These days, it’s only natural to dial 9-1-1 for emergency assistance. A fire department ambulance will be at the scene within minutes with trained paramedics giving immediate care in any emergency.
Think back 50 years to a time when there were no paramedics. Homewood didn’t have even one ambulance.
Note: This story is the first of three on the 50th anniversary of Homewood EMS.
If there was an emergency, you called directly into the police department. An officer arrived to administer first aid and a family member took you to the hospital. There was a private ambulance service, but it wasn’t located in town, so it could take 20 minutes or more to get care.
And, 9-1-1 didn’t become a thing until 1991.
Homewood is celebrating 50 years of its Emergency Medical Services this year. It’s well-deserved recognition to the men and women who have been trained to fight fires and save lives.
The Homewood Fire Department was a part-time and volunteer operation until about 1972 when the first three full-time firefighters were hired. Fire Chief Joe Klauk saw the village grow after World War II, and he recognized there were needs to be met.
“When you got a Chicago resident who relocated to Homewood, they’d occasionally ask for a pulmotor and it confused the livin’ palomino out of the dispatchers. What the heck is a pulmotor?” recalled Greg Knoll, one of the first paramedics for Homewood.
Pulmotor was a mechanical resuscitator used by the Chicago Fire Department. Homewood didn’t have a pulmotor, but Chief Klauk knew of a new way to administer aid – emergency medical services. EMS was just coming on the scene. He wanted Homewood to lead the way.
It also helped that the television drama “Emergency!” about the work of a rescue unit in Los Angeles County was on the air giving Homewood residents a look at what could be in their future.
“Those were our heroes and (the show) showed how they could do rescue work and pre-hospital care could be brought to the patient instead of putting them on a cart and transferring them to a hospital,” said Charles “Chip” Woyner, Homewood’s first full-time firefighter.
The Homewood Fire Department full-time staff grew. Klauk selected several more guys who would be the fire department crew, and he put them through St. James Hospital’s emergency medical technician training.
“The way it came about was from the Vietnam War and Korea. They did some studies and found you were given a better chance of survival in war than in the United States,” because of the advanced medical treatments on the battlefield, Woyner said.
Dan Rossi and Dan Kukulski assist a patient. (Provided photo)
He credits Dr. David Boyd with the Illinois Department of Public Health for recognizing the work of the military in pre-hospital care. Boyd urged military medic training be incorporated into civilian training in a paramedic program.
The introductory emergency medical technician (EMT) classes at St. James gave Homewood firefighters knowledge they could use on scene, but there still was no ambulance.
“I was first onboard with that EMT kit and I used to get in the police car and ride around at night. The police would respond to the calls, so we needed to get an ambulance as we were going into the paramedic training,” Woyner said.
Chief Klauk got the support of the Chamber of Commerce and a fundraising effort paid for the first ambulance in 1974.
Ingalls Hospital started a paramedic program. Paramedics were in touch via radio to Ingalls emergency room for direction on treatment, such as administering shots, starting an IV, or giving medications. EKG strips would be sent to the nurses who helped monitor the paramedics.
Paramedics trained in classrooms and in clinical settings. They passed exams to be licensed by the state.
“Remember, we were new kids. There was nobody standing there telling you every time” that what they were trying was correct, Woyner said.
“When you get (to the scene), you’ve got to make it better. You’ve got to stop it from being bad and hopefully be able to make it better,” Knoll said. “You can’t call your boss and say what do you think?
“Thank God I didn’t have serious injuries (to deal with), but that’s what kept me up at night. You just pray they (paramedics) can get there safely, and they can take care of what they were called there for,” Knoll said.
The first call they went on together was an emergency with a young woman. They weren’t able to save her. Knoll and Woyner agree, the hardest calls to cope with were those dealing with people they knew and kids.
“When I got hired as a career person (in 1975), we had just 200 calls a year,” Knoll said. “When I retired (in 2003 as assistant fire chief), we had 2,800 a year.”
Today the Homewood Fire Department handles 4,000 calls annually, Fire Chief Bob Grabowski said, and about three-quarters of those are for paramedic assistance.