Into the Unknown: Randy & Kevin at the Fire Museum - Episode 3

Podcast Host and producer on the documentary Into the Unknown, the Paramedics' Journey, Tonya Mantooth continues the conversation with Randy Mantooth, and Kevin Tighe stars of the legendary TV Show EMERGENCY. Following the 50th Anniversary of EMERGENCY celebration hosted by the Los Angeles County Fire Museum, join Randy & Kevin as they share heartfelt stories of what the show meant to them personally as well as what it meant for the EMS profession.  Randy & Kevin also outline their passion around their documentary project together, Into the Unknown, The Paramedics' Journey. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

We are interrupting the facility with a 24-year-old male helping the roof of the two-free building.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

65-year-old male complaining of chest pain. 24-year-old male.

SPEAKER_00 0:14

I'm Tanya Mantooth, and welcome to the Into the Unknown Podcast. Welcome to Into the Unknown Podcast series. I'm Tanya Manth here with Randy Manth and Kevin Tommy to talk about the upcoming documentary Into the Unknown Paramedics Journey. So, hey, we're all here today in LA. We're celebrating the 50th anniversary of emergency. It's been put on a huge event here, put on by LA County Fire Museum. It's been amazing. We all just had dinner together. We're enjoying a glass of wine while we're talking. So today you had fans come in, and I know you guys have experienced this multiple times, but come from across the country and around the world to meet you and chat with you and take a picture. And it's it's got to be incredible after 50 years to still have the kind of passion that these fans have. So what would that feel like?

SPEAKER_05 1:12

Well, it feels pretty amazing to me. I mean, uh as I've said so many times, Kevin and I didn't even think we were gonna get picked up uh after the first year, let alone have a show uh uh that still resonates after 50 years. It just still blows me away. Uh um and it makes me feel proud, makes me feel old, um, but but nonetheless, uh it's just amazing when I see these people come up to me time and time again and ask for an autograph and tell me they are a firefighter or they are a paramedic or they're a nurse or they're an ER doctor because of the show. Uh I I'm humbled by that. That's just all I can all I can say is that I'm just humbled by it.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

And amazing the age range. Oh. It's that that's these little kids. Yes, right, exactly.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

A whole new generation had these little kids come up. You know, I'm sure I look more like Johnny Gage's dad than than than I do Johnny Gage, but uh the show for whatever reason just captured everybody's heart. And uh and they've they've embraced it and kept a hold of it for 50 years.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

It's yeah, it's it's quite remarkable. Kevin, what's it been for you?

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Well, uh, you know, I mean there were two factors uh working when we were doing emergency. One was it was entertainment, and the other was, you know, and with that comes story. Uh, but also there was the rescues and the paramedic and serving the community in in that way as an extension out in the streets. And and um, you know, one thinks that w one wouldn't wouldn't have had the paramedic program w without the community that it serves. I mean you wouldn't have had the you know community that's being served without the paramedics, and it works both ways. And I think we we're starting to recognize that more and more as the cases you know that we come across have now broadened the the type of care that's out there or that's demanded is you know, a lot of it is mental care is dealing with you know things uh issues that we w we didn't dealt deal with before fifty years ago. The the inside of a drug box doesn't look anything like it used to.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Right. Well, and what's interesting is when you go back and you think fifty years, well, fifty years ago there was only a handful in the country. And that's really quite remarkable. And so when you see all the people that there were that that were there today, and you see how passionate they were and their careers, and and it had to be really remarkable for you now, but looking back on it, and I won't know we've talked about this before, it's like you had no idea that you were actually creating an industry.

