The first part of your sentence is is correct, the second part might be true to a layman but is absolutely wrong to anyone in the system. If I was listening to the radio, I knew we got a call before the pager opened because I knew our tones.
It seemed to me like Gage was the one who put his life on the line the most often, then at the firehouse, he became stupid to make up for his bravery.
Don’t forget he’s immortalized in a tubes song:
Well, you can’t have that, but if you’re an American citizen you are entitled to:
…
a personally autographed picture of Randy Mantooth
and Bob Dylan’s new unlisted phone number
Good point. I should have said they all sounded similar.
I bet if we played the Emergency! tone and some other station’s tone from the same real system, so the same format just different pitches, most folks in this thread could recognize which was the one used on the show.
Yes. Arrested Development filmed a lot in the Marina del Rey area, so I recognized many locations, like the car dealership on Lincoln with the whale murals.
That was lampshaded on the show at least once. Late in the show’s run, there was a two-part episode where Gage and DeSoto travelled to Seattle and worked with a couple of paramedics there. Gage (I think) expresses some surprise that the Seattle guys do their own transport of the patient after the rescue. I think his explanation is that in L.A. County the paramedics would be stretched too thin to do rescue and transport; which doesn’t make much sense because they drive to the hospital after every rescue, anyway.
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that early in the show there were hints at a romantic relationship between Dr. Brackett and Nurse McCall, but the showrunners decided not to develop that. In real life, Julie London was married to Bobby Troup (and had previously been married to Jack Webb). London and Troup may have been better known as musicians than actors; London as a torch singer, and Troup as a composer ((Get Your Kicks on) Route 66).
On the 50th Anniversary special linked above, Randy downplayed Johnny’s appeal, and says he “never got the girl”. I’d like to have asked him if he ever watched the show. He was “dating” (wink wink nudge nudge) women all the time. Not necessarily on camera. He was always chasing (and sometimes getting) the hot nurses. He was a horndog with a bachelor pad and knew how to use it.
Unless he means “got the girl” like, got a steady gf, or, married. Then, no. Except for the time he was going to marry (for some reason; I’d have checked him for traumatic brain injury) this woman he just met like days before. He didn’t even know she had bratty kids. So, yes Johnny, you “got the girl”.
Yo
You can only turn a patient over to equal or higher level of care. If you turn a patient over to a lower level of care as that is considered abandoning a patient which will put your licensing in jeopardy as well as subject you/your organization to civil lawsuits.
Now I’m not talking about a medic letting an EMT handle a call of a trip & fall & possible fracture because that is a basic call & doesn’t need ALS intervention, but if a medic does something like start an IV or push medicine they cannot turn that call over to the EMTs & take another call or return to their station
There was an episode where Roy and Johnny put the patient in the bus and went to another call. I remember because it stuck out as being wrong. Oh well, on a weekly show mistakes are inevitable. The tech adviser was probably at the craft service table. 
But I want to know why the squad gets to park in front of the emergency entrance at Rampart. They could park to the side with the cop car. But noooo, they take up valuable space where people with real emergencies can’t get to the door. Like the one I watched last night, with a woman bringing her fiancee there (in her AMC Pacer!). Johnny practically hit her with the door of the squad.
It took me a long time to figure out that when the dispatcher said “Squad 51,” he didn’t mean the group of men at Station 51, but the rescue truck.
One of the better shows making an attempt to continue the legacy of Emergency! was 1999’s Rescue 77. I think they were LA city, or possibly some fictional city “in” LA, but they had their own meatwagon. They treated and transported. It was a good show, but it ran a grand total of only 8 episodes. Wikipedia says “[creator and executive producer Gregory Widen’s] goal for the show was to provide a more realistic depiction of the lives of firefighters and paramedics than previous emergency medical television series such as Emergency!”. Sorry, dude, there’s no improving perfection.
Thought they did have this one episode about a newlywed who got trapped under a 50 ton concrete beam that still gets me 27 years later…
Speaking of the tones (Yes, I had it as my email alert) I love how, for late night calls, it automatically turns on the lights in the station. Wide awake immediately and jump in those bunker pants and go screaming out into the cool LA night. Working on a medical case in the pants instead of the blue uniform just says “we’re here for you any time of the day or night.”
Mesa recently acquired an electric truck. One of the best benefits of it is, it doesn’t sit there idling for the entire call, burning fuel and stinking up the place. Now I notice how the engine in Emergency! is always idling in the background.
I don’t remember that episode/call but if the patient is competent (an adult, not under the influence, not mentally impaired) they can refuse to be treated &/or transported.
I’d have to go back & watch an episode to look at their layout but most ERs have an ambulance entrance separate from the public entrance, so she shouldn’t have been parking there in the first place.
We did this by protocol. Even had an anti-theft system installed where I could press a button on the dash & turn off & remove the key while the bus stayed running; however, as soon as someone touched the brake pedal before the key was reinstalled & turned on it would cut the engine out; can tell you how many times I’d accidentally press the brake pedal when getting back in.
Fire aparatus to some extent but especially ambulances have a high electrical load; especially in the days of Emergency! with the incandescent emergency lighting & rotaters in the dome lights & all of the equipment in the back. At least the lighting draws a smaller load with modern LED despite having more total lighting. They are plugged into shore lines at the station but you don’t want to risk them not being able to start on scene which is a possibility with that high electrical load.
IIRC from my roommate’s father’s station, the tone alert also opens the electric rollup garage doors. So it’s yank on your pants, grab your coat & hat, slide down the pole (yep they still had a pole), hop in, press [start], and roar off into the day or night.
Sorry, guys, I’m taking the truck for a joyride. Light and sirens! Catch me if you can!
I wonder why there aren’t burglaries at stations while they are on call. At 51 (and I assume everywhere) the big door stays open while they are gone. I think another fire show, 1974’s Firehouse, had an episode where crooks would make fake calls and rob the station. Was this ever a threat? Seems it would be easy to do.
Every station should have a pole. Even single story stations.
One of my memories from watching Emergency! was a particular camera shot. The ambulance would turn and drive toward the camera, then back up to the emergency door at Rampart, then the squad would follow suit and park next to the ambulance. It didn’t take me long to recognize that it was the same shot in every episode. The same thing happened a few years later with Battlestar Galactica (Cylons rather than ambulances).
When Emergency! showed up on MeTV a few years ago, I watched a few episodes expecting to see that same, familiar camera shot. It wasn’t there. Either it’s not in every episode, wasn’t the same as I remember, or has been edited out for the reruns.
I think there are a couple variations. They had different ambulances over the years, so they probably had one or two sequences for each, and probably a nighttime one as well.
You watch it too much, and you start noticing when they substituted a stock shot of the original Dodge squad from the pilot film. Man that was one ugly truck! Somewhere I have a screen cap of the old squad just driving down the street, and just randomly parked there was a 69 Charger Daytona (the one with the pointy nose and the wing)! Just someone’s car, parked.
Eighth episode.
HA! That’s the one! Almost the exact second I took mine.
Someone else noticed!
Never watched the show until, as a reserve EMT we went a year-end/Christmas meeting. Awards, catered meal, and for continuing education an episode of Emergency! We got an hour of CE because the senior staffers talked about how stuff we saw in the show had progressed to current gear and protocols. I meant to watch more to learn the history, but it wasn’t on any of my channels. The next year skiing was more attractive than the hour of CE - perhaps the same episode too.