8A
Wednesday, December 7,1994
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Eve Tolefree, who has been a paramedic with Douglas County Ambulance Services for nine years, watches a monitor that is hooked up to a patient in the back of an ambulance. The call, which involved a drug overdose, is one of a variety that emergency medical services workers may respond to in a typical evening. Tolefree's performance on calls such as this helped earn her the title of paramedic of the year for 1993. She was nominated by her colleagues.
The job of an emergency medical services worker is not all red lights and high drama. Dennis Leslie, an emergency medical technician for DCAS, examines an air brace as part of the daily stocking of the ambulances. Leslie is the only EMT working for DCAS. As such, he is not authorized to start IVs or administer medication. Leslie has been with DCAS for one year.
Jackie Steward, left, and Rusty Brown, paramedics for DCAS, converse next to an ambulance at District One before beginning their shift early in the morning. Lawrence has two districts. District One's station is at 19th and Massachusetts Streets. The other district's is north of Lawrence Memorial Hospital on Maine Street*
EMS: an evolving profession
TV show educates the nation about the expanding field
By Sara J. Bennett Kansan staff writer
In the 1970s, dashing Los Angeles paramedics Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto saved lives and got the girls in "Emergency," a drama about emergency medical services that did more to educate the nation about the profession than anything else.
"The interest in this profession is directly proportional to the media exposure," said Ted MacFarlane, director of Douglas County Ambulance Services. "They really did make it look like it was the best profession you could have."
The EMS profession is younger than most who work in it. According
to an October article in The Journal of Emergency Services, EMS was born in the 60s with the refinement of CPR and the development of sophisticated and portable equipment. Strides also were made during the Vietnam War when it was discovered that lives could be saved by administering care in the field.
Before EMS, emergency calls were run primarily by mortuaries.
"They'd run out there, throw you in the back of the hearse and take you to the hospital if you were still alive," said Rob Kort, paramedic supervisor for DCAS. "If you weren't, they'd just load you up."
At first, paramedics were greeted with suspicion by such medical professionals as nurses.
"The nurses were the right hands of doctors for eons, then here come these allied health people who don't even have the same training but can do the same things," MacFarlane said.
Still, it didn't take long for EMS to catch on.
"I think we've earned respect," said Kort. "They understand that we're not just a bunch of ambulance drivers out there for the guts and glory."
Today, a new class of EMS workers is hitting the streets, specially trained to care for patients in non-emergency settings. EMS workers soon will visit homes, taking test samples, giving vaccinations and set fractures.
"There's no way someone who hasn't been there can appreciate the emotional drain associated with taking care of a pregnant woman who has a stillborn child, or a father who gets killed in a car wreck with his whole family watching." Ted MacFarlane, director of DCAS
"We could use a lot of really good men and women," said Jim Page, publisher of The Journal of Emergency Medical Services and a former writer for "Emergency." "If they like it, they may want to think of becoming leaders in the field."
The Johnny's and Roys of the future are hitting the streets in record numbers as more and more people choose EMS as a profession. And EMS keeps growing.
Continued from Page 1A.
The first tones of the evening sound — one long pitch followed by a second an octave higher.
ACTI
"District One," a female voice barks, "reporting a woman with possible contractions or convulsions."
THE THEATER OF THE STREETS
Kort sprints to his suburban. He switches on the lights and sirens, and suddenly he is flying.
But these skies are not friendly. Some cars refuse to pull over. Others try to race the suburban. Each intersection is a collision waiting to happen.
When Kort arrives at the Gaslight Village mobile home park, paramedics Suzanne Smith and Mary Fairburn already are there. Inside a mobile home, a sweating and shaken woman reclines on a couch. Smith and Fairburn crouch beside her. A man paces nearby with a toddler in his arms.
"Look at those kids." Kort growls as he approaches a group of barhoppers strangling across Tennessee Street. "You can't tell me they don't see me."
Smith takes the woman's pulse and blood pressure. Fairburn gently prods her bulging stomach.
"Have you had any problems with this pregnancy?" Fairburn asks.
"No," the woman whispers, her eyes filled with panic.
"When is the baby due?"
"Halloween." The woman winces with the onset of another contraction. Her delivery date is only a week away.
"I think what's happening is you're going into labor," Fairburn says finally.
"Really?" A smile creeps into the woman's eyes.
"I think the safest thing would be to go to the hospital in the ambulance," Fairburn continues. "I'd hate to have you deliver in the car."
"Cool! We get to go to the hospital!" the woman's son shrieks as she is wheeled into an ambulance. The man with the toddler taps on the vehicle's back window and waves. The woman's mother piles family into her car as the ambulance departs.
What could have been a tragedy has turned to a celebration. Still, there is little time for excitement.
"I will impire to bet she'll be our last sober patient tonight," Kort says.
ACT II
Kort misjudged by one call. The 15-year-old who hurt his arm in Eudora wasn't drunk. He rode his bike across a dark lawn and collided with a hedge.
It takes about 12 minutes to get to Eudora, and both of the county's ambulance stations are in Lawrence. But DCAS still can respond quickly due to first responders like Harris, community volunteers who stabilize patients in remote areas until paramedics arrive.
Kort arrives to find first responder Sharon Harris comforting the boy.
Kort determines that the boy has a minor sprain. It is after 11 p.m., though, and the boy doesn't know where his parents are.
(DCAS) is unique because we're considered both urban and rural medicine."Kort savs.
