The Medic Who Taught Johnny and Roy

Emergency! spawned the careers of thousands of firefighters and paramedics who watched the show in the 1970s (and later in syndication) and wanted to be the real-life heroes of Station 51. The fictional TV show followed the exploits of Johnny Gage and Roy DeSoto, two Los Angeles County firefighters who were trained as paramedics and engaged in firefighting, rescues, and emergency medical care. 

Gary Davis, a firefighter-paramedic for the Los Angeles County Fire Department (LACoFD), was a technical advisor for the show from 1972–79. On set he would wear a red name tag on his light-blue uniform shirt that said For Real—that way if the cast or crew had a technical question or in the event of a real emergency, folks would know he was a real firefighter-paramedic, not an actor. Davis was “for real” as part of the Los Angeles County Fire Department for 30 years and in its first class of paramedics in 1969.

Beginnings

Davis came to his job as a firefighter with Los Angeles County in 1966 after 3 years in the army fixing tanks. He recalls that in 1969, when he was at Station 36, Harbor General Hospital was looking for a few rescue squad volunteers to be trained in a medical pilot program. Cardiologist Michael Criley had seen the success of a mobile cardiac care ambulance in Ireland and wanted to replicate it in Los Angeles. (Harbor General Hospital served as the fictional Rampart General Hospital in the Emergency!, and the character Dr. Kelly Bracket was loosely based on Criley.) Davis volunteered and underwent several months of training from doctors.

The first class of trained firefighters consisted of 6 men, assigned certification numbers alphabetically: Bob Belivieu, Dale Cauble, Davis, Gerry Knowles, David Philips, and Bob Ramsted. “In the beginning we weren’t called paramedics,” recalls Davis. “We were called the Heart Rescue Unit, and the majority of our training was to treat cardiac issues.” 

They dressed in white uniforms like doctors and drove a converted station wagon. The second class consisted of 6 men from LA County Fire and 6 from Los Angeles’ city department. With the realization that the calls they were answering involved far more than cardiac care, the program expanded. “They brought in an Air Force colonel who thought we should have trauma skills too,” Davis recalls. “He renamed us paramedics.” In addition to their medical skills, the men assigned to rescue squads had training in auto extrication, high-angle rescue, and swiftwater rescue, as well as firefighting skills.

Pick Up a Nurse on the Way

When the program started Squad 59 and Squad 36 were among the first units. At that time Davis and the other firefighters were not allowed to operate autonomously. When they got a medical call, they had to drive to Harbor General Hospital (now Harbor-UCLA Medical Center) to pick up a nurse. Once they got on scene, the firefighters would take vital signs and assist, but the nurse was the one who could start intravenous lines and administer the medications. 

As you might imagine, this extra step of picking up a nurse added time to the call. “I think the nurses really liked going on the calls with us at first,” recalls Davis. “It was exciting, and we all worked well together. I think the nurses’ union wasn’t a big fan of it, though.” 

In July 1970 California Governor Ronald Regan signed the Wedworth-Townsend Paramedic Act, allowing counties to establish paramedic programs and letting paramedics function with online medical control and telemetry. 

Davis recalls in the early 1970s his squad would respond to 10 or more calls a day in a 20–30-square-mile area. “While the LA city guys had their own ambulances, we responded in our rescue squad truck and were met on scene by a private ambulance company,” he says. “While sometimes we might have to wait to transport, if it was a minor call like a broken limb, we could hand off the call to the ambulance attendants and get the paramedic squad back in service.

“Back then we didn’t have EMTs in the county,” he adds. Ambulance attendants had Red Cross first aid certifications.

Emergency!

In 1971, as a result of their success with the TV show Adam-12, producers Robert Cinader and Jack Webb met with then-Captain Jim Page and other LACoFD officers to discuss creating a show about firefighters. Initially they planned to focus on physical rescues but feared they wouldn’t have enough ideas for episodes. Page suggested they look to the LACoFD’s new paramedic program for ideas, and the concept for Emergency! was born. 

At that time there were 5 paramedic squads in service for Los Angeles County. Actors Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe were chosen to play the roles of paramedics John Gage (named in tribute to Jim Page) and Roy DeSoto on the show, and they attended classes and engaged in ride-alongs with real paramedics, including Davis. “I remember Randy and Kevin being great people and really interested in what we were doing. They wanted to be accurate,” Davis says. 

Davis, Page, and the other new paramedics were hired as technical advisors for the show. “We wanted to make sure the actors played the firefighters with great professionalism, from their uniforms to the way they treated patients to even wearing helmets when they responded on calls,” he says. They described calls they’d been on and offered producers suggestions to make scenes more realistic. Davis says several calls he shared were later made into episodes. 

