Emergency!

I’ve been watching reruns of “Emergency!” lately and some of the things I’ve noticed about the technology, culture, and procedures are startling. The first thing is they don’t have collapsable gurneys like we’ve gotten so used to today. The ambulances have low-riding gurneys with high handles and the hospital has full hight gurneys without handles. The paramedics only have a four-lead EKG, and when they send telemetry to the hospital they have to do it one lead at a time. The Biophone they use to contact the hospital doesn’t even use a whip antenna, it uses a solid antenna they have to screw into the unit every time they use it and unscrew and store it when they’re done. There’s a surprising level of automation present based on the technology of the time: when the station receives a dispatch alert, the Motorola Quick-Call unit sounds the familiar alert tones, turns on the lights in the sleeping area, and opens the overhead door.

When DeSoto and Gage arrive at a scene and unload their equipment they just walk off and leave the squad unattended and the equipment doors open. That would never happen today: there’s too much chance (according to Homeland Security) of someone calling in a false alarm and hijacking the rig to gain access to somewhere they shouldn’t be. Also, since this was set at the very beginning of the Firefighter/Paramedic program, they are clearly more firefighter than paramedic, whereas today’s shows, dating back as far as “Rescue 77″ the main characters are more paramedic than firefighter. DeSoto and Gage are in turnout gear almost as often as they are their regular uniforms, but in later shows (Rescue 77, Third Watch, Chicago Med) you rarely see the paramedics in turnout gear or manhandling hoses around an incident scene.

Even looking at the equipment shows this: in Emergency! they drive a fire engine red (duh) vehicle with cargo compartments where the bed (or ambulance body) would be and they have to relay on third-party ambulances to transport patients. Today’s paramedics (in the parts of the country I’ve lived in) roll out on calls in fully equipped ambulances and transport their own patients. Third-party ambulance services still exist, obviously, but they aren’t generally used by paramedics and are driven by EMTs rather than the ambulance attendants we see in “Emergency!”.

The hospital seems to have a completely different standard of professionalism than you see on television shows today. The nurses were in crisp, white uniforms (with nurses hats in the earlier seasons), the volunteers/candy-stripers were in similar but brightly colored uniforms, and the doctors generally wore slacks, shirts, and ties with the exception of the sole resident, who wore what almost looked like a dentist’s uniform. The only time you saw someone in scrubs was when they were performing a procedure that required a sterile environment, as opposed to today’s shows where it looks like almost everyone is in scrubs. There was the occasional bit of 70’s culture that crept in: once when a call came in over the Biophone into the hospital, Dr. Early was sitting next to the receiver, but looked up from his paperwork and over to Nurse McCall like, “you gonna get that or what” which is silly because Dixie was only an RN, and not authorized to give the paramedics instructions, so he had to lean over five seconds later and start asking questions and giving instructions.

This is disjointed, and clunky, but I’m tired. I really need to practice my writing skills though, for school and work both. I’ll try to get back on here on a more regular basis. I can’t even remember the last time I wrote an entry. I’ll do a proper update rather than a random musings later in the week.

Probably.