National EMS Museum

NEXT APPEARANCE OF THE TRAVELING MUSEUM - EMS World Expo September 8, 2013 - September 12,2013 Las Vegas Convention Center Las Vegas NV More Events Mail: P.O. Box 3 Chartley, MA 02712 Search Virtual Museum EMS History This section contains stories, relics and insight from the earliest days to the current times. MORE EMS Personnel This section contains first person, biographical articles and other Facets of EMS people. MORE Ambulances This section features ground ambulances, air ambulances, an other specialized EMS response vehicles. MORE Equipment A 'behind the scene' glance at technology from yesterday through tomorrow - from CPR in a can to the first defibrillator. MORE Communications Tracks the developments in radio equipment, communications center operations, dispatch triage training protocols, and biomedical telemetry.. MORE Management & Organizations This section holds the behind-the-scenes items that keep EMS and its people operating, the beginning of professional organizations, EMS education, and assocations. MORE

Donation Information News and Announcements EMS Today Drawing Winner 2012 Election Results NEW FEATURE- Get Museum RSS Feed! More News and Announcements Traveling Exhibits September 08, 2013 EMSWorld Expo 2013 Las Vegas, Nevada August 15, 2013 43rd Annual Wyoming Trauma Conference Cheyenne, Wyoming August 05, 2013 NAEMSE Annual Educator Symposium Washington, District of Columbia Full Traveling Exhibits

EMS TODAY - Take a Ride in Our Past

 Interview with Steve Lichtman

2012 EMS WEEK IDEAS SITE OFFERS EMS PRACTITIONERS A WEALTH OF INFORMATION

    The National EMS Week Ideas web site, www.emsweekideas.org, helps our nation’s EMS practitioners celebrate their profession during National EMS Week, May 20-26, and is an excellent professional resource year round. The site, hosted by NAEMT and sponsored by EMS World, provides opportunities for EMS practitioners to explore new ways to celebrate, participate in, and grow their profession. The site presents a wealth of ideas for engaging in the full spectrum of EMS activities. EMS practitioners can access:
    . Comprehensive resources on EMS career options and ways to advance their careers
    . Tips for using social networking as a professional tool
    . A guide to advocating for EMS in their communities, within their states, and at the federal level
    . Planning tools for National EMS Week
    . Great project ideas for providing community education and increasing public awareness
    . Information about the history of EMS and the people who have made significant contributions to its progress

    The newly designed site offers numerous resources on each page to help site visitors learn more about activities of interest and assist them in getting involved. NAEMT President Connie Meyer urges EMS practitioners across the nation to get involved, stating, “This is the most comprehensive National EMS Week resource available. I hope that all EMS practitioners will visit the site and take advantage of the information and materials to promote our profession and enhance their careers.” 

DAYS BEHIND THE GONG - RECALLED BY EX-AMBULANCE SURGEON OF BROOKLYN - June 1906

      The writer served for nearly four months as ambulance surgeon in one of our large hospitals in Greater New York, and during that time enjoyed many interesting experiences. Occasionally in the daily press the ambulance surgeon's life is described as a hard one, weighed down by scenes of woe and violence, joyless, hopeless; until the reader has a mental picture of a haggard, lined, prematurely aged face, peering out beneath a tarnished cap, and two trembling hands mechanically performing their task until the day when their owner may join the house staff again. Well, it is hard when the surgeon crawls into bed at "Doctor, the Fifty-seventh precinct, in a hurry," and his roommate turns over "been there."

     Hard the life is, and strenuous, yet I never spent happier days than when I rode behind "Babe," the big bay horse. There is a charm and uncertainty about the life that must appeal to any man with a spark of imagination in his cosmos -- one knows not whether at the end of the run is an Italian laborer with a gashed thumb, who will weep hysterically as a couple of sutures are placed, or a man mangled by machinery, with a limb torn off, or a gaping wound in the skull.  More
   

 BETHESDA CHEVY CHASE RESCUE SQUAD


Wisconsin 1000 was produced in 1950 by a grant of the Department of State. It highlights the early history of the Bethesda Chevy Chase Rescue Squad

 Read an interview with EMS Museum Vice President Lou Jordan

5 Questions for the National EMS Museum
on www.EMTReview.com

Perhaps it is because I fancy myself as a bit of an EMS dinosaur, or maybe because my friend Lou Jordan is so involved with the National EMS Museum, that I wanted to use the 5 question feature to highlight this important endeavor.  There has been talk for many years about considering EMS a "profession."  One of the traits of a profession is remembering where it has been and those who are responsible for bringing it into the present--and future. We learn from our past--and occasionally are amused and in awe of it.
  The history of EMS if full of unbridled passion, amazing individuals and some medical devices that, well, may not meet the standards of today.