In those early days, Davis recalls, many engine company captains made false assumptions about paramedics. “Some thought it was best to scoop and run patients quickly to the hospital. They didn’t understand, and it was up to us to change their opinion and show them the usefulness of stabilizing a critical patient on scene first.” This concept was illustrated in a Season 4 episode of Emergency! called “Smoke Eater,” where a temporary captain at Station 51 is distrustful of the paramedic program. 

Davis recalls he “borrowed” a Roy DeSoto name tag from the show and occasionally wore it on real calls. “Patients would look at my name tag and get very excited they were being treated by the ‘real’ Roy DeSoto,” he says. “I would jokingly tell them the character was based on me, but I think they took me seriously.”

Davis also recalls that because of the show, it seemed every city suddenly wanted to have paramedic service. Training had to be ramped up quickly to meet the new demand brought on by Emergency!

“At that time I was still learning my craft,” Davis says. “We had a huge number of trainees and not a lot of preceptors. I went from learning on the job to teaching our job in a very short time. It wasn’t unheard of to have 4 trainees at a time trying to learn clinical skills and get field practice.” He was detailed to the Beverly Hills and Redondo Beach fire departments at different times to help them train new paramedics.

Creating and Innovating Equipment

In the early days, Davis recalls, Criley reached out to him for help. 

“Dr. Criley said there were doctors who were trying to determine the future of the paramedic program. He asked me to come to Harbor to talk to them. I remember there were 20–30 doctors around a table. They asked me if I thought firefighters were smart enough to give medications. I said we were. I also reminded them some interns worked 24-hour shifts and made mistakes, only to be saved by alert nurses. I said as long as we were linked with the Biophone to the physician at the base station, it was a good checks-and-balances system.” They used that system until standing orders became common in the 1990s. 

“We made lots of adjustments along the way,” Davis adds. “I remember we had a full arrest on a front lawn that was wet. We learned the hard way that our early defibrillators were not grounded well!”

Davis also recalls some pretty heavy equipment. “Our first jump bag was an old leather doctor’s bag. The IV and medications were all in glass containers at first, as plastics hadn’t come on the scene yet. We needed a better bag. A bunch of us built a plywood box to hold all our medications and IV equipment. It must have weighed 70 pounds!

“A nurse we were friendly with was in a sporting goods store and saw a fishing tackle box and bought it for us, saying it would be perfect for her boys. We converted tackle boxes into drug and trauma boxes.

“Preloads [preloaded medications] were a game-changer too,” Davis says. “In those early days, we needed to give 50 cc of sodium bicarbonate every 5 minutes. It nearly took me the 5 minutes to draw up every syringe and confirm the measurement!” 

Cardiac arrests were labor-intensive, like they are today. “We had to hook up the patient to the Datascope monitor, patch them into the Biophone, get orders, defibrillate, start IVs, administer medications, insert an esophageal airway, administer oxygen, and perform CPR, all at the same time. We hoped we’d get an engine company or at least a sheriff’s officer to help!” 

Career Highlights

In 1985 Davis was at the Colorado River with his family and the family of his son’s girlfriend. They were all skiing near a low-head dam. There were some cables in the area to keep boats from getting swept over the dam. A teenage girl was in the water and got hung up on a cable. Davis and his son entered the hazardous swiftwater environment and got the girl to safety. The girl’s father wrote a letter to the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors, and as a result of his heroism, Davis received the LACoFD Medal of Valor. 

From 1991–97, Davis worked as a flight paramedic for the LACoFD’s airship program. “It was very exciting and rewarding work,” he recalls. “We were trained on hoists and pickups as well as advanced swiftwater rescue. We partnered with the Coast Guard for a bunch of training in the event of ships going down or airplane crashes into the ocean. It was a great way to finish my career.” 

Retirement

After he retired from the LACoFD, Davis worked for the next 2 decades as part of its Fire Safety Advisor (FSA) program. In this role he provided movie and TV production companies with fire safety and protection expertise while they made episodes and films. 

When asked if he had any advice for current paramedics, Davis said no. “Today’s medics are so much better trained and can do so much more than we could,” he says. “I can tell great stories from the old days, but I’m not qualified to give advice.”

Davis and Ramsted are the only members of that first class of paramedics still alive. Davis is now a docent at the Los Angeles County Fire Department Museum in Bellflower, which displays the Squad 51 and Engine 51 vehicles along with a plethora of early paramedic equipment. Davis is there every Saturday and loves to share stories of the early days. On his museum shirt, he still wears his For Real tag.

See also:

• Restoration of the Chevy Ambulance From Emergency!
• An EMS History and Emergency! Tour Through the Los Angeles County Fire Museum
• The Kevin Woyjeck Explorers for Life Association

Barry Bachenheimer, EdD, NREMT-FF, is a frequent contributor to EMS World and is a lifelong viewer and fan of Emergency!