SPEAKER_05 4:03

No, certainly did not. But it it became pretty clear after about four or five years that we were having an impact uh uh on the on the industry, on on uh uh EMS. Uh and at that time it wasn't called EMS, you know, it was just this new thing, paramedics. And we had no idea that it was creating uh uh creating an industry is exactly the way you should put it as well, because w with uh all the paramedics, the the new medicines, the new equipment that's out there, it has spawned just corporations that are making millions and billions of dollars uh feeding into this into the EMS system today. And uh and they really owe it you know to to those early pioneers of you know, 18 paramedics in LA and 12 or 13 in Seattle and 15 or whatever there were in Miami and Columbus, Ohio, and Pittsburgh. Uh and then all of a sudden the show comes along, exposes this new program, and it just explodes. And all of a sudden, the people are sitting at home uh back in the 70s and they're they're turn on eight o'clock on Saturday night, they look up and they go, wait a minute, can they really do that? And then they all say, We want that. Now, how many times Kevin and I have gone out to uh uh to different public appearances, um uh and and where they would actually take us into the room, you know, city leaders would take us into the room and say, we want what you're showing on TV. How do we do that? And Kevin and I are looking at one another, going, oh my god, we're we're actors. Uh you know, I don't I don't know. And that's when we both started to really delve into what a what a moving uh tribute this is for any show to affect a system and have it grow like wildfire after that. Um again, it it was daunting, but it was also uh so uh incredibly fulfilling today.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Well, and don't you think the style in which the show was shot actually added to it? So it didn't feel so, you know, contrived. It was very real, almost documentary-like, which was unheard of in that time. Right. And you know, when you're out on the field and you're working through that, yes, you knew what you needed to say, but it was still a very much you you knew what you were trying to accomplish, but you were kind of ad-libbing to show them that this was the reality of what it's like to be in the field. That was really kind of groundbreaking during that time.

SPEAKER_05 7:01

Yeah, more than more than once, Kevin and I we would go in and we would just look at the rescue. We wouldn't look at the dialogue at all because half the time the dialogue didn't fit what we were doing. So Kevin and I would just we would ad lib as if we were actually doing the rescue. We would talk back and forth. And uh and at first it was sort of tolerated, and then after a while it was encouraged. Yeah, encouraged, do it, you know.

SPEAKER_04 7:28

Now we have a viable EMS system in the country. It works very well. But the paramedic is what interests us, the professional, the profession of being a paramedic, the broadening of education in being a paramedic, the amount of things that they can do in the field that we were undreamt of back when we were working, and even then there was there were breakthroughs. So that that's been a change, and and that's what why we want to feature the paramedic, it's why we want to talk about it, because it's a profession that's important to both of us, and we wouldn't be here without them.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Well, you know what, and it's such a celebration here today. I mean, obviously you spent time with fans today as well as tomorrow, and then there's a a big ceremony tomorrow night and and and a show kind of recapping the show. And and my question is, is there a highlight today for you? Like, you know, I know there were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of fans that came through today. So was there was there a highlight or something that happened that was hugely meaningful?

SPEAKER_04 8:27

Well, again, there was a barrage of thank you so much, Mr. Ty. We I wouldn't have been an EMS, I wouldn't have been a paramedic, I wouldn't have been in the fire department without your show. Uh we hear that a lot. Yeah and and I think well well last night I gave a brief little uh you know, a couple of sentences of just uh a thank you. And basically it was to our advisors when we were doing the show because we didn't know what, you know, I was reading a BP in Wednesday without putting the ear things in my ears, you know. I mean I mean we went from the very basics, you know, to to actually some recognizable factors of the work.

SPEAKER_03 9:09

So yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

Uh but I think it's that, it's that we keep hearing back from them how much of an influence the show had. And then we see the community that's reaping from benefits from that as well. So the system is working. People who love and care for one another, that's still going on, you know. Neighbors helping neighbors, it it's all of us in the same political place, not maybe not in the same political place, but certainly in the same socially religious, spiritual place of caring for one another. And the paramedic, this is where it's about, you know, it's just where it happens. It's great.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

And that's the way it should be. And what was your highlight?

