When I was a young boy, I didn’t make a difference between an ambulance and a hearse. I thought of the two as one and the same thing. I think that was because in our community the funeral hearse also served as an ambulance from time to time. When I was young, our funeral home in Pea Ridge was the Miller Funeral Home, and the undertaker, as we sometimes called him, was Ralph Miller. Back then we didn’t have what would be called emergency medical technicians or paramedics, and we didn’t have an ambulance service as we would think of one today.
But, if a person needed transportation to or from a distant hospital for treatment, or after treatment, the family could arrange to have the hearse as transportation.
The other evening, our Pea Ridge Lions Club had Fire Chief Frank Rizzio as guest speaker, talking about the ambulance service which serves Pea Ridge and the surrounding community today, and talking about possibilities for future improvements in the services it offers. Back in November, I needed our emergency medical team myself, and I’m really grateful they were available, that they arrived quickly when called, and that they sped me on the way to the hospital for treatment of a heart attack.
Chief Rizzio mentioned in his talk a picture of the original Pea Ridge fire truck which hangs on a wall at the fire station.
Pictured with the old 1940s Dodge fire truck are several men, active in the Pea Ridge Kiwanis Club of those days, who were able to get the Fire Department set up and operating in about 1950. Among them were, Ralph Miller, Hugh Webb Sr., Fred McKinney, Wilson Webb, Roy Taylor, Roy Broadhurst, Floyd Wilson, Scott Nichols (my grandfather) and others. The original fire station was the little white concrete block building, just large enough to hold the truck itself, which still stands in the north block of today’s Curtis Avenue downtown (just south of the telephone company building).
Pea Ridge emergency services has come a long way since 1950. I was proud and grateful for the Fire Department’s beginning back then, and that old original fire truck, which saw some accidents and tragedies during its years, made a positive difference when our city was a village of 200 to 300 people. Now that we are a city of nearly 5,000, I’m still proud and grateful for our Fire Department and for the ambulance service that does a fine job for us, even with limited resources.
Back in the 1970s, we often watched a TV show called “Emergency.” I think it was in watching “Emergency” that words like paramedics and EMTs and quick responders came into our vocabularies and became household words.
That TV show, I think, did as much as anything to make people aware of advances in emergencymedical care, and of how crucial a few minutes can be in helping a person survive a heart attack or stroke. It also raised expectations. People in areas like ours, who had never had local emergency medical technicians before, began thinking - we need that right here in our community now.
It was also in the 1970s that we started hearing of 911 for calling for emergency services. When my family and I were living in Atkins, Ark., areas all around Arkansas were involved in giving all the locations findable addresses that could help the emergency ambulance drivers find someone who needed emergency care.
That was a monumental task. The complexities of Arkansas roads can be almost indescribable. Places that we used to refer to as “way back in the sticks” now had to be given names like 33485 Reed Loop, and maps had to be drawn up to show where that place lies. It wasn’t good enough any longer to say that that’s the Smith place down the lane off the back road the other side of Halsey Mountain.
We learned the other night that local ambulance services operate at three levels. One is the basic, which we have now in our community; the second is intermediate, and the third is the Advanced Emergency Medical Care. The advanced level is particularly valuable for people like me, who have a heart attack, because the advanced EMT who arrives with theambulance can start an IV, administer medicines like clot-busters, do an EKG, and call the hospital with results of the tests, so that by the time the ambulance arrives at the hospital, a response team can be already assembled and ready to take care of the patient.
Our Pea Ridge EMTs have a working relationship with Rogers and Bentonville ambulance teams, and in my case, I was passed to the Bentonville ambulance mid-way on the trip, and delivered to the hospital by them.
Some day, we may be able to have the advanced level ambulance service based right here at home. I’d like to help make that possible. It will require finding ways to make the financing happen. That is always a challenge. But we have come a long way since 1950, and things happen when people become convinced of a great thing that needs doing.
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Editor’s note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge, is a retired Methodist minister with a passion for history. He is vice president of the Pea Ridge Historical Society. He can be contacted by e-mail at joe369@ centurytel.net, or call 621-1621. The opinions of the writer are his own, and are not necessarily those of The Times.
Community, Pages 5 on 03/02/2011