Foxwall EMS

by Jan Adam, contributing writer
Originally printed in The Herald (6 December 2001)

Austin Henry was face down in a puddle the first time Rick Duffy saw him.

Henry and some classmates had been running and sliding down a muddy slope when he hurt his neck. He could not move, and the school’s athletic trainer carefully lifted his nose out of the water only far enough to allow him to breathe.

Duffy, a paramedic with Foxwall Emergency Medical Service, supervised the process of strapping Henry to a long-spine board, and the slow drive to the hospital emergency room.

“Rick knew what he was doing and he was confident,” recalled Henry.

It’s a good thing. What they later learned is that Henry had broken his neck.

That was 20 years ago. Today, both men continue to serve with Foxwall EMS. Henry is president of the board of directors, and Duffy is chief of operations.

“If it hadn’t been for Rick and the Foxwall team, I wouldn’t be walking today,” Henry said. “These people save lives and make a tremendous difference.”

Foxwall EMS, which serves Fox Chapel, Aspinwall and Blawnox, is looking for increased participation from the people it serves. Area residents are encouraged to subscribe to the emergency service, and to consider volunteer service as an emergency medical technician (EMT) or paramedic.

“It is the only area EMS whose crews are all volunteer,” said Gordon Fisher, operations administrator.

“People think we’re funded by the borough because our base is adjacent to the borough building. But we’re not. There are no taxpayer dollars here,” Fisher said.

Funding for Foxwall comes primarily from subscription memberships from individuals, families and businesses.

For any patient, Foxwall bills the insurance carrier for emergency services. For its subscribers, Foxwall waives any balance above the amount covered.

While Foxwall provides the same emergency care for non-subscribers, patients are billed directly for amounts not covered.

Duffy said that on average, 42 percent of area residents pay the annual subscription.

“We can always do better. It’s what keeps us here,” said Fisher about increasing subscription levels. Many people feel that because they are in good health, they don’t need to be a member, he said.

“If Foxwall were not here, it could be replaced by a private service and that would most likely be taxed,” Fisher said.

Duffy said when he began volunteering, Foxwall responded to about 300 calls each year.

“Now it’s approaching 1,000,” he said.

“People are trained to recognize emergencies, the warning signs of heart attack or stroke. Also, people know how responsive 911 emergency services are,” he said, referring to the increase in calls.

Foxwall has a team of 30-35 volunteers. About one-third are from the communities served, and nearly half are students.

“We would like to have more volunteers to fill some shift times,” said Fisher.

Joanne Herrmann, of Fox Chapel, is one of a dozen women on the team. “I like doing something for the community and being part of the community,” she said.”

Training is usually two or three evenings a week, or a Saturday program, according to Fisher. Most complete their training in three months, and they must put in a minimum of 16 hours per month to maintain active status.

Henry said there is no shortage of present-day stories about saving lives.

“We attend all structure fires,” he said. “Recently, a firefighter in his 60s, went into cardiac arrest at a fire scene. We resuscitated him on the spot, using equipment that is standard in our trucks.”

Foxwall then transported him to an area hospital, and he is now back to work.

In addition to emergency response, Foxwall provides stand-by at high school football games and at other area functions such as public events at Hartwood Acres.

They conduct training sessions, and are currently working with The St. Margaret Foundation to provide defibrillators to local police units. A second phase of the program will provide units to facilities such as schools and clubs.

“We encourage participation and are always interested in new volunteers,” said Fisher. “These guys are saving lives every week.”

How to help

To become a Foxwall subscriber, call 412 963-6611.

Individual subscriptions are $25 annually.

Family subscriptions are $45 annually.

Business subscriptions are based on the number of employees.

To learn more about becoming a paramedic or an emergency medical technician, call 412 963-6611.

by Ann McKenna Fromm
Originally printed in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette – Saturday, January 13, 2001

Five years ago, I went back to school to become an emergency medical technician. I knew the stories: Paramedics saved lives. They had once resuscitated a dying baby in my neighborhood. That child is now a thriving 15-year old adolescent. Could I do that?

