The Paris News

Paris Emergency Medical Services celebrates its 30th anniversary Sept. 1.

In 30 years, the program has grown from a small group of basically trained personnel to the professional, qualified staff it has today, said Paris EMS Director Kent Klinkerman.

Klinkerman, along with Paris EMS paramedic Sam Martin, have been with the program since its inception in 1979, and in Klinkerman’s case, a little longer.

Before the City of Paris had an ambulance service, the responsibility fell to McCuistion Regional Medical Center.

It was on one of the McCuistion ambulances that Klinkerman, fresh out of high school, got his first experience as an emergency medic.

“I went to work for McCuistion in May of ’79,” Klinkerman said. “I was too dumb to know what was going on. I didn’t know that the hospital had given notice to the city and the county that they weren’t going to do it anymore. I didn’t have any clue what was going on, I didn’t read the papers everyday – I was two weeks out of high school.”

Once he graduated, Klinkerman said he was looking for a job, applied at McCuistion and was hired the very same day – no training or experience required.

“Back then all you had to be was a warm body, and not too warm at that,” he joked. “It was very relaxed, unregulated. The standards were much lower back then.”

McCuistion required personnel be 21 before they could drive the ambulance, so Klinkerman said he worked in the back of the truck.

“In the meantime, after a month there, I finally figured out what they were doing,” he said. “The hospitals didn’t want it (the EMS service), the county didn’t want it, there were no privates that wanted it. The city finally said ‘well, someone’s got to do it.’”

When the city took over the EMS service, its first headquarters was the building behind the old police station in the 800 block of Bonham Street.

He said the ambulance crews went in voluntarily on their days off to repair and spruce up the neglected building, including putting up sheetrock, patching holes in the walls and fixing plumbing.

At that time, EMS had its own dispatch separate from city fire and police.

The emergency service offered only basic life support the first few years, but Klinkerman said the program had great support from the medical community, because they realized the necessity of having an emergency medical service.

“When the city took it over, we were just green as could be,” Klinkerman said. “The pay was low, the hours were long — our average work week was 84 hours a week. You worked 72 hours one week and 96 hours the next week.”

“I was just a grunt on an ambulance,” Klinkerman said. “I didn’t have any training. Those of us there enrolled in EMT (emergency medical technician) at Paris Junior College. We had a bunch of part-timers because you just couldn’t keep anybody, the pay was so bad. We made about $2 an hour, no overtime, minimalistic training and equipment.”

In the next year, Klinkerman moved to lead medic on his ambulance, then was promoted to shift supervisor because the turnover rate was so high. In 1981, he was promoted to assistant director, then director, earning the position after only two years in the department.

Klinkerman said he and Martin, who served as assistant director at the time, set goals in the early years to get the program up and running efficiently and have every medic certified at least as an EMT basic. At the time, Paris Junior College provided an EMT class, where most of the early EMS personnel were certified.

Also in its fledgling years, the director said Paris EMS had a great relationship with the hospitals and their doctors, which aided in EMS’ training. The medics gained permission to look in on and assist with hospital procedures.

As the volume of calls has increased over the years, so has the level of training in the department, along with advanced technology and medications.

Moving into three stations across Paris, today, Paris EMS is now staffed by fully trained paramedics with intermediate and basic students interspersed. Klinkerman said four to five ambulances are working any given day.

Technology in the form of the Computer Aided Dispatch system (CAD system) and the STEMI project have been added to great advantage in the department, Klinkerman said.

The CAD system allows for a computerized map to tell Paris Police Department dispatch the locations of the ambulances (and other emergency vehicles) in order to most efficiently dispatch calls. The map also allows EMS paramedics to see the fastest routes to their calls.

The STEMI project allows patient EKGs to be wirelessly transmitted to the emergency room or to the working cardiologist to determine if an angioplasty or a cardiac catherization procedure is necessary.

“As far as technology, we are on the leading edge, but not the bleeding edge,” Klinkerman said.

One of the most recent additions has been the incorporation of being able to land medevac helicopters for quicker transport for patients with severe trauma not normally treated at the local hospital, which has been a learning experience for all emergency personnel, the director said.

Klinkerman and Martin said the one thing they both see in the field is that medications, equipment and procedures don’t seem to be getting less complicated, only more so.

The department keeps up with the latest equipment as much as is reasonable for a small department, the director added.

“It’s just interesting how things evolve,” he said. “The different equipment, medicine and training that goes along with it.”

A broad group of first responders has really been developed in the past eight to 10 years, and Klinkerman said its development is one of the best things that has been done in the county.

“The first responders are invaluable to the community, especially out in the county,” the director said.

The Paris EMS reserves are also another valuable resource to the community. Often EMS students or other medical personnel involved with the reserves are available in case of emergencies and other situations requiring EMS personnel outside what the city paramedics would usually cover, such as having an ambulance on hand at the annual rodeo.

Also, today the department provides training to not only its first responders, but also holds continuing education classes to keep its paramedics informed with the latest in training and certifications.

Paris EMS teaches free CPR classes to organizations, with the only cost involved is that of actually receiving the CPR card.

A disaster preparedness group has also been formed in the event that a disaster takes place in the Lamar County area or the surrounding areas. Hurricane Ike saw a Paris EMS crew sent to help on the Galveston Coast.

Community outreach has also been high on the priority list for the department, Klinkerman said, in the form of sponsoring the Think Child Safety program, Think Senior Safety, the Amber Menefee memorial trailer, car seat safety programs and Kids Safe Saturday in addition to hosting Fill the Boot and contributing every year to The Paris News’ Empty Stocking Fund.

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