 

 BRUNSWICK/SURETECH HEART LUNG RESUSCITATOR 

This month we would like to highlight a recent donation to the museum of two early model
Brunswick Mfg/Suretech Heart Lung Resuscitators by the Dennis Fire Department.
This video features a demonstration of a similar early HLR






 Video courtesy of PontiacAmbulance

 LIFE OR DEATH

    By Popular Demand! This 1977 video classic highlights the need for a professional Emergency Medical Serrvice, through comparison of the skills of the part time, gas station based "Economy Ambulance Service", and the neighboring community with a modern EMS.

Making cameo appearances are a disguised ENGINE 51 , and a Modular Ambulance used on the TV show EMERGENCY!, as well as Harvey Grant - author of one of the first textbooks for EMT's.




 
 

A HEART STOPS, SETTING IN MOTION THE CHAIN OF SURVIVAL -
Early 911 Access, Early CPR, Early Defibrillation, and Early Advanced Care

    It all starts with Dr. James Jude, Dr. William Kuowenhoven, and Dr. Guy Knickerbocker. Dr. Kouwenhoven and Dr. Knickerbocker invent the defibrillator in 1957, discover the benefit of closed chest compression with Dr. James Jude in 1958, and adding Dr. Peter Safars' work with rescue breathing , create CardioPulmonary Resuscitation in 1960  MORE   

 

 From : American College of Emergency Physicians-
     EMS-Prehospital Care Section Newsletter, September 2011 The Rearview Mirror

Richard A. “Doc” Clinchy, PhD, EMT-P
Emergency Medical Resources, LLC Navarre, Florida
Trustee, National EMS Museum Foundation
Director, Coalition for Tactical Medicine
Life Member and former Director, Special Operations Medical Association

    Looking back over 54+ years exposure to pre-hospital emergency care it has been my privilege to witness changes, see various products and interventions come and go, and see what we once viewed as inappropriate care, on further examination, prove to have been more beneficial to patient outcomes.
    My first experiences in pre-hospital emergency care started when I was 14 years old as an Explorer Scout. Since that time, I have transitioned to a first aider, professional firefighter, EMT, paramedic, public safety officer, flight medic, dive medic, educator, consultant, and have performed or taught pre-hospital emergency care on every continent of the world save Antarctica…at the age of 68, I don’t plan on visiting Antarctica in order to put that pin in my map!

    As a young man, I was part of a volunteer fire department and often became involved in providing emergency medical care. All this took place long before the letters EMS emerged. The concept of modern EMS had its origin in the "white paper" that was entitled Death and Disability On The Highways, The Neglected Disease. The folks at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) looking at the epidemiology of highway traffic fatalities recognized that there were great deficiencies in how we managed trauma. Unfortunately, in the early days of "improved" pre-hospital emergency care, we all too often treated a patient to their early demise. We were good at bandaging, splinting, administering oxygen, and starting IVs. However, we were so good at doing these things that we kept patients away from where they really needed to be which was, more often than not, the emergency department and operating room.

CLICK TO VIEW COMPLETE ARTICLE

    
    1972 Video documentary on the Jacksonville Fire Department and how it fared since becoming the first fire department in the nation to implement fire based delivery of Emergency Medical Services several years earlier.






 

Does your unit have a dusty stash of old equipment in a back closet or attic? Have some of your members held onto those obsolete resuscitators and cots, hoping to someday find a worthy home for them?  Email us !

"Wish List" of artifacts we would like to obtain

Lifepak 2 and 3

Biophone Telemetry Radio

Old Pal Tackle/Drug box

E & J resuscitator - Lyteport 3

Robertshaw Resuscitator - Orange Box and Dual tank

Reviv a Life Resuscitator

Ambu Foam Filled BVM

PMR BVM

Laerdal BVM's- particularly the early green version

DynaMed Chokesaver

Brook Airway

Hope Resuscitator - BVM

Ferno Washington Stretchers (Model #28, 30, 11, 12, 65(ScoopStretcher)

Old Steel D Tanks

 

The Museums' Collection of early EMS equipment continues to grow because of the generous donations of many of our " Dinosaurs" , as well as a new generation who have never seen an episode of EMERGENCY. 

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