I’m a writer, and I was also working on a project with Dr. Paul Paris, head of the University of Pittsburgh’s Emergency Medicine Department. As an EMT, I could get an inside view of medicine I could get nowhere else.

But there was another reason, which, at the time, I did not acknowledge even to myself. I was lonely. My husband had died, and my children gone away to college. I missed them. Being a writer is a solitary occupation, and I could hardly make the words come out on the screen. My life seemed meaningless to me. I never exactly wanted to kill myself; but sometimes it was hard to remember why I should get up in the mornings, or eat.

At Paul’s urging, I began the rigorous EMT course at Pitt’s Center for Emergency Medicine. I learned how to drive an ambulance. Then I applied to Foxwall, a volunteer emergency medical service for Aspinwall, Blawnox, and Fox Chapel. I was proud when I was voted an active member, and I began to work regular shifts.

Almost always, the people we helped were grateful. One woman had run her car off the road into a golf course’s shrubbery. “Thank you, honey,” she repeated, over and over as we rode to the hospital. “Thank you.” It made me feel good to hear that. I think I was beginning to learn how much we get back from working in EMS – at least as much as we give. We answered a call for a child having seizures, and another for a grateful unhurt driver whose car had veered into a telephone pole.

I was part of a crew responding to a cardiac arrest patient, whom, sadly, we could not save. Even then, the family members were warm with thanks that we had tried.

* * * *

But one man we did help brought all my emotions about EMS into stark relief. His name is Woody Turner. He is a lawyer and a volunteer fireman. I had read about him, and read his handwritten notes of thanks tacked on our bulletin board at the base. Last month I met him at a party and he talked to me and told me his story.

It was a year and a half ago, and Turner was working a fire in Fox Chapel. Nearby, Foxwall’s paramedics had unloaded the stretcher piled with oxygen tanks and other equipment from the ambulance. Turner acknowledged them and returned to his job, helping position the fire hoses and putting up lights to illuminate the scene. He was hot inside his fire helmet and heavy turnout gear. Thirsty, he finished his job and headed back to the pumper for a drink of water. At 60, Turner is healthy and robust. But while he did not know it then, his sudden cardiac death was imminent.

From the adjacent lawn, Foxwall’s director, paramedic Rick Duffy, saw Woody Turner go down. He had merely fallen, Duffy thought. Turner hit his head on a mailbox as he fell.

When he did not move, Duffy approached. He checked Turner’s airway, breathing, circulation. Then he called the EMTs to bring all the equipment they had.

Turner’s heart had stopped. Duffy ordered him to be put on oxygen and hooked up to a defibrillator. An EMT secured the mask and began breathing for Turner. He was already turning blue from oxygen starvation.

With scissors, Duffy shredded the shirt Turner was wearing and placed the paddles on his chest. Turner’s heart was “fibrillating”, or beating in such an erratic way that it could not pump blood. Duffy started the defibrillator. Everyone stood back. Duffy administered 200 joules of electricity to Turner’s body. He checked the monitor as the EMT moved back to continue with oxygen. Turner was still in ventricular fibrillation, a short circuit in the normal electrical rhythm of the heart. Duffy administered a second electric shock.

The squiggly lines on the monitor changed. Turner’s heart had regained its normal ability to pump blood. He began to breathe again, and regained a groggy consciousness.

“I never had pain,” Turner said. “No angina, arm pain, chest pain. I only remember being thirsty, then looking up and seeing Rick Duffy grinning down at me.”

The ambulance took Turner to UPMC St. Margaret, where he was stabilized and transferred to a trauma center. The next day he underwent a cardiac catheterization, and later, successful bypass surgery.

“Now I’m 110 percent,” Turner said. His round face beamed. He was so visibly joyful and happy to be alive that it came to me then: That is how I feel, too.

* * * *

I still mourn my husband’s death, and I will always ache for my children who lost their father so young. But the heaviness of grief has lifted. I recently moved to an airy new townhouse, in part to be near Foxwall. On Monday mornings, I wait at the base with my wonderful partner, Nancy Succop. Gordon Fisher, a big, kind man and Foxwall’s administrator, is always watching us and teaching us new things.

