I did my first "ride-alongs" on distance transfers in a 1974 Miller-Meteor Cadillac Lifeliner in the summer of 1979 at age 8. I'd get to ride in the front when the patient was on board and in the back on the way home.
However, the first time I actually served as an attendant came in 1985 at age 14. One winter evening after supper, I was in my room doing homework when my dad yelled down the hall, "Tony come on, I need your help on an ambulance call!"
Hmmm...needed my help on a call? This was something new. Turned out that two of the three rigs were already out on calls and my dad was the last available crew member and, since I didn't have a driver's license, that meant I was in back with the patient.
Further adding to the drama, our first-out rig, a 1984 Collins Ford Crusader Type II, was at the body shop being repaired from a minor traffic accident, meaning we had to use the "loaner" rig, a 1980 Ford (Wheeled Coach, I think), which had no 2-way radio in it.
The call was to a traffic accident about 6 blocks from the hospital. With the help of the city police, we got the victim onto the cot and into the rig for the short ride to St. Mary's ER. When we arrived, the nurses were sure surprised to see me serving as the attendant!
A couple years later, in 1987, the ambulance service in my hometown went from privately-owned BLS to hospital-owned ALS, so I got in on the transfers, event standbys, and this one occasion of actually tending to a patient, just before the "good 'ol days" ended.
Anyway, here's a photo of that 1980 Wheeled Coach (?) Ford Type II just before we returned it to Ringdahl's in Fergus Falls, MN. It was on this day I met - and immediately became good friends with - John Ringdahl, who introduced me to PCS, sending me home with much of his photo collection and all back-issues to date of The Professional Car magazine, on loan to me for a period of a few months.
(Karsnia photo)
