Did You Know? Random EMS Facts

The field of emergency medical services in the U.S. has a history that’s fascinating, if not long. Here are some nuggets to impress your friends and colleagues.

• The first defibrillator designed for use in the field was developed by Dr. Frank Pantridge in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He installed his first version in a Belfast ambulance in 1965. It weighed 150 lbs. and operated from car batteries. Remarkably, it took until 1990 for all frontline ambulances in the U.K. to be equipped with defibrillators.
• While the TV show Emergency! gets much of the credit for introducing America to EMS, a precursor called Rescue 8 aired on NBC in 1958–59. It chronicled the exploits of the Los Angeles County Fire Department rescue squads. While primarily rescue in nature, there was some first aid done, such as the “back pressure arm lift” method of artificial respiration. CPR didn’t exist yet. In one far-fetched episode the lead firefighter was coached on the phone to complete an emergency appendectomy in the field.
• King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain—the same monarchs who sponsored Columbus’ voyage—gave us the word ambulancia in the late 1400s. These were the first recorded field hospitals, consisting of special tents equipped with medical and rudimentary surgical equipment.
• Widespread use of nonsterile gloves was not common in EMS until the early 1990s, with the spread of the AIDS virus. Prior to then BVMs and other equipment would be washed and reused in the field.
• A mobile defibrillator was used to treat U.S. President Lyndon Johnson when he suffered a heart attack in Virginia in 1972.
• The first practical traction splint was designed by a British orthopedic surgeon, Hugh Owen Thomas, in 1875. Thomas came from a family of Welsh bone setters who passed down their secrets from father to son. Thomas’ nephew called it the “Thomas leg splint” or “Thomas half ring,” and by 1918 it had helped reduce mortality in military femur fractures from 80% to about 7% in the French and English armies.
• Preston Burnham invented the first bandage scissors with a flat lower angled blade instead of a straight blade in 1956. This was the precursor of the plastic-handled trauma shears that began to see wider use in the mid-1980s and are now common on the hips and in the pants pockets of EMTs and paramedics everywhere.
• Sidney Yankauer invented the suction tip named after himself in 1907 at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York City. He invented many medical devices but is best known for this rigid suction catheter originally made of steel or metal. It was originally designed to help clear the surgical field during a tonsillectomy. However, its use expanded to include prehospital oropharyngeal suctioning in the late 1970s.
• Motorola began production of the Minitor I—the first portable dispatch-activated voice and tone pager made for fire and EMS—in 1973. The Minitor I had a battery life of about 6–8 hours and weighed almost a pound.
• The term siren has its origins in Greek mythology, where it referred to a being similar to a mermaid. Sirens’ songs lured sailors to their shipwreck deaths. Hand-cranked sirens first started appearing on ambulances in the mid-1920s.
• Jack Fishman was trying to find a way to treat constipation caused by chronic opioid use in 1961 when he inadvertently created naloxone, a medicine that temporarily blocks the effects of opioids in the body and a staple on EMS ambulances today. Ironically his stepson died of an opiate overdose.
• After the relative success of casualty-clearing horse-drawn ambulances in the Civil War, the first civilian ambulance service was provided in Ohio by Commercial Hospital, now known as Cincinnati General, in 1865. Attendants had no medical training beyond basic bandaging.
• The Star of Life insignia used by EMS was designed by Leo R. Schwartz, chief of NHTSA’s EMS branch. It was adapted from the medical identification symbol of the American Medical Association, which was patented in 1967. The newly designed Star of Life was trademarked for EMS use on February 1, 1977.
• New York City has private ambulance companies that respond to neighborhoods with specifically assigned EMTs who speak the language of that neighborhood. Examples include Midwood Ambulance in Brooklyn (Cantonese), Hatzolah Ambulance (Hebrew), and Assist Ambulance (Russian).
• In 1937 the first U.S. ambulance with air conditioning was built by Hess and Eisenhardt of Cincinnati.
• In June 1969 the Miami Fire Department became the first fire department in the United States to successfully revive a lifeless patient in the field through defibrillation. Firefighters used radio transmission of the EKG, combined with verbal radio contact with doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital and the University of Miami School of Medicine, to receive the authorization.
• When New York City launched its first ambulance service in 1869, the horse-drawn vehicles sounded a gong to get folks to pull over. Its first aid bag contents included a stomach pump, bandages and sponges, handcuffs, a straitjacket, and a quart of brandy.

Resources

Burnham PJ. New Bandage Scissors. JAMA, 1958; 168(6): 760.

Castillo T. Who Invented Naloxone? Huffington Post, 2015 Nov 30, www.huffpost.com/entry/meet-jack-fishman-the-man_b_6329512.

Crutchley P. Frank Pantridge, the ‘Father of Emergency Medicine.’ BBC, 2016 Oct 3, www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-37540915.

Graham J. The History of the Ambulance. Medium, History of Yesterday, 2020 May 9, https://historyofyesterday.com/the-history-of-the-ambulance-ecc2d63fb1a6.

Hare Traction Splint. History of Traction Splinting, www.haretractionsplint.com/history-of-traction-splinting.

NAEMT News. The Star of Life. EMS World, 2010 Aug 18, www.hmpgloballearningnetwork.com/site/emsworld/article/173225/star-life.

Nir SM. A Brooklyn Ambulance Service Speaks Chinese, Like Its Patients. New York Times, 2016 May 23, www.nytimes.com/2016/05/24/nyregion/a-brooklyn-ambulance-service-speaks-chinese-like-its-patients.html.

Say SD. The History of the Yankauer Suction Tip and Where Med Tech Is Today. SSCOR, 2021 Mar 11, https://blog.sscor.com/the-history-of-the-yankauer-suction-tip-and-where-med-tech-is-today.

Spok. Why Pagers Still Matter: The History of Pagers (1921–2019). Spok, 2019 Jul 3; www.spok.com/paging/throwback-thursday-history-pagers/.

Swaby R. Get Out of the Way: A History of How Ambulance Lights Save Lives. Gizmodo, 2013 Jun 6, https://gizmodo.com/when-the-blues-come-on-a-brief-history-of-ambulance-li-511277280.

Yokley R. TV Firefighters. Black Forest Press, 2003.

Yokley R, Sutherland R. Emergency!: Behind the Scene. Jones and Bartlett, 2008.

Young G. The First Ambulance: The Humans (and Horses) That Saved the City. The Bowery Boys New York City History, 2020 May 29, www.boweryboyshistory.com/2020/05/the-first-ambulance-the-humans-and-horses-who-saved-the-city.html.

Barry Bachenheimer, EdD, NREMT/FF, is a frequent contributor to EMS World and has been in EMS and fire for more than 35 years.