Not long ago, Nancy and I took a shaken woman to the hospital who had cut her finger opening a can of tuna. The wound was bloody and deep but she would be fine, we knew. It is a good feeling to be even a small part of that lifesaving chain. Rick Duffy had joked to Woody Turner after Woody’s episode, “The good Lord didn’t want you yet, and neither did the devil.”

Ann McKenna Fromm is a writer living in O’Hara and a Foxwall EMT

by Mary Lee Gannon
Originally printed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (20 December 2000)

About the time my newspaper carrier was pitching news of the Nasdaq onto my driveway Friday, I was creating my own plummeting index on an electrocardiogram. I had awakened with chest pains, sweats, tingling fingers, and lightheadedness.

I couldn’t make it down the steps, so I called for my 11-year-old, crawled back to bed and phoned 911. I explained my symptoms and then, as any healthy 40-year-old would do, immediately went into denial.

“It’s not that bad. I’m young. Don’t you think I’ll be OK?”

“We don’t know that, ma’am,” said the dispatcher. “Have someone turn on your porch light. We’ll be right there.”

Just what you want to hear when you are having a tug of war with middle age – “ma’am”. I wanted to tell him, “I’m not my mother,” but couldn’t remember if my underwear was new or old and thought I’d better not argue.

When the Emergency Medical Service team arrived, I was relieved to see that two of them were people I know – relieved, that, is, until I thought again about my underwear.

Standing around my bed were my children, whose faces had dropped two stories. Tears were welling in their eyes.

I did my best to comfort them, but the most calming effect came from the EMS team. In between starting an IV and doing an EKJ, they offered gentle words to the children, words which had a reassuring effect on me, too. They even let me think I had a choice about going to the hospital.

Once there, I expected to be greeted by someone asking me for my insurance card. It never happened. Instead I was met by concerned doctors and nurses who treated me with a suspicious immediacy.

I didn’t really get concerned, though, until they told me I needed to be taken to another hospital for a heart catheterization.

Then they told me I had to go by helicopter. I lost it.

“Could I die?” I asked the cardiologist.

“If you weren’t here it could be a possibility,” he said, “but you are in the best care.”

I looked at a nurse who had been sweet enough to stay with me. My face must have told the story. “Please don’t cry, or I’m going to cry too,” she said.

The sights and sounds of an emergency room during a crisis remind you of what life really amounts to. There is no sense of day or night. The words of nearby conversations pale next to the beeping of the monitors. Intravenous tubes feed you what you hope is tomorrow into pricked veins in your arms.

There are no windows through which you can breathe fresh air. There is no horizon from which you can anticipate the next sunrise. There is only today. This minute. Now.

I thought about my children and how proud I am of their choices. I thought about my friends whom I am so blessed to have. I called my family, friends, and children’s principals to make sure they knew to take care of the children.

Then I let God have the rest.

I knew that in spite of the difficult hand I had been dealt, I had so many things for which to give thanks. I had the best of care. I had the best technology. I had the best transportation. I had the best in medicine. And I had a God who would not abandon me. Everything else was out of my hands.

God continued to remind me of his presence through his children. The helicopter paramedic eased my fears by telling me about his father having the same procedure. The heart catheterization room was like the United Nations. I was never happier to be an American. What a blessed place it was to have the top people in the whole world summoned in one room waiting to take care of me.

As I was coming out of sedation, I watched the monitors display the movement of blood through my heart. I sighed with relief when I heard the cardiologist say in an Irish accent, “Mary, you are not having a heart attack nor do I think you will ever have a heart attack.”

He asked how I felt. Pleased with his work and thoroughly drugged, I answered with a very Tony the Tiger-like, “Grrrrrreeeeeaaat!”

He smiled, “We only give the best cocktails here.” I was sure they only gave the best of everything there.

By 2:30 that afternoon I was getting dressed to go home. I found that my underwear had been sealed in a bag. I was assured they did that for everyone. Whew!

I left the hospital and nobody had even asked for my insurance card. My Social Security number and my word were enough to insure me the best care insurance or no insurance could by.

The paramedic who treated me called my house to see how I was. He told me that two of the other paramedics had called him twice asking about me.

I knew at that moment that I was thankful for one more thing.