SPEAKER_05 9:49

Well, I I I think one, you know, um after a while you you you begin to hear the same thing, and not that I ever get tired of that, uh, but I think every now and then I'll drill down on somebody. Uh, like there was a firefighter today. I think he was a I don't think he was a paramedic, but he he addressed something that the paramedics are going through uh that that um really piqued my interest. He said, he said uh he was from Pennsylvania and we all know that there are more, way more volunteer firefighter and firefighters and paramedics in Pennsylvania than than paid. And he said, we just we are losing uh volunteers. Nobody wants to volunteer anymore. Well, now I had heard the same thing uh uh in another state about paramedics. They they're they're just not filling the coffers, people are leaving, and there aren't anybody uh uh there to uh to fill that role. And uh and I I asked him what he felt was the problem, and he said, you know, and I I agree with a a lot of what he said, but his his opinion was it's the generation. Nobody wants to volunteer anymore. And y if you think about that, you think, okay, this person has to sacrifice time, sacrifice money, put his his life sometimes in in his own life in danger. Uh he takes certain amount of things away from his own family. And this was all, you know, back when Kevin and I were young, this was all something people wanted to do, and now nobody wants to do it.

SPEAKER_00 11:42

Well, you know, that's interesting because actually there is this whole generation that are coming in and they're making career choices and profession choices, professional choices that are really kind of purpose-driven. And so, you know, maybe they just don't know how valuable this profession can be.

SPEAKER_05 12:01

And maybe our film might change that.

SPEAKER_00 12:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:05

Uh uh because the one thing we're not only just exploring what a paramedic goes through, the the the mental stresses that they're put on, that they're put on uh in, uh, but you know, also the fact that that uh they're going to be directly um impacted by not having paramedics around. Uh somebody's got to come up and stand up and say, okay, I volunteer. It's not easy. Nobody said it was. Uh, but the fact that you would do this to help your fellow man is probably the most honorable, most noble thing anybody can possibly do. And I see this on a daily basis with paramedics and anybody in the EMT uh uh uh business. They uh they do they they're underpaid, they're overworked, and yet they still say, I wouldn't do anything else other than this. Those people are born to do what they do, you know, and and and I know other people are as well. They just need a spark, and we're hoping that our film will not only expose you know the mental uh um uh juggling act that they all go through, but I hope it will also inspire them that, yeah, this is what I want to do. It's so noble. It's such a noble job, and I'm I'm hoping that this film will do that.

SPEAKER_00 13:37

The Los Angeles County Fire Museum celebrates the history of the American Fire Service and the contributions made to that history by the Los Angeles County Fire Department. One of the Los Angeles County Fire Museum's goals is to document and present the evolution, history, and impact of fire-based emergency medical services. Well, let's talk about it's Into the Unknown, the Paramedic's Journey, uh documentary, full-length featured documentary, and and I know that this has just been a huge passion for both of you. Um, obviously there's been you know, we've seen what emergency has done, we've seen what an impact it's had, and and yet there was such a sense that both of you wanted to tell this story. And and you know, you you shared a bit about w the why. Kevin, what was your why in terms of why this film was important to make?

SPEAKER_04 14:37

Well, because they've kept us within their fabric, you know. I mean, we we've once you be once a great way to put it. Once they care for you, you know, you're you're there's no getting out. Yeah, right. You're bound and determined to uh give back. And I think that's really what it's about is giving back, and this is the best way we can do it. And uh it's also not just emergent medicine, but it's it's preventative uh medicine, you know. The the what what the paramedic and what the EMS and what the station house brings to the community that surrounds them, you know. Um good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

So documentaries obviously, you know, they they take a while. So how long has it been in development?

SPEAKER_05 15:23

It will be three years this coming September, and we're now in August. I had no idea. I've shot feature films that were quicker than this. But it takes time, you know. It it's it's like making a good wine, you know, you kind of let it sit, or making a good scotch. Believe me, we're not gonna sit on this for 12 years. But but uh uh it it way more work than I thought. When I first, you know, when you know I called Kevin, I said, What do you think? What do you think? You you you would you like to do this? And he said, Yeah, yeah. I said, Okay, okay, let's put together the best team we possibly could. And uh that we possibly can.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

And then and then Kevin said, Yeah, they're not available. Who else can we get?

