Screen shots from EMERGENCY!

[FFParker]

I like all of you love the show and still watch it everynight at 5 on a local retro tv station. The cool thing is the first engine i drove solo and was primary driver for was a Ward Lafrance P80 (Engine 81) I love that truck long and wide as hell and the detroit is a beautiful thing to listen to. The drivers seat feels out of place being so far in the cab due to the space needed for that HUGE steering wheel. I will miss that truck. Also I say the picture of the mack cab. The other truck i drove at that station was a Mack Midi Pumper. I call it the trash truck due to the cab resembled the ones used for the local trash companys. Kinda cool if i say so. I will miss that ol Lafrance though.

 

[RyanZ71]

There never was a Mayfair ambulance company in SoCal. The vehicles you saw during the entire run of EMERGENCY! were from a film rental company. They did a fine job though if you ask me.

 

[RyanZ71]

I envy any of you who had the chance to drive a P80 Ambassador or a Crown Firecoach or one of the older gen ALFs.

 

[Skip Goulet]

I love the talk of the old rigs and flying birds too. Big aviation nut here.

Here we have some ambulances from Season-6.


Here we have the F-Chassis (Ford Truck)


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And one of my favorites, the Chevy chassis:


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And here we have the Econoline Van chassis, note those beautiful brand new Twinsonics (E-Series)


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And even Dodge got into the game a bit with this over-lit standard Dodge Van note that middle bar has the wires going into the door Jam. Someone was having a bit of fun here.


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For many years I never noticed the blue tunnel lights on the Chevy modular, nor did I pay that much attention to the Ford modular having 14 beacons on top where the Chevy has Unity Spitfires. I always liked the Type III ModulVan used on the show. I almost traded for one similar to it in 1986, but had just barely missed out on it. That Dodge van with the multi-VisiBars was a generic ambulance that I've seen on numerous TV shows and movies. I don't know if it actually belonged to Snyder or one of the ambulance companies or if it belonged to one of the studios.

 

[Skip Goulet]

Mechanical siren on the LASO Polara?

I noticed that one when I saw it. If I didn't know better, I would've sworn that it was a Texas DPS unit. Texas DPS started using VisiBars with Federal WG and EG sirens mounted on the bars during that time frame. Prior to that, DPS ran EG sirens under the hood of their cruisers. Something that I saw back in the late '60s that I found somewhat amusing: Baker Ambulance, which ws the only ambulance service in Odessa for several years, had the siren quit on one of their ambulances while enroute to the hospitl one afternoon. Their dispatch contacted the PD for assistance. I heard it all on my scanner and happened to be on the street they were coming down. The ambulance was a '66 Pontiac wagon with a VisiBar with red beacons and a single Trippe 2-lamp beacon on the roof with a single SA24 speaker powered by a Dietz electronic siren. When I realized that the escorted ambulance was only a couple of blocks from me, I pulled over to see which unit it was. The ambulance was being escorted by an Odessa PD unit that had a VisiBar with a WG siren mounted in the center, and behind the ambulance was a Texas DPS unit that had a VisiBar but still had the EG siren under hood. You could hear the WG on the police car, but the EG on the DPS unit was barely audible. I was glad when they moved them to the VisiBar. The Pontiac wagon was a bit unusual for Baker in the way it was equipped, as it was the only one of their ambulances that didn't have a roof-mounted Q. The Pontiac was replaced with a '67 Dodge Polara wagon that had a roof-mounted Q, four DoRay lollipops and a VisiBar behind the Q that had triple beacons on the bar: one red, one amber, and a clear 175 beacon in the center of the bar. And that Dodge wagon was no slouch when it came to speed. Once I went to work for Baker, I went on a number of runs in that wagon....and it would fly!

 

[stansdds]

For many years I never noticed the blue tunnel lights on the Chevy modular, nor did I pay that much attention to the Ford modular having 14 beacons on top where the Chevy has Unity Spitfires. I always liked the Type III ModulVan used on the show. I almost traded for one similar to it in 1986, but had just barely missed out on it. That Dodge van with the multi-VisiBars was a generic ambulance that I've seen on numerous TV shows and movies. I don't know if it actually belonged to Snyder or one of the ambulance companies or if it belonged to one of the studios.

When I watched the show I watched it on a black and white tv, so I had no clue that they were blue!

 

[JohnMarcson]

Here's one that is still flying in her original colors:
MAAM'S HH-52A - 'THE LAST FLYING LIFEBOAT'


I used to volunteer at MAAM back in the 80's - flew in their B-25 and SP-2H to a couple of air shows.

The history of where the helicopter in the article has served is impressive. 1963 -1988 all over the country.

