It’s 4:10 p.m. and an emergency call blares over the scanner at the Echo Hose Ambulance headquarters building.
A 13-year-old girl has been hit by a car at a busy intersection in Huntington.
Assistant Chief Joe Laucella’s heart drops, and his instinct kicks in.
After 16 years as a volunteer firefighter and EMT and now a paid administrator for the department, Laucella has seen some gruesome scenes. With children, the worst calls are made that much harder, so he braces for what he may come upon.
Laucella pages out to the corps’ two on-duty ambulances. Each one had just dropped off a patient at different hospitals. They’re headed back to the Valley.
A third ambulance — what Echo Hose folk refer to as the “Tac car,” short for the department’s mutual aid tactical car — has just made its way over to a minor assault in Ansonia.
So it looks like Laucella, in his first responder Ford Expedition, will be the first EMT on the scene.
Growing Town, Increasing Calls
It’s a typical shift at an ambulance corps that has seen a 5 percent increase in calls each of the past five years. Shelton’s growth during that time brought about major changes at Echo Hose Ambulance, which had to adapt to the changing needs of the city.
The major change was taking over response in town 24 hours a day.
The ambulance corps used to contract with a company to provide business-hour coverage of the town, and had a staff of volunteers cover nights and weekends. In 2004, Echo Hose broke ties with the company and started providing all of its own coverage.
With about 4,800 calls a year, the department has morphed to a blended crew of four full-time employees, paid day-staff and a volunteer crew for nights, weekends and holidays. The mutual aid tactical car, staffed 24 hours a day with paid EMTs, adds to the department’s ranks and also helps out other Valley towns when they need it.
Though it may seem like a large crew is on hand at any given time, it’s common that crews will be dispatched in various places when an accident happens.
“We drop and we go. We drop and we go. We drop and we go,” Laucella said, describing the frequency of calls. “It’s common to get 10 calls in a 12-hour shift.”
Like that afternoon in early September, when three ambulances were dispatched across the region at the moment the 13-year-old was struck.
The Girl
Laucella approached the scene quickly.
“No matter how long you do this, your stomach churns on a pediatric call,” Laucella said as he drove there.
(The video above gives you a quick glimpse of what Laucella saw as he responded to the scene)
When he got out of the car, the girl was sitting up in the back of a mail truck, talking with witnesses and family members.
One of her shoes was off, and she had a large scratch across her face. But she was otherwise alert and calm.
Laucella knelt by her side, feeling for broken bones in her leg and asking her questions.
“What day is it?”
“What’s your address?”
While he went through the list more help arrived. Echo Hose volunteer Dave Rose parked his own car on the side street and hurried toward the activity with a first-responder bag in hand. Most volunteers carry them in their cars, just in case.
About the same time, paramedics from VEMS, the Valley Emergency Medical Services regional paramedic team, arrived too.
The VEMS crew, Laucella and Rose each could have stabilized the patient; but none could transport her to the hospital. So they waited for the ambulance to arrive.
“Pre-Hospital Care”
It’s one of the key differences between Echo Hose — or any ambulance corps — 60 years ago and today: First responders actually start treating a patient at the scene. So while Laucella couldn’t transport the girl to the hospital in his truck, he could administer some treatments if she needed them on the scene.
An ambulance corps used to be a group of police officers or firefighters who would “drive up in a Cadillac and put the injured person in the back and drive real fast to the hospital,” Laucella said.
Now, he said, “we’re providing patient care, life-saving treatments out in the field.”
On Oct. 2, 1949, when Echo Hose received its first call, the department responded mostly by just driving people to the hospital. That changed in the 1970s, when shows like “Emergency” started revealing the capabilities of ambulance crews. The show chronicled some of the paramedics at the Los Angeles County Fire Department Station 51. (Read Robert Novak, Jr.‘s column on the history of ambulance services in the Valley here and check out Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s proclamation for the corps anniversary here.)
“That was the springboard,” Laucella said. “That’s when they said ambulances can do more than just pick up people and bring them to the hospital.”
Starting Traditions
Part of the organic nature of the department’s evolution means records aren’t the best. Laucella said he doesn’t have solid membership numbers for past years. He estimated that about 10 years ago there were only 50 volunteers. Today there are about 120.
Some come from as far as Stamford. Some have volunteered for as long as 30 years.
“It’s been very rewarding,” said Ellen Lewis, a 30-year volunteer at Echo Hose. “I work with an awesome group of people … I consider it my fun job.”
Dave Rose, the volunteer who responded with the first-responder bag to the 13-year-old hit by the car, said he started volunteering as a firefighter but felt distant. He wanted to help people directly at scenes.
“I hated being three feet away from someone who was hurt and having to concern myself with how to open the door to a car,” Rose said.
With elusive membership records, Echo Hose measures its growth more with physical changes.
Such as 1988, when it got its own building on Meadow Street. Before that, Echo Hose existed as part of two fire departments in the city.
In May 2009, the department hit another milestone when it opened its first training center on Howe Avenue.
Now Echo Hose trainers can teach area residents how to become an EMT and about other health topics, like CPR.
Now, the anniversary celebration — Echo Hose’s first — is a way to confirm its individual identity.
“EMS has always been part of something else,” Laucella said. “Now it is its own entity and we’re trying to start some tradition.”
