And now a question about LA County ambulance services in the early 1970s...

Randy Loy

PCS Member
I really appreciate the responses to my question about the San Francisco Department of Public Health Ambulance Service (as depicted in the Streets of San Francisco TV series of the 1970s) that I posed in a separate thread. It was really nice that some of those that responded had actually worked for other San Francisco area ambulance services during the early 70s and had direct knowledge regarding the subject matter.

So now I have a questions about L.A. County private ambulance services in the early 1970s. What level of training would the fictional Mayfair private ambulance service attendants in the TV series "Emergency!" have likely had in the early 70s? Would L.A. County or the State of California have had EMTs yet or would the ambulance guys have more likely been advanced first aiders?

With all the attention "Emergency!" paid to L.A. County's pioneer status in the development of advanced life support pre-hospital care, the show never really mentioned EMTs or other basic life support providers. We just see the private ambulance attendants drive up, load up the patients and fire department paramedics, and head for Rampart General. Can anyone advise me about how things were with the private services then?
 
Don't know anything about these, so I like you will be watching too see and learn,one thing I did learn from different courses I took in the states is that the war in Vietnam really changed prehospital care and boosted even greater the use of helicopters,the TV show just boosted the public image,Jack Webb was a smart man for bringing it forward but I am sure he had lots of help..:thankyou2:
 
I do know that while working in Sacramento (Northern Calif) ambulance service in mid 70's......there were a LOT of ex medics,corpman etc that worked in the LA (Southern Calif) area when they came back from Viet Nam.. as LA had a Paramedic and Emt program in place .......even in the late 60's I believe.
(Schaefer and Goodhew were waayyyyyy ahead of everyone...at least in California)

They then came to Northern Calif and were surprised to learn that little if ANY of their knowlege could be used....they were just to advanced for the owners/operators of the ambulance services and also the counties and small town jurisdictions were worried about lawsuits etc....
So they were hired at $1.65hr just like everyone else working a 12 hr shift or 4 24s on and 3 off.....
and funny thing...NO ONE ever seemed to stick around for any length of time....Hmmmmm

I was in the 2nd graduating class of EMT 1's in 1974....in my county...there were aprx 30 in the class....

It goes along the same story as in Mother Jugs and Speed.....where Harvey Keitel wants to practice his paramedic skills and cant understand why he cant....

again.......Ahhhhhhhhh the 70's :pat:
 
I agree with you 100 percent Wayne. Jack Webb was indeed a smart man whose shows made a tremendous impact on our society. In addition to "Emergency!" I know that "Adam-12" did a lot to showcase the realities of police work as well as modern law enforcement tactics. At least modern at the time. I watch the show today and it seems dated but I understand that back in the day episodes were used as part of some police department's training programs.

I also believe that "Dragnet" probably did a lot to help the public begin to see that detectives had to be smart and hard working to solve cases. Prior to that Hollywood had often portrayed police investigators as dumb and private detectives as fedora wearing and hard drinking. "Dragnet" helped people see the work and frustration that went into solving cases, even those involving fairly simple crimes.

James also brings up a good point about the early days of modern EMS which I remember oh so well. That of resistance by some to allowing paramedics to use their training and skills. When I became a paramedic in 1979 I worked for a private ambulance service in Wheeling, West Virginia. The two hospitals in Wheeling and some of the smaller hospitals in nearby towns were already accustomed to medics and supported our efforts. But the further away you got from the "big city" the more likely you were to encounter people (doctors, nurses, public safety personnel, and the general public) who believed it was better to simply load the patient and drive fast. I did see that begin to change with time, however, and by the time I got out of EMS in the late 1980s things were much more medic friendly.
 
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