A world of difference
History of ambulance service in Polk shows true jumps in medical treatment
Once upon a time, Polk County Coroner was helping save lives instead of being their for loved ones in more unfortunate circumstances.
He well remembers the stories and characters that have come from times when access to emergency care meant a ride in the back of a hearse, and from old timers when he was young that came in a wagon drawn by mules.
A look back into the decades of ambulance service in Polk County presented at the latest Historical Society meeting was the topic that Brazier brought before a good crowd during their February session.
He started by pointing out that in the old days, people were more likely to take on home remedies to cure what ailed them than try their hand at a painfully bumpy ride into town to see a doctor.
“These were all home remedies that when you were given them — and without the presence of a doctor, either cured you or killed you,” Brazier said. “And things have come such a ways away from that.”
Wagon rides in the early days to see a doctor were reserved for serious ailments — broken bones, gunshot wounds or the results of farm accidents that needed immediate attention. As years wore on and automobiles became
the dominant mode of transportation, Brazier said the job of running the ambulance service somehow fell to the undertakers in the community. So funeral homes for decades were responsible for getting people to emergency treatment for everything from heart attacks to appendicitis cases.
“The funeral homes, as time went on and populations tended to grow, we started seeing post-Depression that these businesses were taking on the responsibility for the ambulance service,” Brazier said. “The trick to that ambulance — we snatched them up, we put them in the back and got them to the hospital as quick as we could. That was all that we did.”
Not much in the way of training for immediate care was available. American Red Cross First Aid classes helped some, but it wasn’t much in the way of in-depth medical care.
Plus, the Packard hearses used to transport patients to the hospital weren’t meant for transporting the sick or injured. He said the heavy lead-lined on the undercarriage hearses that used to double as ambulances would speed at 130 mph at some times to get patients as quickly as they could to the hospital, but over time they developed into more standardized vehicles.
What changed was that as time went by and mortality rates got worse without improvement in services from businesses providing the service, government officials began to realize that eventually they were going to have to step in.
“Funeral homes finally turned to city and county government in Cedartown, Rockmart and Aragon and said “look guys, we’re not impacting and saving lives... the county said ‘we’re not going to take it over. What we’re going to do is we’re going to throw a little money at it and see if it helps,” Brazier explained.
He said the real change came in the 1970s when laws provided for requirements for Emergency medical services that trained medical personnel be on board and real standards put in place for the care received on ambulance services.
That put the funeral homes in a real bind, and after time the county was forced to turn to one fly-by-night service after another to get citizens to the hospital.
“They took advantage and they’d get money and be gone,” Brazier said. “Then we’d be without an ambulance service. Then Wilburn Brown — several of the county commissioners and several of the city commissioners and others got together and said “look, if you’ll go into the ambulance business, really go into the ambulance business by Department of Human Resources standards, then we’ll subsidize you.”
“For about 10 years, Wilburn fell for that,” Brazier said.
The county undertook the service on their own for a while, and in recent years turned it over to Redmond EMS to handle transport to the hospital for treatment.
He told of one trip he took in the back of an ambulance with a man who had been injured in a chainsaw accident, and the trip from Cason Road to Floyd Medical Center that was accomplished in what he said was 12 minutes, and left him clenching the sides of his jump seat in the back with an iron grip.
Brazier also turned to the audience to share some of their memories, including Aragon Municipal Court Judge Terry Wheeler — who decades ago served patients.
He provided a few of the more interesting encounters during his several years of service.
Brazier closed by stating that Polk County remains a leader in emergency medical transport and care.