'John Gage' to speak at next state EMS Awards Banquet

By JOHN HULTGREN
Kentucky EMS Connection

LOUISVILLE — Randolph Mantooth, who during the 70s starred in a hit television series that inspired many to enter the new occupation of paramedic, will be the guest speaker at the next Kentucky EMS Awards banquet in September.

Emergency!, which ran from 1972 until 1977 Saturday nights on NBC, starred Randolph Mantooth (as Firefighter/Paramedic John Gage) and Kevin Tighe (as Firefighter/Paramedic Roy DeSoto), the crew of the Los Angeles County Fire Department's Squad 51.

Squad 51 helped put out fires, administered mouth-to-mouth resuscitations, and saved many people (and the occasional cat) who usually got into trouble up in some high place.

When necessary, patients received advanced life support treatment (a revolutionary idea to most of the nation) under explicit radio orders and were transported to Rampart Hospital where the white-jacked Dr. Morton, Dr. Brackett, Dr. Early, and Head Nurse Dixie McCall were ready for anything (and who not only worked in the ER, but also showed up in practically every other department in the hospital). 

Emergency! was a hit television series, particularly among children (who weren't the target audience) and adults who developed firefighter fantasies (some wanting to be just like them, and others just wanting to be saved by them). But producer Jack Webb and others on the show probably had no idea the series would spawn such an interest in CPR and first aid classes throughout the county, or improve fire rescue knowledge, or cause a surge of people to volunteer as firefighters or sign up for paramedic training.

Emergency! aired 129 television episodes and seven two-hour movies with a national audience that averaged 30 million viewers each week. Like producer Jack Webb's previous Dragnet and Adam-12 series (which pioneered action programming with a reality focus), the show dramatized heroic civil servants and probably did more to spur a community interest in advanced life support emergency medical services than anything else.

The Kentucky EMS Awards Banquet will be held Friday, Sept. 19, at the Executive Inn Rivermont in Owensboro at the conclusion of the 2003 Kentucky EMS Conference and Expo. Mr. Mantooth will be flown in by STATCARE helicopter just prior to the banquet and will remain after the banquet for questions. 

Tickets for the banquet will be available sometime next summer and are expected to sell out quickly.

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