\u201cTo have someone who was clinically dead and came back because of us, then have that guy shake your hand, what other job gives you that?\u201d –Walt Rasmussen, one of the original four UConn Health paramedics<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cFire departments have come a long way because of paramedics,\u201d says Dave Smith, UConn Health\u2019s first firefighter and graduate of the state\u2019s first paramedics training class in 1975. \u201cJust the fact that there are so many more of them is a measure of the success of the paramedic profession.\u201d<\/p>\n Medicine has come a long way too.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we first started, there was no such thing as AIDS, nobody knew anything about it,\u201d says Don Perrault, Smith\u2019s paramedic classmate and longtime colleague. \u201cI remember coming in, elbows full of blood. Then around 1980 we started getting reports of this virus that was coming over from Africa, so then they started saying, \u2018You\u2019d better think about wearing latex gloves.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cAt first, when we\u2019d go out and treat people and we had those rubber gloves on, they took offense to it. And then over the years, it changed around to the point where when you went in now and you didn\u2019t have gloves on, it was, \u2018Don\u2019t touch me until you put your gloves on.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n For Perrault, a newfound appreciation of his career choice came during a retirement party for Farmington Fire Chief Tim Vibert. In April 2014, a group of retired firefighters, including Perrault, occupied one of the tables, while a group of on-duty paramedics sat at another.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the dinner, someone went into cardiac arrest,\u201d Perrault says. \u201cImmediately, that table that was on duty got over\u2014zip\u2014and got him breathing again, and by the time he was being wheeled out he was talking. And as we watched this, I thought, \u2018I guess we did start something pretty good.\u2019 It made me feel very proud of the hard work we did way back when that kind of brought it together.\u201d<\/p>\n Not all their encounters were so life-and-death. Walt Rasmussen, another of the four UConn Health firefighters from the state\u2019s first paramedics training class in 1975, recalls a Saturday when an elderly Italian man showed up at the fire house with two trays of cookies and a message: \u201cA Sicilian never forgets.\u201d Rasmussen was one of the paramedics who helped him survive a near-fatal abdominal aortic aneurysm.<\/p>\n \u201cIt turned out to be a really rewarding job,\u201d says Rasmussen, who retired in 1999. \u201cTo have someone who was clinically dead and came back because of us, then have that guy shake your hand, what other job gives you that?\u201d<\/p>\n Perrault recalls helping deliver a baby in front of a restaurant on Brickyard Road in Farmington. The girl\u2019s grateful parents brought in treats for the paramedics every summer and at Christmas time. She invited him to her wedding, and saved a dance for the man who helped bring her into the world 20-something years earlier.<\/p>\n \u201cAll in all, I have to say, I had a lot of fun,\u201d says Perrault, who retired in 1994. \u201cIt was a true, true career experience.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that so many agencies and companies have embraced this concept that started here four decades ago is a real tribute to the legacy of our firefighter paramedics and their life-saving work,\u201d says UConn Health Chief Administrative Officer Carolle Andrews. \u201cOur fire department\u2019s origination of paramedics and its longevity of service to the community is a tremendous source of pride.\u201d<\/p>\n When Connecticut\u2019s first class of paramedic trainees took shape at UConn Health in 1975, Greg Metcalf was the institution\u2019s public safety director.<\/p>\n \u201cThe beautiful thing about the Health Center paramedics of the 70s and 80s that one does not discern when focused on the one point of them being firefighter paramedics is their overall involvement in the community, both the Health Center community and the larger Farmington Valley community,\u201d Metcalf says. \u201cThey participated in running 13 EMT training programs, several EMT refresher training programs, and of course the subsequent two paramedic training programs.\u201d<\/p>\n Smith says he and and Jerry Rio, another UConn Health firefighter who graduated from that first paramedic class, were CPR instructors for the Hartford Heart Association.<\/p>\n \u201cWe certified hundreds, if not thousands of people in CPR,\u201d Smith says.<\/p>\n UConn Health paramedics also offered an anatomy class using a cadaver, and ride-alongs, where students, EMS providers, or interested members of the community would accompany paramedics on calls. Metcalf says he knows of at least two medical students and a dental student who shifted their career focus to emergency medicine after riding with the paramedics.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is not a school in the Farmington Valley that has not had the paramedics and their rescue unit to the school for a presentation or talk,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd the program \u2018A Paramedic\u2019s View of Drinking and Driving\u2019 was presented to over 100,000 Connecticut high school students.\u201d<\/p>\n Whether it was educating others about the field of paramedicine or saving lives by practicing it in the field, paramedics unquestionably changed the dynamics of emergency medicine for the better, says Irene Engel, a nurse supervisor, now retired, who goes back to the early days of UConn Health and its paramedic program.<\/p>\n \u201cBoth hospitals and the ERs benefitted so much from paramedics because of the stabilization they could do in the field, patients were in much better condition when they arrived,\u201d Engel says. \u201cThey\u2019re communicating with one of our docs in the ER, they have standing orders that we have set up for them. Everywhere, patients have a better chance of surviving and ERs have a better chance of keeping patients alive because of the paramedics.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Walt](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Walt-240x300.jpg\")
![\"From](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Rescue-2-Irene-with-Cindy-Shipps-1024x683.jpg\")
![\"Rescue](\"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Rescue-2-1024x683.jpg\")
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