EMS Magazine’s 6th Annual Holiday Gift Guide

Season’s greetings, everyone! Vicki and I, along with the staff of EMS Magazine, have searched far and wide to assemble the following list of possibilities for this year’s 6th Annual Holiday Gift Guide. We hope they are helpful in finding the right gift for that rescuer or rescuer-to-be in your life.

As always, let’s begin with suggestions for those young rescuers-to-be. They are our future, and they are what holiday gift giving is about.

The folks at Fisher-Price have added a new item to their See ’n Say line, the Teach ’n Roll Fire Truck for ages 18 months and up.

This is a sturdy fire truck with wheels that actually roll. When the wheels are in motion, they activate flashing lights, music and a cute voice that says things like, “Hello! Let’s hit the road!” There’s also a dial in the center with images of an ambulance, fire engine, police car, fire boat, rescue helicopter and tow truck. When the arrow is pointed to the emergency vehicle and pushed, the vehicle is identified by name, and a sound effect is given, followed by a brief explanation of what the vehicle does.

All in all, a pretty good toy, with no pieces to lose or misplace, for around $10.

Teach ’n Roll Fire Truck from Fisher-Price, item #B7590, www.fisher-price.com. $7.99.

Moving on to ages four and up, the folks at Constructive Playthings are offering an ambulance play set that includes an 11" by 5½" ambulance with flashing lights and an electronic siren. What makes this set unique is that it comes with male and female EMT/paramedic figures, a pediatric patient, a gurney, a backboard with head blocks, jump kits with various pieces of equipment, a heart monitor and more—15 pieces in all. One of the set’s most popular figures, the folks at Constructive Playthings say, is the rescue/medic dog with its own rescue equipment.

For helping teach children what to expect if an ambulance is called or just for sparking their imagination about how mom or dad do their job, this is one pretty cool play set.

Electronic Ambulance and Rescue Team from Constructive Playthings, item #LON-60L, www.constplay.com; 800/832-0572. $24.99 plus S&H.

Looking for something job-related that can keep your youngsters occupied on a road trip? Check out Magnetic Rescue 911, a fire-scene set available from Lee Publications. The set contains more than 45 magnetic pieces in a 6" by 8½" tin that opens to reveal a fireground scene. Youngsters can place various pieces that include fire apparatus, an ambulance, firefighters, EMTs, bystanders, news reporters and pieces of equipment. There are also a pair of cardboard inserts to change the setting to the inside of a fire station. With a little imagination, little ones can draw their own scenes for the box or put them up on the refrigerator to use with the magnetic pieces.

Magnetic Rescue 911 from Lee Publications, www.leemagicpen.com, ISBN 1-56297-349-5. $9.99.

If that special someone on your list happens to be into 12" action figures, you’re in luck. The folks at Hasbro, makers of GI Joe, have developed the GI Joe Action Rescue figure line. Each figure is available in Caucasian, African-American and, with certain figures, a Latino version as well. Figures start at $15 and include: Emergency Crash Rescue, Fire Rescue, Navy Crash Rescue, Rope Rescue Firefighter (including a Stokes basket, rigging and harness) and several others. (There are also several law enforcement GI Joes.) The figures are available through most toy stores, or you can visit the official GI Joe website.

GI Joe Action Rescue figures from Hasbro, www.hasbro.com/gijoe/defau lt.cfm. $14.99–$24.99.

If you’re looking for something a little less expensive and are not hung up on brand names, I found a series of 6" movable firefighter rescue figures at our local Dollar Tree store. There are six different firefighter/medic figures with various accessories, from medical gear and a shovel (haven’t quite made the connection for that one yet) to a hose and hydrant to a grappling hook and other rescue/suppression stuff. Six figures in all, at a buck apiece.

Another inexpensive stocking stuffer I found at the Dollar Tree is a 6" remote-control ambulance that has working emergency lights and runs with AAA batteries. It’s not a radio-controlled remote; rather, it has a small controller with a three-foot wire leash, but what the heck—for a dollar, it makes a good, inexpensive gift.

