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Colleague Reflects On Page`s Advocacy Of AEDs, Irony That None Was Available Where He Died
Atkinson, president and CEO of WakeMed Health and Hospitals in North Carolina, said medical officials can't be sure whether an AED on scene could have saved Page.
"We don't know exactly what happened. We can't jump to conclusions about whether it would have saved his life," Atkinson said. However, he noted that a nurse happened to be present when Page was stricken. He immediately had a bystander to provide CPR, and who would have been able to quickly utilize medical equipment on scene.
Atkinson said that from what he understands, the owners of the pool facility had considered purchasing an AED several times but were waiting for them to become less expensive. "It's a bit late now," he said.
Atkinson said AEDs are becoming more and more common at public venues thanks to education and advocacy from EMS champions like Page, who was one of the first to advocate early defibrillation. He added that AEDs are getting "better and cheaper every day."
"In my opinion they will be as common as fire extinguishers," he said.
Atkinson himself is a proponent of mandatory AED placement at large public venues, just as fire suppression capabilities are mandatory. He said every 10,000 people generate one life saving situation every 24 hours - a statistic that large venues need to face. "It's not a matter of if, but a matter of when, you're going to have an emergency," Atkinson said.
Atkinson first met Page over 30 years ago when Page first came to North Carolina from California. Atkinson, then 18, was a big fan of the show Emergency! on which Page served as technical advisor.
"That's all I needed to hear to know this was someone I wanted to know, " he said. Atkinson said he then had the phenomenal opportunity of watching Page work over the next few years as he built the state's new EMS system.
He said that in North Carolina in the late 1970s, fire departments were not involved in EMS and that funeral homes often handled patient transport.
"Jim was the first person to realize it wasn't that people didn't want to go to the next level - they couldn't," Atkinson said. Page had explained to him that on a rescue squad, you could tell who could or couldn't read by how many pens they had in their pocket. The more pens they had, the more they were probably hoping to cover for their inability to read and write.
Page implemented training, required two responders per ambulance, and brought federal standards to North Carolina in the face of much opposition, setting the foundation for the current statewide system, Atkinson said.
He said Page has set the bar for emergency medical services.
"He will be sorely missed," Atkinson said. "His passing came as a shock to all of us who knew and loved him."
Memorial Service
September 16, 2004
Service to begin promptly at 10:00 a.m.
Attendees are encouraged to arrive early.
Carlsbad Community Church
3175 Harding Street
(Intersection of Harding Street & Pine Avenue)
Carlsbad, CA 92008
www.3c.org
For those departments who wish to bring apparatus, Please contact the Carlsbad Fire Department Administration at (760) 931-2141 and ask for Mary or Fam to receive staging instructions. Please plan to arrive by 8:00 a.m.
In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be made to the County of Los Angeles Fire Museum Association, James O. Page Memorial Building Fund, P.O. Box 3325, Alhambra, CA 91803.
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