HIGHLANDS EMS: Saving Lives Is Their Business

SEBRING - Having emergency medical services available 24/7 is something some residents may ponder briefly, as an ambulance whizzes by, hopeful it isn't someone they know. Or possibly they don't think about at all until it's their moment to dial for help.

Highlands County has had Emergency Medical Services available since 1975, but many of the long-timers, the pioneers, are retired, retiring or thinking seriously about retirement.

"It's probably unheard of to have this many people in it for so many years," said paramedic Eddie Ezell, 54, of Avon Park, himself a 33-year veteran of the Emergency Medical Services.

The national average reportedly is about three to five years.

"Of course you have some people that are hired that quit the first day after seeing some blood," he said. "They say, 'I can't do this.'"

At Home In Avon Park
Ezell's a native of Avon Park. "Born and raised," as he put it. He's a family man, married nearly 32 years to his wife Belinda. He has two sons, Justin and Eric. His oldest son, Justin, and his wife, Lisa, just had twin girls on Feb. 3, Audra and Kayla, making him a grandpa. Overall it's been a good 33 years he said.

"Obviously I've enjoyed it or I wouldn't have been in it this long," he said.

He went to South Florida Community College for one year on a baseball scholarship. "But then I decided I needed to make some more money," he said. So he got EMT training.

From Deputy To EMT
"I started with the sheriff's office on March 1, 1975," Ezell said. "We had these Chevy Suburban units and we carried our little 38-caliber pistol. Actually we had arrest powers."

Those Suburbans were fast, too, he added. "Radio Dispatched and Oxygen Equipped," was proudly printed on the sides.

From midnight on Dec. 31, 1972 until the establishment of the EMS, a few members of the sheriff's office trained as EMTs. But that was a big improvement over what was going on before, when the area morticians were making the emergency runs.

It was nicknamed "Throw and go."

Their hearses were the only ones that could handle the stretchers, Ezell said.

Another name for it was "Swoop and Scoop," according to Mickey Byrd, who recently retired with 34 years and three months on the job.

The state mandates came out and the funeral homes called the county to take it over, Byrd recalled. The EMTs from the sheriff's office were top notch, Byrd said.

"Those guys were well grounded in the basics," Byrd said. "They could do so much with so little."

Then the sheriff's office took over and used the Suburbans.

"We grabbed that stretcher on each side and manhandled it inside," Ezell said, his arms and hands moved as if he was lifting and throwing. "One of us rode in the back kind of crouched down because they weren't very high inside."

The rest of the time we were serving jury summonses, divorce papers, dissolution of marriage, all kinds of good stuff, he said.

The Next Steps Forward
In October of 1975 the state specified the type of ambulance, types of equipment to be carried and education to assure they were trained to use it, he said.

"We used to carry all our Band-Aids, bandages and equipment in a little TV tube box," Ezell remembered.

The survival rate for people who stopped breathing and had no heart beat was about 5 percent.

On March 15, 1983, 12 EMTs and two EMS shift supervisors started a 520-hour course on their days off to be trained as paramedics through the cooperation of Polk County EMS, Polk County Community College, and what was then known as South Florida Junior College.

After the paramedic training, students gained knowledge of the EKG, how to operate a defibrillator, administer intravenous fluids, perform intubation procedures and were given classes on administering several classes of drugs for a start.

Some of the work has been heartbreaking.

Eddie, Eddie Save Him
Before starting with the sheriff's office Ezell said he worked at the Winn Dixie supermarket that used to be on Lake Avenue.

Over the three years he worked there, he and a coworker became friends.

A few years later his friend was in a rollover crash. It looked like his friend dug his boy out from under the wreck. He appeared to be no older than 9 years of age.

"He came over to me holding the boy, 'Eddie, Eddie, save him,'" Ezell said, looking down at the table. "We tried to do what we could. There was fluid coming from his ears. I knew it was a skull fracture."

The crew took the boy to the hospital.

"I had to go out there and tell the mom and dad he didn't make it," Ezell said. "It's the one incident that really touched me, to where I wasn't able to eat or sleep that night."

The Job Has Its Rewards
What's rewarding, Ezell said, is when he knew that he and his partners (he's had five or six in 33 years) saved someone's life, especially when they have received letters from people thanking them.

"We've had a few people we've brought back to life," he said. "We've delivered a bunch of babies."

For two and a half years, Ezell has had a new partner, Tim Langston. The atmosphere in the EMS station is like having a second family.

"This is my home away from home," Ezell said.

Ezell may have broken a record. He's only used one and a half to two days of sick leave in 33 years and has accrued 6,800 hours of sick time, however it was capped at 4,000 hours he could have gotten paid for.

"But they only would pay me half of that," he said.

Ezell recalled another story about when a woman left her baby on the back seat of her car and ran into the store.

"She came back out with a case of beer and tossed it on top of the baby," Ezell said, looking away.

Well what happened? Was the baby OK?

"Nothing happened," Ezell said. "It was a case of lite beer!"

"Isn't that one of Mickey's jokes?" asked Langston, referring to Mickey Byrd.

"Yeah," Eddie admitted, laughing. That's EMS humor.