Vicki and I did a fairly extensive Internet search for children’s ambulance/EMS videos and DVDs. While we came up with over a dozen fire and EMS candidates, the best of the group, in my opinion, is a 1994 production entitled Hard Hat Harry’s Real-Life Rescue Adventures for Kids, produced by National Syndications, Inc.

Hard Hat Harry is a genie who takes youngsters through various aspects of a given career area or interest. The award-winning TV series shared such career choices as life on the farm, construction, space flight and emergency services.

Hard Hat Harry’s Real-Life Rescue Adventures for Kids begins with two children who become lost in the mountains when they attempt to take a shortcut back to camp. Just as they are starting to feel helpless, frustrated and cold, Hard Hat Harry appears and guides them through everything from what they should wear and carry when they go for a hike to the search and rescue folks looking for them. The latter includes interactions with a ground searcher, a SAR dog handler and her air-scenting K9 partner, and SAR managers in their mobile command post.

From there, various other emergency services are explored, including EMS and fire/rescue. Yes, those dreaded words ambulance driver are uttered during the presentation; however, Hard Hat Harry quickly goes on to point out that there is more to EMS than just driving the ambulance. With the assistance of a real-life paramedic, he explains EMT and paramedic training and the difference between the two. The segment closes with an explanation of Red Cross first aid and CPR training and disaster assistance teams.

Couple all this with a really cool theme song, and you end up with one great show. I liked this tape so much that I recommended it at the National Association for Search and Rescue’s fall Board of Directors meeting, suggesting that the NASAR bookstore carry it. The problem: Hard Hat Harry’s Real-Life Rescue Adventures for Kids is no longer available from most mainstream video distributors. I had no problem, however, locating copies from sources like eBay and other video distribution and auction sites, all for around $5 or less, plus shipping and handling.

Staying with gifts for the young, we have an award-winning 12-part series of books, aimed at ages 6–11, by Carole Marsh. Marsh has been writing children’s books for over 25 years. You may remember her for another award-winning book she wrote and published, The Day That Was Different: When Terrorists Attacked America (Gallopade International, ISBN 0635009188, $9.95).

In The Day That Was Different, Marsh does a credible job of explaining the events of September 11, 2001, what they mean, and, more important, what they shouldn’t mean to young readers who were exposed over and over to images of the Twin Towers collapsing.

Based in part on her research from that book, she has created her Heroes & Helpers series, a 12-part series of career-oriented books entitled The Adventure Diary Of… Entry No. 1 looks at Felipe, the Fearless Firefighter; No. 2, The Perils of Pauline the Police Officer; No. 7, Li, the Excellent EMT. In No. 8, Marsh even tells of Riley, the Rescue Dog. Other profiled careers include doctor, hazmat worker, marine, air force pilot, aid worker and volunteer. You can check the entire line out at www.gallopade.com/showproducts. cfm?FullCat=525.

The books are a combination of story, explanation and various word and association problems/exercises. It’s all guaranteed to actively engage young readers’ minds, not just their time.

Heroes & Helpers No. 7, The Adventure Diary Of Li, the Excellent EMT by Carole Marsh, Gallopade International, 2002, ISBN 0-635-01145-X, $5.95.

This year marks the third anniversary of September 11, 2001. In the months following that day, many Americans attempted to put things in perspective by, among other things, publishing a number of historical accounts in words and photos. I reviewed a number of these works when they first came out.

Three years later, several of these books have run their course and show up in resale catalogs at reduced prices. Edward R. Hamilton Books (www.edwardrhamilton.com) is offering a pair of commemorative books worth mentioning.

First is What We Saw: The Events of September 11, 2001 in Words, Pictures and Video by CBS News (#4110021). This coffee-table book includes a DVD with news footage of the events that occurred that day and in the weeks that followed. Originally it was $29.95; now it’s $4.95 plus $3.50 S&H.

Hamilton charges a flat $3.50 shipping and handling charge per order, no matter the size, be it for one book or 40.

The second is Above Hallowed Ground: A Photographic Record of September 11, 2001, by the photographers of the New York City Police Department (#4121597). This is another coffee-table photo history that originally retailed for $29.95 but is available now for $4.95. Either would make a nice addition to any rescuer’s library.