SPEAKER_05 16:09

Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. And uh but I got them anyway. Uh uh so I you know I I knew, you know, I I knew my little sister was not a little sister anymore, that she was now in a position where she's hiring me. And I but I watched I watched your work not only in feature films, but I also watched your work in documentaries. And I couldn't think of anybody I trusted more than have you be there. Uh you're just so calm, so even, so even keeled, uh, and and you know what you're doing way more than I do. Um and I I just knew that you were you had to you had to ramrod it. And and then I I asked Steve and Baxter, Steve Martin and Baxter Larman to come in.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

Um so just a little background on both of them. Go ahead. Uh uh. Because you know, they're they're more than the guys that make the great cocktails during the holidays.

SPEAKER_05 17:10

Yeah, but they make a hell of a good cocktail. Yeah, they do. Yeah. Um uh Steve, I met Steve back in 99. Uh back in 1999, we did The Boys Are Back, or something like that. Some some fan put together this thing, and I I thought, what is this all about? She was getting all the emergency people together in a convention center in Burbick, I think. And I met Steve, and Steve was working with uh uh uh Chief Freeman at the time. Uh and he I think Steve was a captain at the time. And you know, we got along really great. And and of course I met Bax. I was doing speeches all over the country, and I'd see Bax there. He he was had his own lectures. And uh uh finally one day when he really clicked in for me uh was in uh Utah, was in uh Salt Lake City, Utah. And we just became really good friends. And I guess this was in gosh, we've known one another for about twenty all of us, 25 years. And so I said, well, let me just ask Steve and Baxter if they'd kind of help us out on the technical side.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

And and so, and so just to clarify, um, they come with some credentials, I would say. So C. Martin, oh yeah, yeah. System fire chief LA County 36 years, now retired.

SPEAKER_05 18:36

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Dr.

SPEAKER_05 18:37

Baxter Lorman, the DMS Medical Professor of Medicine at uh at UCLA, David Kevin School of Medicine. Yeah, so they weren't slouches. And because well, in fact, they weren't slouches to the point that we just said, uh, you gotta help us produce this. And we made them producers. And I I can't I can't think of anybody better. And and and Kevin and our goal was to put together the best team that we possibly could, then get the hell out and stay the hell out. And let you guys tell that story. And so far, you guys have done nothing but I mean, I'm just so impressed with what you've done. Oh, and then I think you should take up, Tanya, how we came about Tom, our director.

SPEAKER_00 19:26

Yeah, Tom Putnam, um amazing director, and it took us a long time to find what we thought as a group was really the right fit. Because not only, you know, not only do we need, you know, someone who is a consummate filmmaker, um, but someone who also understood the EMS industry and understood first responders. And and I think that was a thing that was the hardest fit. We knew it was really important for them to understand the industry, but also be a good storyteller. And so, you know, amazing director of Burn, which was hugely widely uh uh acclaimed in the in the fire industry. Yeah, and and he took it on, and and he did a follow-up film on that. But he's done so many, and and we just felt like you know, when when when we first talked with him, when we all talked with him, I think there was an immediate yes. Yeah, you know. I mean, uh again, you've got the credentials, you've got the experience, you've got that storytelling, but he's also incredibly collaborative. So that was like the perfect mixture.

SPEAKER_05 20:27

He's just as smooth as anybody I've ever run across. And and when you say storyteller, and my heart always warms up to anybody that's a storyteller. Uh I and when I saw his story, you know, our goal was to stay the hell away, stay out, until unless we saw something that really was awful and we didn't like it, we we'd step in at that point. But I I saw it, and there wasn't a thing I would change. Not a thing in that in that uh reel that we that we did that I would change. And I thought, we're the luckiest people in the world because we have four or five of the greatest producers I I've ever worked with. And now we've got this director who is an incredible storyteller, uh, and he's so easy to work with. He's such a delight that um I just feel like we've been blessed.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 21:20

And then, you know, you get the support of uh, you know, AT ⁇ T FirstNet uh and and Zoll and Massimo. Uh, you know, I just feel like the the this whole process has been has been blessed.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah. Yeah, and it's been incredible to be able to travel the country and to tell these stories and and to go, you know, everywhere from Baton Rouge to Denver to Oregon, you know, North Carolina, Neverland.