 

[Skip Goulet]

I remember that Ford F series truck. A B&M mechanical siren sound was dubbed in for it, although sometimes the PA20 sound was heard.

If this truck came with a Federal electronic siren when new, it would have had the 1970s era PA15A series 1E or PA20A series 2E. Both sirens have high-pitched wail and yelp tones like the sirens we hear nowadays and they will operate at 100 watts with two speakers.

This ambulance came from Modular Ambulance Corp., as did the other two shown in this thread. In the earlier days, MAC's standard siren for their modular was the PA100. But they always built to customer specs anyway.

 

[Phillyrube]

One of the volunteer departments in Virginia BEACH, Chesapeake Beach Vol. Fire and Rescue, ran a Chevy/Wayne Care o Van with a Spitfire on the roof, as well as another Type 2 that was split down the middle and made 10" or so wider. I though the manufacturer was TEC Coach, but I can't find a picture. That one had 2 Spitfires and a Model 66 on the roof. Serious amps there!


1974: Dodge/ Wayne "Care-O-Van" Ambulance

 

[Skip Goulet]

Never been in a Neptune, but I have had the opportunity to fly on a B-17 and a B-25. On those two bombers, the best seats were definitely in the nose.

My dad flew in a B25 in WWII. He was a navigator/bombardier. He saw action in Northern Africa and in Sicily and Italy. It was his unit that chased Rommel over the African deserts. He sat in the nose of the B-25. By 1943 he was back Stateside and sent here to Midland where the old Midland Army Airfield (now Midland International Airport) was still active. He taught in the bombardier and navigator schools they had set up here. A few miles south of where I live in the area known as Monahans Draw, there are still remnants of old dummy bombs still lying around that are occasionally found by hunters, and now by oilfield workers. There is a book out called "Bombardiers" in which Dad is listed.


The Commemorative Air Force (formerly the Confederate Air Force) has their headquarters at MAF, along with the large Airpower Museum. Each year in Sept. or Oct, they have a huge airshow with a lot of neat static displays. Which B-17 did you fly in? The one they have here is "Fifi", the only one still flying.

 

[Skip Goulet]

Gordon K. Allen Co., Modular Ambulance's parent co., exclusively used the Unity Spitfires on almost all of their Suburban ambulances that were built in the '70s...especially on the high tops. Most of the low tops still retained the 17s. But they also equipped to customer specs, too. When Gordon K. Allen, Sr., opened MAC, the Unity Spitfires were still his beacon of choice.

 

[Skip Goulet]

Easterling Funeral Home in Odessa ran a pair of Chevy Care-O-Vans, and both of them had Spitfires on top. The widened van you mention was built by Superior, both on Chevy and Dodge platforms. My service bought a '73 wide-bodied Superior Type II ambulance in 1987 that had seen duty in the mountains of Nevada and had standard shift, which surprised me. So far as space and utility were concerned, I would've put it up against any of the modular big-rigs.

 

[Skip Goulet]

There never was a Mayfair ambulance company in SoCal. The vehicles you saw during the entire run of EMERGENCY! were from a film rental company. They did a fine job though if you ask me.

You're a bit mistaken there, Ryan. Snyder Ambulance Service furnished the two high top Suburban ambulances and the white Cadillac ambulance often seen. Modular Ambulance Corp. furnished all three of the modular ambulances. The only rental that I'm aware of is the low top Dodge van pictured in this thread with the triple VisiBars. In some of the ER drive shots that are taken at "Rampart" I've seen a white and orange Cadillac ambulance and a red Dodge box-type ambulance just sitting.They may well be rental units. Joe Ortiz who is the curator of the LA City Fire Dept museum, as I've noted before, leases emergency and specialty vehicles to the studios nowadays, but when Emergency! was being taped he was still working at one of the private ambulance companies in LA County. But our mutual friend Lou Farah who is a paramedic captain with the Ventura FD had a rental business at the time, and I think some of the ambulances came from his stock.

 

[Wailer]

You're a bit mistaken there, Ryan. Snyder Ambulance Service furnished the two high top Suburban ambulances and the white Cadillac ambulance often seen.

I remember one episode of E! where there were two Miller-Meteor duplexes. One was in an accident and the other was responding to the accident.

 

[David]

The Commemorative Air Force (formerly the Confederate Air Force) has their headquarters at MAF, along with the large Airpower Museum. Each year in Sept. or Oct, they have a huge airshow with a lot of neat static displays. Which B-17 did you fly in? The one they have here is "Fifi", the only one still flying.

