Murrysville medic retires after 50 years in emergency service
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Pat Anderson has seen quite a bit since he got his start in emergency medical services back in 1972.
Some of it was deadly serious, making split-second medical decisions in the days before EMTs underwent numerous certification classes and were given basic first aid and CPR training.
Some of it affected his ability to work well — specifically the massive radio he had to lug around decades ago as a crew chief.
“With those big radios, you could almost rupture yourself and end up in your own ambulance,” said Anderson, 80, of Murrysville.
And some of it was just plain funny, like the female paramedic Anderson once interviewed whose only question about the job was whether or not they were required to wear undergarments.
“She was a really good paramedic,” he said with a laugh.
Anderson retired Aug. 18 after 50 years in emergency service. He began with the former Rescue 4 volunteer ambulance service, which formed in 1970. It would go on to become Murrysville Medic One in 1978. Anderson has served as an EMT, crew chief and board member for both groups.
Both Anderson and Murrysville Medic One spokesman Matt Stromberg said a lot has changed since Anderson went on his first ambulance run. For starters, he used to keep the ambulance at his house. There was no such thing as certification for EMTs.
“You did first aid, CPR training and that was it,” he said.
Stromberg said in those days, the prevailing motto for emergency services was “grab-and-go” — the idea being to get a patient to the hospital as quickly as possible for best available medical treatment.
“Now, although it sounds terrible, the thought is ‘stay and play’ — we have so much more equipment on the ambulances now, and they’re in immediate contact with our medical command down at UPMC Presbyterian that’s staffed full time by ER docs. So our crews now will stabilize a patient, start to push drugs and everything else, whereas when they started it was, ‘We have to get out of here to the hospital,’ because that’s the only place treatment was.”
Anderson can recall coming home sometimes from his job at Westinghouse Electric to start an EMT shift.
“I worked with a guy from Trafford, and he’d pick me up at the railroad tracks along Murrysville Road,” Anderson said. “Sometimes I’d still be dirty from work, but you did it, because we didn’t have enough guys.”
Anderson and Stromberg said if it wasn’t for female volunteers, Murrysville Medic One wouldn’t be what it is today.
“During the day, a lot of guys worked, and a lot of the women volunteered, and held down the base during the day,” Stromberg said.
For several years, Anderson worked three jobs: one at Westinghouse, one as an EMT and one as an auxiliary Murrysville police officer.
The past few years, Anderson has been a familiar face at the Mother of Sorrows food pantry, where he volunteers to check clients’ vital signs and blood pressure, one more addition to his legacy of community service.
“The best part is the people who I worked with, and my wife, Sherry, who allowed me to do it all these years,” he said.