Chesapeake residents.

Not all of their patients want their help. Often, patients who need ambulances are delirious, or experiencing seizures. Some are the losers in a fight, and try to continue the altercation with their rescuers.

So it's nice to know that someone has noticed their work.

The city of Chesapeake recently recognized Brown, 28, and Crouch, 34, by naming them 1996 Paramedics of the Year. The Chesapeake Pilot Club presented them with an award last month and the Great Bridge Ruritan Club honored them with an award Tuesday.

Crouch and Brown have made several high-profile rescues. They revived Great Bridge High School basketball player Stephen Parker after he collapsed from a heart attack at a game. And they saved the life of 4-year-old Justin Lambert after he began choking on a balloon he received as part of a Christmas present. Lambert's mother still sends the duo school pictures of her son, now 6, every year.

The keys to a successful rescue, they say, are professionalism and team work.

``If you go in and you're calm and don't raise your voice and there's no waste of movement, that's a sign that you know what's going on,'' Brown said. ``If they see a smooth, focused team, they're going to remain calm. Like I always say, slow is smooth, smooth is fast.''

Crouch agreed.

``If they see us running and losing control, they're going to panic.''

The two work nearly seamlessly as a team. On an ideal rescue, they might not speak at all.

``By this point, we're a little like brother and sister, a little like husband and wife,'' Crouch said.

Both are married to other people. But the two practically live together during shifts, sharing the common areas of the Great Bridge fire station during their 24-hour shifts.

After so many rescues, `it's like we're looking at the patient through the same eyes,'' Crouch said.

Hundreds of people watched their teamwork as Crouch and Brown labored to revive Parker.

Brown's side of the ambulance was closer to the gymnasium when they pulled up. His role in the rescue became clear.

``I'm going in,'' was all he needed to say. Crouch knew that her partner would assess the fallen teen-ager's condition - they did not yet know he was in cardiac arrest - while she would enlist the aid of firefighters to help her carry in an EKG monitor, an airway kit, an oxygen bag, a portable suction device and other gear.

When he entered the gymnasium, Brown was immediately struck by the complete silence of the crowd. When people saw his paramedic uniform, the crowd began urging him to race to Parker's side.

Parker was lucky.

Carol Crowe, a nurse at Chesapeake General, and athletic trainer Sharon Ivey were performing CPR when Brown arrived. Brown directed firefighters to relieve Crowe and take over the chest compressions. He gave them an oxygen bag to replace the mouth-to-mouth resuscitation they had been performing.

While Brown prepared to insert a tube that would help Parker breathe, Crouch tested Parker's heart with an EKG monitor. Less than a minute after she shocked his heart using defibrillator panels, she was able to look up and say: ``The pulse is good.''

Meanwhile, Brown was inserting a tube down Parker's throat. Brown squeezed an empty balloon sac at the end of the tube to force air into his lungs. ``Your tube's good,'' he told Crouch.

They loaded him into the ambulance and headed for Chesapeake General. The rescue lasted no longer than a few minutes. Parker is now in good health.

``Everything went click, click, click,'' Crouch said. ``Thank God we got a pulse back before we left the gymnasium, because those people (in the stands) would have been devastated. But we were actually talking to him as we left the auditorium.''

When people ask Brown why he chose to become a paramedic, he has a succinct answer: ``Justin Lambert and Stephen Parker.''

Both are modest about their accomplishments. Crouch and Brown insist that they are no different from any other paramedics.

``To take credit for saving their lives, that would mean we'd have to take credit when they die,'' Crouch said. ``There are a lot of people walking around Hampton Roads because of qualified EMTs and paramedics and fire fighters.'' ILLUSTRATION: Staff photo by MORT FRYMAN

Eric Brown and co-worker Lisa Crouch were named paramedics of the

year for Chesapeake. One of their noteworthy deeds was saving a

young boy who collapsed during a basketball game.

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