NY's "Father of Paramedics" dies

[VentMedic]

http://www.silive.com/healthfit/advance/index.ssf?/base/living/1246872608231790.xml&coll=1

'Father of paramedics' sends the ER to the patient

Present-day emergency medicine is the result of physician's vision, which shaped careers of many
Monday, July 06, 2009 Staten Island Advance

Dr. Sheldon Jacobson, or "Shelly" as most of us knew him, is considered the "Father of paramedics." In 1974, he took a small group of young men working as ambulance drivers and attendants and transformed them into professionals who became the foundation upon which much of New York City's pre-hospital emergency medicine was built.

The pilot program was launched at Jacobi Hospital in the Bronx, graduating the first paramedic class that will forever be known as the "Jacobi One Medics."

They packed more than 100 pounds of equipment on their backs -- EKG machines, tackle boxes filled with drugs and intravenous equipment, backpacks filled with airway tubes, and resuscitators -- trudging up endless flights of stairs to apartments, climbing down into construction pits, showing up in backyards, bridges, and highways. As they went, they fulfilled Dr. Jacobson's vision of taking the ER to the patient.