The professionals who helped create the first EMS jobs in America will soon be honored.
The County of Los Angeles Fire Museum Board of Directors will host the Inaugural Pioneers of Paramedicine Lifetime Achievement Awards Gala on May 8. The event will honor four of the doctors who conceived the paramedic idea and were present for the origination of modern emergency medical services.
The day before the gala, the four will meet for the first time in decades to share their stories on video. That video will then serve as the first in a planned series of “Pioneers” videos, which will be of significant historic importance to the EMS profession.
According to an article by EMS Responder, the four doctors slated to be honored at the presentation include:
- Eugene Nagel, MD – who was medical director for the City of Miami Department of Fire-Rescue’s rescue operation from 1964 to 1974. During those 10 years, he developed the first paramedic program utilizing telemetry and voice medical control rather than the practice of a physician or nurse riding with paramedics.
- Leonard Cobb, MD – who became the director of cardiology at Harborview Medical Center in 1963 and a professor of medicine in 1971. He worked in collaboration with the Seattle fire chief and others to establish the first paramedic-staffed mobile intensive care unit in Seattle.
- J. Michael Criley, MD – who was chief of the Division of Cardiology at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles for 20 years. He founded the Los Angeles County Paramedic Program in 1969. He has been on the full-time faculty at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center for 42 years and is Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Radiological Sciences at the UCLA School of Medicine.
- Walter Graf, MD – who was a cardiologist at Daniel Freeman Hospital in Los Angeles and a strong proponent of a mobile care unit for Los Angeles. With grant funds provided by the local chapter of the American Heart Association, he launched a Mobile Coronary Care Unit based on the Pantridge model in 1969 – a fully equipped vehicle staffed by nurses who were empowered to start intravenous infusions, administer drugs and defibrillate.
Randolph Mantooth – the museum’s honorary chair who also portrayed LA County firefighter and paramedic Johnny Gage in the 1970s TV series Emergency! – has been working to keep the history of paramedicine alive and tell the story of the journey of EMS in America.
The idea came about after Mantooth traveled the country to speak about the history of paramedics and the people whose vision changed the face of emergency medicine. During that time he noticed that many younger EMS professionals have little to no knowledge of EMS history and even less interest in preserving it.
Mantooth and the Museum’s board of directors hope the gala will help change that.