Paid for by Citizens for Colburn Committee. Authority John W. Phillips, Jr., Treasurer

Talbot ALS celebrates 20 years of service
By GREG MAKI
Staff Writer - Star Democrat
August 16, 2005

PHOTO BY CHRIS POLK Easton Fire Chief Tim Knotts accepts kudos from the Maryland State legislature from Sen. Richard Colburn, R-37-Mid-Shore

EASTON — In the words of Wayne Dyott, advanced life support services are “alive and well in Talbot County.” But it wasn’t always this way.

In the mid-1980s, volunteer firefighters, doctors and concerned citizens fought long and hard to establish a countywide ALS system. Many of those same people gathered Tuesday evening at the Avalon Theatre to celebrate the 20th anniversary of ALS services in Talbot County.

“The fact that you’re seated here this evening means we’re here to celebrate you, everyone in this room and your contributions to the establishment of advanced life support services in this county,” Dyott said.

Kevin Knussman traveled back to 1983, when he was a young member of the Easton Volunteer Fire Department and then President Richard Barrow appointed an ALS committee. In 1985, Knussman said, Don English, then president of the Talbot County Firemen’s Association, appointed a commission to study the possibility of countywide ALS services.

In August 1985, a pilot program began with five volunteer cardiac rescue technicians (CRTs), Knussman said. The Talbot County CRT class formed at Memorial Hospital at Easton with representation from each of the county’s volunteer fire departments, he said. “That’s something we felt had a very, very strong hand in moving forward with advanced life support.”

The program needed support from the Talbot County Council before it could take off.

“We lobbied county council members at every fire department function that we could muster the strength to attend,” Knussman said. “Dinners, banquets, chicken fries, you name it, we had the county council told how important it was to establish advanced life support.”

But Knussman said the council was not ready to begin such a program. Instead, a nonprofit organization, Talbot County Advanced Life Support Inc., formed. Levin F. “Buddy” Harrison IV was elected its first president.

Knussman said the organization asked the county for $50,000. The council countered with $25,000 but eventually relented and funded the request in full.

“In October of 1986, we became the first dedicated countywide ALS program on the Eastern Shore,” Knussman said.

The Talbot Paramedic Foundation formed in 1987, and Dr. David Hill constructed a building for it on Idlewild Avenue, which Knussman said “gave us a real identity.”

“That was very important,” he added. “It was a real turning point in getting the program established.”

The county council soon allowed the Easton and St. Michaels fire departments to start their own free-standing ALS programs, Knussman said. The Talbot and Easton programs merged in 2002.

In 1998, the citizens of Talbot County elected Dyott and Harrison to the county council “in large degree, I believe, because of their efforts to establish advanced life support,” Knussman said.

Mark Cummings, the first and only director of Talbot County Emergency Medical Services, said the county has four ALS units which “get overwhelmed at times” but are aided by volunteer satellite units in Queen Anne, Cordova, Oxford and Tilghman. Volunteers are “part of the core of our success,” he said.

“The future is bright for emergency medical services, and I think we’re on the right track to keep this thing going for a long time to come,” Cummings said.

Will Howard, president of the Talbot Paramedic Foundation, talked about what all of the other speakers knew but had not mentioned: the lives saved by ALS services.

“If you compare the level of service now to what it was in 1985, you can’t believe the number of people that were saved and are being saved and are probably being saved right now as I speak,” he said.

Howard said he was one of a group of concerned citizens who saw men with full-time jobs take on what amounted to another full-time job strictly on a volunteer basis. He thanked Star Democrat publisher Larry Effingham and executive editor Denise Riley for the newspaper’s coverage of the struggle to establish an ALS program, the people who contributed to an endowment which still helps pay to train volunteers, and past and present members of the county council.

“We didn’t do this alone,” Howard said.

“Every organization needs a strong and committed leader,” Dyott said. “Will has always been there for Talbot ALS and for the citizens of this county.”

Howard’s commitment was essential to the program’s establishment, Dyott said.

Sen. Richard Colburn, R-Mid-Shore, was on hand to present citations from the Senate and governor.

Colburn congratulated those who started the ALS program, saying, “We can never repay them financially for all the hours they’ve put in and the monumental difference they’ve made to the health and welfare of Talbot County.”

He presented citations to Dyott, Gary Jones, Ray Taylor, Knussman, Marc Stockley, Margie Callahan, Dr. Charles Schoenfeld, Harrison, Howard, Sheila Wainwright, Chuck Martin, Hill, the Talbot Paramedic Foundation, Easton Volunteer Fire Department, Shore Health System and the Memorial Hospital Auxiliary.

Del. Addie Eckardt, R-37B-Dorchester, presented a House Resolution to Talbot ALS on behalf of herself and Del. Jeannie Haddaway, R-37B-Talbot.

“More lives are saved each day because of the work that you all do, and congratulations to every one of you,” she said.

Easton Mayor Robert Willey and County Council President Hope Harrington each presented citations to the original charter members of Talbot ALS: David Chaires, Dyott, Harrison, Jones, Susan Kemp, John Kinsley, Knussman, James Morris, Lawrence Patrick, Virginia Patrick, Lisa Pierson, Terry Satchell, Joseph Sheehan, Stockley, John Sullivan, Taylor, Vernon Usilton, Robert Wicker and Michael Young.

Willey, a member of the Easton Volunteer Fire Department, said, “It’s hard to believe it’s been 20 years since we heard all the talk on the engine room floor about how the program wouldn’t work.”

The directors of the four neighboring counties’ EMS departments offered their congratulations and talked about Talbot County’s influence.

Caroline County EMS director Kevin Gillespie said his county’s program began in 1987 “in the shadow” of Talbot County.

“Queen Anne’s pretty much followed the same suit as everybody else,” said Scott Haas, division chief of Queen Anne’s County Emergency Medical Services.

As in Talbot County, Queen Anne’s “went through a bumpy road,” starting as a volunteer program in 1987, he said. The county hired its first paramedic in 1988. Today, 90 percent of the calls for service are still transported by volunteers, he said.

“We were the first,” Dyott said of Talbot County. “The dream originated here and … the services provided to our citizens today are of the highest level of care offered anywhere in this nation.”