Eudora is a small community. It doesn't take long to find them.
As such, DCAS paramedics often handle shootings and stabbeds. They also are specially trained in getting people out of cars and farm equipment.
But what DCAS paramedics see pales in comparison with what their colleagues in bigger cities encounter.
Back at the station, Smith and Kort discuss a former DCAS paramedic
named Nick who recently transferred to Denver General in Colorado.
Smith predicts Nick's stint at Denver General will end his EMS career.
"He'll see too much." Kort agrees. "The only way he'd see more action is if he were in combat."
Things haven't become that bad in Douglas County — yet. DCAS paramedics take self defense classes, though, and they constantly must be on their guard.
"Working in the streets is difficult," Kort says. "Our job is to go into an uncontrolled situation, take control of the situation, make a diagnosis and leave in 20 minutes. Whenever you turn on those red lights and sirens, you're laiving your life down."
Kort speaks of "the streets" with the respect afforded wild animals.
“(They II) chomp you up and spit you on and keep asking for more.”
"When you run that call where you really help someone, it gives you a feeling six figures can't buy."
Paramedic supervisor for DCAS
EMS workers treat patients who often are frightened, and sometimes mentally ill or intoxicated. It is not unusual to be hit, kicked or spit on.
Some of the most ominous dangers are invisible. Kort once treated a patient who had meningitis. Two days later, he was in an intensive care unit with the disease.
Divorce is common among EMS workers. After dealing with life and death issues on the job, many have trouble relating to the everyday struggles of family life, according to MacFarlane.
"There's no way anyone who hasn't been there can appreciate the emotional drain associated with taking care of a battered kid who dies, a pregnant woman who has a stillborn child or a father who gets killed in a car accident with his whole family watching."
Douglas County tries to combat EMS pitfalls by providing its paramedics with services such as counseling after intense calls. Generous vacations allow them to recuperate from tough shifts
Still, burnout is common.
"In one or two years, you're what I call seasoned," Kort says. "When the alarm goes off, your heart rate doesn't jump up, your hands don't get sweaty and you feel pretty confident that whatever comes at you, you're going to be able to handle it."
"After about three years, you ask yourself, 'Why am I doing this?'"
***
The answer for many EMS workers is variety.
"My wife calls us adrenaline junkies, Kort says. "You have to like the element of surprise if you're going to stay in this job."
And the job isn't without rewards.
And the job time without rewards.
About the time Kort got the three-year itch, he responded to a heart attack call that resulted in a successful transplant. That Christmas, he the patient and his family in church. The patient's wife grasped Kort's hand and said, "You've given us the best Christmas we could ever
have."
"When you run that call where you really help someone," Kort says, "it gives you a feeling six figures can't buy."
GRAND FINALE
No amount of gratitude can stave off the groggy last leg of a 24-hour shift. There have been only two calls all evening, but the paramedics know better than to relax.
When the tones sound, they must be on the street within a maximum of two minutes.
Still, a little rest is better than none at all, and Kort pads down the hall to join his crews in the station's bunkroom.
As Kort's suburban flies screaming down Tennessee Street, he listens to his radio for updates.
Fifteen minutes later, the tones go off. The dispatcher announces the accident at the corner of 23rd and Massachusetts Streets. Four people may be injured.
Fairburn and Smith, already on the scene, report three code greens and a code yellow. The code greens are nonemergency, but the code yellow patient needs urgent care.
"We're going to need extrication," Smith says.
Kort upgrades the call to an emergency. The entire cast — three crews in all — now is responding.
The intersection teams with rescue workers and police officers who scurry to secure the area and keep spectators at bay.
A mangle, white car and a small, gray pickup lie perpendicular at the center of the melee. Kevin Lyons works through the car's window to stabilize the three teen-aged girls inside.
"There's your code yellow," Talkington says as he gestures to a local man trapped inside the pickup. Fairburn crouches in the seat beside him, administering oxygen and monitoring vital signs.
The driver of the pickup darts in and out of the rescue workers.
"He's going to be all right," Kort assures him.
"Oh, man! I can't believe it," He sobs. "Come on, Vern. Come on, man."
Smith and Lyons put the girls on backboards and carefully pull them from the car, while Kort and Talkington rev up a heavy metal mechanical jaw. They peel off the pickup's roof and, with Fairburn's assistance, lift the passenger onto a stretcher. He is complaining of chest pains, the symptoms of broken ribs and a collapsed lung.
Not far off, police arrest the driver of the pickup for drunk driving.
Within 20 minutes, all patients have been tucked safely into ambulances. The paramedics speed away, leaving police and firefighters to clean up the debris that has scattered more than a block from the crash site.
EPILOGUE
The crews unload their patients at Lawrence Memorial Hospital's emergency room, where all but the man in the pickup will be treated for minor injuries and released.
An air of camaraderie prevails as the paramedics congratulate each other on a job well done. It is 1 a.m., and the last call was unusually taxing. They are tired, but there is no time for a curtain call.
A lot can happen in the six hours that remain of their shift.
The paramedics must hurry to restock and clean the ambulances, Kort explains, "so we can go out and do this all over again."
No sooner has he said it than the tones go off.
Pat Mayo, left, a paramedic with DCAS for 16 years, and Dennis Leslie, an EMT, unload a patient at Lawrence Memorial Hospital. EMS workers spend much of their time transporting nonemergency patients to the hospital for care.