Part 21: Class Act

When I arrived in Baltimore all those years ago, the state of Maryland did not recognize licensure or certification from other states, a policy known as reciprocity.

In order for me to get certified to work as an EMT or paramedic in Maryland, UMBC made arrangements for out-of-state students in its Emergency Health Services program to take an EMT refresher training class, held two evenings a week for six weeks at Arbutus Volunteer Fire Department.

The refresher course was designed for people who were already trained and working as EMTs in Maryland. Every two or three years, EMTs in Maryland were required to take a refresher course and pass a practical exam.

A piece of cake, my faculty advisor, Bill Hathaway, told me.

The paramedic training I took in Tennessee was 1,500 hours, in excess of the 1,200-hour standard for the national registry. Maryland didn’t have this kind of paramedic in the field in ambulances. Only state police Medevac crews were trained at this level.

Maryland had an intermediate level that was more advanced than the basic EMT but allowed to do fewer things in the field, and involved 800 hours of training. I wasn’t asking to be recognized at this level, just as a basic EMT.

The state said no. Take the refresher.

A walk in the park, Hathaway said.

On the first night, I sat in the back of the room. Everybody else was in uniform, representing fire departments and rescue squads from throughout the region.

Only one other student was wearing civilian clothing. His name was Bill Brown, a paramedic from New Hampshire who was also enrolled in UMBC’s EHS program.

We shook hands. “This should be fun,” Brown said as the course began.

The instructor was a firehouse legend, Don Mackey.

Mackey was an old hand, an AVFD officer and its chief of training. He was also a retired Baltimore City firefighter. Mackey was a walking archive of major incidents: multi-alarm fires, memorable collisions, dicey rescues. He’d been around forever.

When Mackey passed away last October at age 81, he’d given 55 years of service to AVFD.

On Friday, October 8 of last year, Patch hired a videographer to film a in advance of the launch of Arbutus Patch. I met the videographer by the flagpole in front of the Hollywood theater.

Across the street, a row of fire trucks were lined up on Sulphur Spring Road in front of Ambrose Funeral Home.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that was Don Mackey’s funeral.

The videographer and I stood silently as fire and rescue vehicles rolled by slowly on their way past the Arbutus firehouse, following the hearse to Mackey’s interment at Crest Lawn Memorial Gardens.