I was working for the St. Louis Fire Department when one day the phone rang and it was the late Harvey Eisner. I knew Harvey only by name from reading his many From the Editor columns over the years in Firehouse Magazine. It seems he had read some of the articles that I had written about the happenings in fire-based EMS around the country.
Harvey was in a quandary. His long-time EMS columnist Rich Adams had died recently, and he had tried to get some other people to write about EMS, but their columns were habitually late or never showed up by the deadline. Harvey asked if I would be interested in writing a few columns and we would see where it went from there. That was November 1997, and my first article appeared in Firehouse Magazine in January 1998. It was titled “Fire Service EMS: Past and Future.”
Little did I know that Harvey’s phone call would change my life immensely. For over 18 years, I have been privileged to write the EMS column in Firehouse Magazine. I have been honored to put my thoughts on paper and share them with firefighters all over the United States.
Looking back over the subject matter of some of those first columns I wrote, I can clearly see how the face of fire service EMS has changed and, at the same time, some of the same issues that we dealt with 18 years ago are still with us.
Back in 1998, I wrote about ambulance restocking problems and how a ruling handed down by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid said that if ambulances restocked with medical supplies, including sheets at hospitals, it was a violation of federal law because of kickbacks. That does seem like a long time ago. There are probably firefighter-paramedics on the job now who would be shocked to know that at one time picking up your medical supplies at the hospital was like going to a buffet.
But some things have remained the same. I also wrote a column in 1998 called “Private Ambulance Providers Face a Rocky Road.” That has not seemed to change over the last 18-plus years. We have seen massive consolidations, IPOs, mergers and acquisitions within the private ambulance industry as they tried to establish themselves within each market.
Along the way, as a result of being a columnist for Firehouse Magazine, I have been fortunate to speak at many Firehouse Expos and Firehouse World conferences. I became friends with many of the outstanding and smart people who write for and are associated with Firehouse Magazine. I got to network at those conferences and fellowship with dedicated firefighters from all over the United States. In many places, we swapped stories over lunch or a beer. I would have never had this opportunity if Harvey had not called me one day in 1997.
There was a time when Dennis Smith, the founder of Firehouse Magazine, invited me to dinner, and I sat next to Pete Hayden, who served as FDNY’s Operations Chief on 9/11 and then eventually FDNY’s chief. For three hours, I heard story after story about 9/11 and the months of recovery efforts afterword. This included many details that I have never seen published. I wish I had a tape recorder to document the stories, because there were too many to remember. Another amazing opportunity.
Firehouse Magazine has been a staple in the fire service for 40 years. Imagine how many firefighters’ lives have been saved because of something they read in Firehouse and then remembered during a moment that could have gone either way. How much information has been shared that training officers have used in training and passed along to firefighters—information that may one day also save their lives?
We’ll never know the true impact Firehouse Magazine has made on the fire service. We just know it has made a difference and it is immeasurable and humongous! I’m grateful to have played a small part by promoting fire-based EMS.