What We Saw: The Events of September 11, 2001 in Words, Pictures and Video by CBS News and Above Hallowed Ground: A Photographic Record of September 11, 2001 by the photographers of the New York City Police Department; www.edwardrhamilton.com; $4.95 each.

Next up is Michael Hirsh’s latest book, None Braver: U.S. Air Force Pararescuemen In the War on Terrorism. As many of you are aware, I am a big fan of parajumpers (PJs), pararescuemen and their northern cousins, Canadian Sartechs. I’m not alone. Hirsh, a Vietnam vet, career broadcast journalist, award-winning documentary filmmaker and author, is as well. If his name sounds familiar, it may be because I reviewed a previous book of his, Pararescue: The True Story of an Incredible Rescue at Sea and the Heroes Who Pulled It Off, in this column.

In None Braver, Hirsh, through extensive interviews, field trips to training venues and accompanying several PJ teams to deployment bases in Afghanistan, continues his engaging tale about one of America’s cutting-edge rescue services. He begins with the history of the U.S. Air Force’s pararescue program through historical accounts and interviews with both veteran members and newly minted ones. He also looks at these crews’ specialized medical and rescue capabilities, including the unique EMS trauma expertise they bring to their prehospital environments.

A historical factoid here: The PJ program is where the term paramedic was coined, to describe parachuting medics who could be inserted into any number of rescue environments. The term was changed from paramedic to pararescue in the 1960s after an officer made an ill-informed decision not to insert a team of paramedics to retrieve a satellite before it sank to the bottom of the ocean. After all, he reasoned, it was a machine, not a person, so what good would it do to deploy paramedics? The satellite and all its data were lost, and a name change came about to help prevent future misunderstandings. The mantle of the paramedic, however, lives on in the EMS and rescue worlds.

In None Braver, Hirsh describes the combat SAR role performed by the PJs and their air crews. He begins with firsthand accounts from PJ survivors-turned-rescuers of the Kobe Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, then moves through several crashes and incidents in Afghanistan. These include the rescue of a crashed C-130 Hercules in a snowstorm high up a mountain at the very limit of the rescue helo’s range, and of the tragic loss of PJ Jason Cunningham in combat/rescue operations.

None Braver is an exciting but not overstated presentation about a group of unique medics and how they are well-utilized (and sometimes less-well) as part of America’s war on terrorism.

None Braver by Michael Hirsh; New American Library, 2003; ISBN 0-451-20983; $16.95.

On September 4, EMS practitioner, mentor, publisher, educator, speaker and defender James O. Page passed away. As many of you know, Jim was an early proponent of EMS during his career with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, as the originator of the television series Emergency!, and as an EMS administrator, author, publisher, consultant and much more. As an attorney, he was a protector of EMT and paramedic legal rights. He represented a number of brother and sister medics (including myself) pro bono.

Vicki and I are among the fortunate many whose lives Jim affected. He was an EMS giant, and his presence and deep, comforting voice will long be missed. Thank you, Jim, from all of us. Our condolences to his survivors, including his longtime loving and patient wife, Jane.

So it is with a bittersweet pleasure that I offer our final recommendation, The History of Modern EMS: Making a Difference, hosted by Jim Page. This is an updated version of his original 1995 History of Modern EMS video. It includes interviews with some of the early EMS practitioners and pioneers and traces the origins of rescue in America, EMS, the J.F. Pantridge studies in Belfast and how events came together through the years to create what we’ve come to know as EMS. It addresses everything from ambulances and training to the origins of prehospital advanced life support, modern dispatching and prearrival instructions, and the creation and introduction of AEDs. It closes with a tasteful tribute to our brother and sister rescuers and medics who answered the call of September 11.

All in all, you get a great DVD—playable in both Mac and PC computer formats, as well as a standard DVD player—that is both a nice coverage of our recent history and a great lasting legacy to one of the movers and shakers of our craft.

The History of Modern EMS: Making a Differencee. Mosby/JEMS, 2004; ISBN 0-323-02908-6; $29.95 plus S&H.

That’s it for this year’s Gift Guide. Hope these suggestions prove helpful. Please feel free to drop us a line if they have, or if you have a suggestion for next year’s installment. And as always, Vicki and I wish happy and healthy holidays for all of you and yours.