When the officers of Peachtree

City Fire Department asked me to speak at the department's awards banquet

earlier this month, they said they wanted the newer members to hear how

things used to be, to give them an idea of our beginnings.

Several urged me to share my

remarks with you. You want to hear how it used to be? Here's how it used

to be.

On a cold day, it was hard

to get the horses hitched to the hose-wagon. That was high-tech before

that, we formed a bucket brigade. And "communication" was two

cans and a long string.

Well, OK, I exaggerate, but

we DID bring emergency services into the modern era, and that's a legacy

we cherish. Here's how it really was: Before about 1970, if you had a

fire in Peachtree City, help was rounded up by telephone. Louise Leach,

sister of our first chief, M.D. "Brother" Leach, telephoned

homes, work places, whatever it took to find people to respond

If you had a heart attack

or an accident, you waited until C.J. Mowell could get here from the funeral

home in Fayetteville. (Why didn't he come from the funeral home here?

you rookies might ask. It wasn't built until 1995, for one thing.) Highway

54 to Fayetteville, only two-lane, didn't slow him down there were hardly

any other cars on the road.

C.J.'s crew had minimal training

usually just first aid and C.J. was pretty casual about collecting for

an ambulance trip. We often speculated on his incentive to get here quickly,

knowing he wasn't going to make any money unless he did a funeral... This

was the scene I found when we moved here in 1971.

I know I was insufferable with

my tales of how things were "up North." But we knew there was

a better way, and we started to build it with an emergency rescue class

in 1972 through Fayette County Civil Defense (predecessor to FEMA, Federal

Emergency Management Agency). Stan Neely and I took the class with the

idea of forming a rescue unit, and so did most of the volunteer firemen

(they were fireMEN then).

We had two-way radios, and

it was not unusual for me to drive to Fayetteville to pick up the CD emergency

van for a house fire, or a missing child, or a heart attack, or a wreck

anywhere in the county from Kenwood to Brooks, thus freeing the men to

respond with heavy equipment.

At the time I was working for

the first and only doctor in Peachtree City, Henry Drake, and he let me

take off any time I thought it necessary. Stan had similar flexibility

with his employer, then Garden Cities Corp. Eventually, though, with Dr.

Drake's encouragement, it dawned on us that Peachtree City could also

have a rescue vehicle and split the county calls.

We got it by going door to

door, and to every industry, doing demonstrations of extrication or cardiac

support, teaching first aid and CPR whatever it took to raise money for

a brand-new 1973 Ford Econovan.

And about the time we got it

to where we thought it was state-of-the-art, the feds caught on to the

sorry state of things in the country as a whole, and required basic standards

in equipment and in training personnel.

Dr. Drake urged us to get EMT

(Emergency Medical Technician) training, then offered in Clayton County.

C.J. and Dean Pope were in that first class, along with Stan, Al Hogg,

Richard Andrews, and I. We were certified early in 1974. At about the

same time, City Council allocated grant money to the purchase of our first

defibrillator and a heart-lung resuscitator (considered very progressive

then) they went on that Econovan.

The doctor authorized us, basic

EMTs, to work under his license, and we were carrying IVs and cardiac

drugs and defibrillating almost five years before laws proscribed what

EMTs could or could not do.

We made history. We were the

first and for many years the only volunteer rescue squad doing defibrillation

and drug therapy in the field with a doctor's order if we could get one

on the phone, without it if we couldn't. Later we became the first unit

with telemetry.

We saved lives, and when we

didn't, the patient's family had the comfort of knowing that everything

possible had been done that could be done in those times.

In 1975 things started happening.

To qualify for federal funds to purchase vehicles that would meet federal

standards, a county Emergency Medical System had to be in place. Two modular

units were ordered and purchased; with C.J.'s help, one was based in Peachtree

City. Later, the city established its own EMS.

We graduated a new class of

EMTs every year. The class of '75 included my Dave, Paul Talbott, and

John Weber. Jack Routon was in the class of '77, Gary North in '78, to

name a few still active.

In 1976, the first advanced

EMT (later called paramedic) class started, in Clayton County, and Fayette

County had one volunteer in that class, John Weber, who became the first

certified paramedic in Fayette County. The following year, three more

of us completed the course, and in due time, we divided responsibilities

thus: Teams of three EMTs, one of them a paramedic, responded from 7 p.m.

to 7 a.m., while daytime calls were answered by whoever was in town.

We had just a few radios and

swapped them around according to who was available. It took sacrifice

to let us go.

There was not nearly the volume

of calls then that there are now we'd have days go by between calls, and

then back-to-back calls all day long. Everyone pitched in without complaint.

It may sound haphazard, but

believe me, it worked. We never failed to meet a call in a timely manner

because we were short of personnel or had equipment failure.

Here's how it went at night

before we had an employee at the fire station (fire station, singular):

The call would come in through Louise, maybe via the sheriff's office.

She'd phone the on-duty team at home.

Brother would drive like a

bat out of hell to the station. Whoever got there first started the truck,

then waited for the other team members.

When we finally got pagers,

we thought we were uptown. Before that, with just a few handsets circulating

among members in good standing, the night rescue calls were made by phone.

When Gerald Reed started working

at the fire station, he'd put it out by radio in the daytime, and he,

or whoever spent the night there, phoned it out at night.

For fires we had a ring-down

line: One phone call rang 30 phones at once in a distinctive pattern.

You'd answer, and hear sleepy voices saying "Hello?" while Louise

repeated over and over, "False alarm. False alarm. False alarm."

In theory, this was to get a fire crew out; in fact, it could be activated

Once it started, it wouldn't

stop until every phone had been picked up. It cost about $40 to set up,

and people would move out of town and their phone numbers reassigned in

the years between times Brother would spring for the change.

Times were different. Contrary

to what you may think we "old-timers" believe, they were not

always better. Some things were: Citizens thought we could walk on water,

and gave us unqualified support, and nobody thought about law suits. It

was a time when no one had heard the term "HIV-positive."

Heck, we used to meet back

at the station after a bad call, our hands covered with dried blood. It

was a macho emblem, like a mechanic with grease on his hands.

You guys are doing a good job,

and we're very comfortable placing our legacy in your hands. The level

of education and technology that you work with was inconceivable in our

day. And I know it's hard for you to imagine this, but 25 years from now,

some of you will be the "old-timers" telling rookies how primitive

the service was at the turn of this century.

Thank you for doing what you

do, and God bless you all.

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