Rampart, this is squad 51

Imagine my excitement when I learned that one of  my all-time favorite childhood TV shows, “Emergency!”,  is broadcast every afternoon on one of the digital channels I receive through FiOS.  I grew up watching Paramedics John Gage, Roy DeSoto, and the rest of LA County Fire Station 51 respond to all manner of unlikely rescues and medical calls.   When I was in elementary school,  me and my best friend used to play our own version of “Emergency!”, racing around the neighborhood on our bicycles.

Squad 51

In 1990, I was 24 years old and it was about 16 years after the TV series ended, when I decided to live out a dream; I signed up for an EMT class.  I had purchased the text book and studied the material the entire summer before the class even started!  Eighty students started the class, and by the end, only about half remained.

I ended up earning the highest score on the class final and practical, and scored a 98 out of 100 on the New York State EMT Exam.  After earning my EMT certificate, I joined the North Shore Rescue Squad on Staten Island, one of the many volunteer ambulance squads operating in the five boroughs of New York City.  I was a memeber of that squad until June 1992, when I moved to Maryland.  In Maryland, EMS is part of the fire department, so I joined the Gaithersburg-Washington Grove Volunteer Fire department while I lived with my brother in that part of suburban Montgomery County, MD.  I was only there a few months before moving to Bowie in Prince Georges County, and I joined the Bowie Volunteer Fire Department.  Until then, I had only been volunteering as an EMS provider, so I was always staffing the ambulance.  At Bowie, I was encouraged to go through firefighter training; I wasn’t seriously interested in it at the time, but PG County offered a short, but intensive 32 hour basic volunteer firefighter recruit class.  In two weekends I learned how to pull handlines, layout supply lines and hook up to the hydrant, throw ladders (and climb them!), tie the various knots that might be useful, use the SCBA, and feel my way through a dark, smoke-filled building.  It was a lot of work, but it was a blast.  When I got through with that training, I was cleared to ride the engine and occasionally the ladder truck.  I really couldn’t decide what I liked more - EMS or firefighting.  I was happy to do both, of course…after all, I was living a dream!  My time at Bowie was awesome.  I made a point of sleeping in at the station a few nights a month - getting awakened in the middle of the night for a call was a crazy experience.  After a couple of years at Bowie, I moved to Columbia in Howard County.  I continued to ride at Bowie for a few months, before joining the County Volunteer program in Howard.  This is unlike the other volunteer-run fire departments all over the state.  The County Volunteer program is part of the career-run Howard County Department of Fire and Rescue (DFRS).  There was no volunteer chief or rank of any kind, and there was no special patch or emblem.  I was really just an unpaid member of the County fire service, and I would just go into any of the four county-run stations and ride.  Unfortunately, in Howard County, my PG fire training did not carry over, so I was back to just riding the ambulance again.  Not a big deal for me, as I enjoyed EMS.  It also made up most of the calls, so I was always busy.

After about five years, priorities in my life changed.  I was married, we were starting a family, and I had a career that demanded more of my time.  I was also feeling quite burned out.  EMS can be tough on a person emotionally, and I think I had just finally had enough.  I think I ran my last call in 1999.  Hard to believe it’s been almost ten years since I’m out.  I am still a ‘buff’ though - I still listen to the calls on my scanner and read all sorts of emergency service websites like www.firehouse.com, www.thewatchdesk.com and Statter911.

I guess even though I left the fire service, it never really left me.