Not intending to hijack a good Emergency thread, but Fifi is the last flying B29. CAF has two B17s based in east Texas--when I lived in Galveston, Thunderbird was hangered at Scholes Field in Galveston, and Texas Raiders was hangered about twenty miles up the road toward Houston at Ellington Field. It wasn't uncommon on Friday afternoons in the summer to see old warbirds flying as they left Scholes for weekend airshows. I don't know if they still use Scholes Field, they might have moved the museum and flying planes inland after all the damage caused by a hurricane. Now, back to Emergency.

 

[RyanZ71]

You're a bit mistaken there, Ryan. Snyder Ambulance Service furnished the two high top Suburban ambulances and the white Cadillac ambulance often seen. Modular Ambulance Corp. furnished all three of the modular ambulances. The only rental that I'm aware of is the low top Dodge van pictured in this thread with the triple VisiBars. In some of the ER drive shots that are taken at "Rampart" I've seen a white and orange Cadillac ambulance and a red Dodge box-type ambulance just sitting.They may well be rental units. Joe Ortiz who is the curator of the LA City Fire Dept museum, as I've noted before, leases emergency and specialty vehicles to the studios nowadays, but when Emergency! was being taped he was still working at one of the private ambulance companies in LA County. But our mutual friend Lou Farah who is a paramedic captain with the Ventura FD had a rental business at the time, and I think some of the ambulances came from his stock.

I was just taking that info from one of the Q&A pages for the Emergency TV series posted by the fans and other folks related to the show so I would not be surprised if some of the info was not 100% accurate. Regardless, I enjoyed seeing the various types of equipment they used.

 

[Skip Goulet]

I remember one episode of E! where there were two Miller-Meteor duplexes. One was in an accident and the other was responding to the accident.

I remember that one. And there was the one episode where Johnny and Roy went on a fishing trip and ended up at the scene of a traffic accident. The ambulance that showed up was an older landau-style Cadillac combination with just a teenaged kid driving it.


I was just telling a friend about that episode and about the time that my friend Doak Enabnit, who was EMS Director for Lubbock County for many years, who ran up on a bad wreck near Van Horn, TX in the early '70s. At that time Doak worked for AID Ambulance in Lubbock. Back in those days all of us EMTs built our own trauma boxes using the Plano 747 tackle box. Doak happened to have his 747 with him on this particular trip. The ambulance from one of the small towns near Van Horn showed up with an single person on board.....and absolutely NO equipment in the ambulance except the stretcher. The guy told Doak that they had just gotten the truck in when they received the call. Doak used what he could from his 747 kit to treat the couple of patients they had in the back. Doak and I chuckled about the incident because it was so coincidental to that segment of Emergency! I note above.

 

[Skip Goulet]

Not intending to hijack a good Emergency thread, but Fifi is the last flying B29. CAF has two B17s based in east Texas--when I lived in Galveston, Thunderbird was hangered at Scholes Field in Galveston, and Texas Raiders was hangered about twenty miles up the road toward Houston at Ellington Field. It wasn't uncommon on Friday afternoons in the summer to see old warbirds flying as they left Scholes for weekend airshows. I don't know if they still use Scholes Field, they might have moved the museum and flying planes inland after all the damage caused by a hurricane. Now, back to Emergency.

Thanks, I forgot to mention that Fifi is a B29, not a B17. Here's a sad note: Midland has hosted the CAF Headquarters for more than 20 years now, when it moved from Harlingen. Now the headquarters is moving elsewhere later this year, but CAF says they will leave the Airpower Museum here and keep the big Airshow here.

 

[Tristar]

When I was a teenager, the Peekskill, NY police department had spitfires on their cars.

 

[Wailer]

I remember that one. And there was the one episode where Johnny and Roy went on a fishing trip and ended up at the scene of a traffic accident. The ambulance that showed up was an older landau-style Cadillac combination with just a teenaged kid driving it.

I remember that episode. I think the combo was a 1959 model (I don't know which coach builder). I do remember the B&M mechanical siren sound being dubbed in for that car.

 

[Tristar]

Why didn't the Gordon K. Allen Co. build modular ambulances under their own name, instead of having a subsiderary company?

 

[Skip Goulet]

Your guess is as good as mine on that one. I think it was because Gordon Allen saw that a new part of the industry was opening up and he wanted to get in on it from the start. Despite the fact that they built a superior product compared to what some of the other builders started doing, they just didn't last all that long, which is said. Gordon K. Allen, Sr., had made a mint for many, many years with his Superior dealership and with the ambulances he built in-house since the late 40s or very early 50s. I never knew what went wrong with MAC, but I was very surprised when they went under. And by the time MAC went under, the Superior dealership which is still in operation had been sold.