I was thankful that American is not only a place where the doors are open to all, but that in addition to its cutting edge technology and in spite of its capitalistic drive, there are still many here who have not compromised the virtue of compassion.

God Bless America.

Mary Lee Gannon is a free-lance writer.

by Justin McClelland
Originally printed in the Pitt News (November 17, 2000)

This summer, Pitt sophomore Ben Abo found himself four vehicles behind the president of the United States while at home in Cherry Hill, N.J.

Usually such a position merits a stop and possible search by the Secret Service, especially when the driver is only 19 years old. In this case, the emergency medicine student was part of the official motorcade for the commander in chief.

“I was driving pretty slowly, with my siren blaring and my lights flashing. It was just the most awesome experience I’d ever been in,” Abo said. “I called my girlfriend from the ambulance and screamed, ‘I’m 10 feet behind the president and I’m in his motorcade!”

How did Abo end up driving the legally required ambulance that had to be on site for the president? Years of defensive driving lessons? A Medal of Honor? In fact, Abo is a volunteer emergency medical technician both at his home in Cherry Hill during the summer and the Pittsburgh suburbs of Aspinwall, Blawnox, and Fox Chapel – all serviced by Foxwall Volunteer EMS – during the school year.

“I think I started training to be an EMT the day after I turned 16 [the legal minimum age].” Abo said. “When I was little I looked up to the ambulance drivers, so to be able to do it was for me an honor.”

And it was Abo’s skill and dedication to his volunteer duties that he was chosen to drive in the motorcade.

“I met all the secret service agents, even the president,” Abo said. “It was a blast.”

When Abo isn’t driving behind the leader of the free world, he’s a religious watcher of television shows like “ER” and “Third Watch” that glorify the lives of paramedics and EMTs.

“They’re very realistic about certain parts of the job,” he said. “But there’s a lot about the shows that’s just laughable.”

Most television shows ignore “downtime”, which in a small suburban community constitutes a large part of the day.

“There always needs to be somebody here,” said Gordon Fisher, the operations administrator for Foxwall. “But that doesn’t mean there’s always something to do.”

Indeed, on this day, two reports have been answered before Abo arrived for his shift.

“It’s already been a busy day,” Gordon said only half joking. “That’s probably all the action we’re going to see today.”

There are a lot of calls that don’t lead to anything serious either. Shut-ins call just to find companionship, hypochondriacs call in with false alarms. But sometimes there are real incidents the EMTs have to take care of.

Even without non-stop action, Abo has managed to rack up a collection of trauma and emergencies to rival the catalogue of any medical show.

“I’ve handled pretty much everything but delivering birth,” Abo said, his eyes narrowing in anticipation of his one unconquered goal. Psychos, car accidents, boat accidents, massive traffic pile ups. I’ve pretty much seen it all.”

And even excide from the experience, the position still has many rewards.

“It’s fulfilling, knowing you make a difference in somebody’s life. I like helping people,” Abo said.

And then with a laugh, “And I like driving the big box with lights.”

The ambulance is central to the life of a volunteer EMT. Each shift begins with a thorough check of the vehicle to make sure all the equipment is stocked and in place.

As Abo performs the lengthy check, he delights in showing off his knowledge of the instruments hidden within the nooks and crannies of the “big white box”.

“Here’s the trauma bag,” he said, unstrapping the hooks from a stretcher. “And back in this cabinet is where we keep all the backboards, so trauma victims can be moved.”

His tour was interrupted by three quick beeps from the ambulance’s dispatch radio – the signal for an outgoing call. Someone’s in trouble. Muscles tense throughout the Foxwall headquarters.

But then the metallic, crackling female voice of the dispatcher announces a call for another station, and the EMTs are again at ease.

About two-thirds of the way through his shift, Abo and co-worker Jess Koch, another Pitt sophomore, stop for a dinner break. As they enter the King’s restaurant, the patrons look up for a second. Their blue uniforms and large walkie-talkies clearly identify them as EMTs and the onlookers gape. Even if the day has been a wash, these people understand. Abo could be the man who one day saves their lives.

“We’re here for people – to really help them,” he said. “And there’s no better feeling than that.”