Frankie Still
Ezell's former partner of 13 years, Frankie Still, 59, of Sebring, had 30 years on the job before he retired in January of 2006.

He visited his friends on Wednesday, May 7, at the main station on George Boulevard.

Still worked 12 years covering Sebring, 13 years covering Avon Park and his last five years he requested Lake Placid.

"My wife worked with the Sebring Police Department," Still said. "I was 26 years old and she told me I needed to find a job with state retirement."

He applied, went to South Florida Community College's EMS program and graduated. He passed his state emergency medical technician certification test in Orlando.

They started with five ambulances with two people on each. He guesses there were about 20 to 25 employees.

He said the worst part of retirement is he misses his coworkers.

"It's like a big family here," Still said.

He remembered his friend Eddie.

"We worked good together as a team," Still said. "When you work with someone that long you pretty much know what you need to do and you just do it."

His worst moment was in February of 1976, when a semi-truck T-boned a loaded school bus on a foggy morning. That was before school buses were equipped with flashing lights.

"My partner was Scott Whidden," he said. "I told my partner to get ready because we're fixing to see something we've never seen before.

"Kids were laying everywhere, he said. "The bus driver was killed and two children died."

'Please Don't Give Up'
Still remembered his most rewarding moment was when a former patient came back to thank him.

"He was in cardiac arrest when (someone) said he's gone," Still said. "I said, no, no, don't give up. He said he heard me. He said he was praying, 'Please don't give up.'"

Just When You've Seen It All
Mike Rihner, 55, of Avon Park, worked eight years with road and bridge operating heavy equipment. He's been with the EMS for the last 27 years.

"I had several friends working with EMS and it seemed like a nice way to advance, so I said why not try this," Rihner said.

He took the EMS course and got started.

"Back then there were no paramedics here," he said. "Later you had to go to Polk County. They had a program there for that. And those were off-duty classes. That was around 1984 or '86. I was in the second class from this county."

Being a paramedic for several years you'd think you've encountered just about everything, he said.

"A little 7-year-old boy answered the door," Rihner said. "He was totally calm. He just pointed to the bedroom."

His mother had pointed a gun under her chin and took her own life.

"We closed the door and said, 'Whoa!'" he said. "We had to take a couple of breaths. We didn't find out until later she had some kind of wasting disease that would have left her with a mind but not a body. That was her last act."

It was the boy's calmness that shocked him.

Grandma EMS
On the job since the start, Office Manager Sue Kimmel, 51, of Sebring, was described by one of her coworkers, Terri Buckalew, as, "the glue that holds it all together."

"Boy do I have them buffaloed," Kimmel joked. "I've got some kind of spell on them. They think they need me."

Actually, Kimmel said her nick-name around the office is Grandma EMS.

"It's easy," Kimmel continued. "I started here when I was 18 and I've been here some 33 years."

She's lived in Sebring for 37 years.

She learned about the job from her mother in law, who worked as the small claims clerk. She started two weeks before the EMS program kicked off on Oct. 1, 1975.

"Everything happened in 1975," she said. "I got married in February on Valentines Day and started here in September. I've been here ever since. You've gotta eat. No, it's been good. I feel like my big brothers are leaving home, watching them all retire."

Over the decades they've become her family, she said.

Her original title was secretary, but the title changed over the years.

"In here I do what I need to do and it doesn't matter what they call me," she said. She's in the office from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m., four days a week.

"I've run off three bosses so far and I'm working on the fourth," she said.

She thinks about retirement, but has no immediate plans. "I keep telling them I'm not finished yet," she said, but she is ready to spend some time with her daughter and granddaughter in Tennessee and another daughter getting ready to graduate.

Her main concern is the new people coming in, "the young'uns," as she calls them.

"The old ones need to train the new ones well, because they're going to be picking them up some day," she said.

Raining Cats, Possums And Raccoons
The first EMS office was in the Highlands County Court House, Kimmel said.

But after a couple of weeks they moved the whole operation to its present site, except back then it was the old voting machine storage building.

The ceiling tiles would rattle when someone opened the doors, Kimmel said. There were times cats or raccoons would fall through the ceiling tiles.

"Lee Andrews found a possum in Sue Kimmel's desk drawer," Supervisor Steve Coltharp, the interim EMS director, chimed in.

That building was torn down about 1995-1996 and the existing building took its place.

"While they were building it, we moved into little trailers out back," Coltharp said. "They brought in modular units and bolted them together."

It was built on the existing slab, he said, and took about three to four months to set it up. "Then we were back in business."

Coltharp, 61, has been with the EMS for 23 years and has been acting director for about 11 months. He took over the role from his position as shift supervisor when former director Rick Weigand retired.

In With The New
Is Coltharp concerned about the future of the EMS? Not as much as he used to be, he said.

"When I took over last July, we were 10 positions down," he said. "We're down three right now."

The EMS has 56 EMTs and paramedics and four office positions.

"The younger people that we're getting are really dedicated to what they're doing," Coltharp said. "I'm more optimistic than I was - say five years ago. The younger people are more enthusiastic and able to take the initiative to take the operation over."

With increased training and increased learning, "I would tell certain personalities you can't beat it and for some personalities I'd say don't try it at all.

"If they remember to do what's best for the patient, they'll do well," he said.