SPEAKER_05 21:46

Rino, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

And and and really kind of dive into these people's lives. And you know, I know Kevin, you and I talked about the whole idea of like how do we how do we tell the story of the trauma that they experience, and what's that For them. And you know, and I know that's something that's kind of near and dear to your heart. You work very close with hospice, you understand that very kind of emotional piece to what people go through. You know, what what was it like for you when we all decided, you know, we really wanted to tackle this whole mental health issue and and what first responders specifically paramedics are dealing with?

SPEAKER_04 22:23

Well, um it just seemed like it I was reminded of the beginning of the paramedic program, which was in Northern Ireland. Uh and uh you know, and it dealt with the war there with the with the religious war and how it came to the the Vietnam War. The next was uh had a huge impact on the tools that we used in hospitals and and would uh later be quite an influence when it came to the paramedic program and you know serving people in the field.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

That was really the genesis of it.

SPEAKER_04 22:58

Yeah, yeah. So I've always kind of felt that there was a kinship to war uh in the story. Uh war being, you know, difficulty on the streets, uh overdoses, uh, you know, all in all its guises. There are some similarities and kind of a metaphor. Yeah, yeah. So it really addresses our time and and and what we're going through. Uh and and yet it's uh it's a friend.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Well, you know, you bring up a really good point because, you know, you know, being on the road and filming, you know, I think one of the things that really shocked me was was you know the the impact of the homeless and and how how that really has been tough on paramedics, but also the whole opioid and fentanyl and and how that has integrated into so many things in terms of the people just taking, you know, casual weed marijuana, and then all laced with fentanyl and what they're dealing with and how paramedics are having to shift for that and how the numbers are exploding. And it it really is, it is really a war for them.

SPEAKER_05 24:04

And that all falls on on uh the the paramedics' shoulders. They're the first responders. Uh uh, and and it's only been um well, you know, I'm gonna have to kind of refer to BAX. We just started Narcon um uh what less than 10 years ago. It's only been around where paramedics actually use that uh in in about it's only been this past 10 years, correct?

SPEAKER_01 24:33

For first responders, yeah. But paramedics have been doing it for for quite a while. I've got I'm gonna guess it's been almost since my life expectancy, and and Steve's in the room with me. I'm guessing so like 30 to 30 years plus, we've been probably doing Narcan. But for first responders, for for the layperson, for EMTs, for police officers, um, and other community stuff. Oh, it's yeah, it's definitely less than 10 years that that Narcan's been used.

SPEAKER_05 25:03

Okay, so the system when Kevin and I were were were involved in it, when it first started, it was just like, well, first off, the the need wasn't there because it just you know there wasn't the synthetic drugs like there is now exactly, exactly. But now it is so commonplace, and and where does this go? It doesn't go to the emergency room because they don't go. It falls on the part uh on the uh on the shoulders of uh of first responders. And uh and and that's just a small example of what's being placed on the paramedic shoulders.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

And before you go there, one of the stories that we heard over and over, which was really pretty shocking, is that you know they would come in on a Monday morning and they would start to get these fentanyl calls, and they literally would track the blocks. And it would be like, oh, okay, a batch came in. So they knew when they had so many runs, so many calls on this block that pretty much it was gonna go block, block, block. So it's like they knew a bad batch came in, and they knew how the wave. So when they would end their shift and they'd say to the next shift, yeah, it's bad.

SPEAKER_05 26:17

You got your hands full.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

You got your hands full.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

We've also learned from the pandemic, you know, uh uh it wasn't too long ago that we were counting uh outrageous uh totals of uh elderly dying alone in in rest homes across the country into the thousands, hundreds of thousands. Um that's pretty sobering.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 26:40

Uh and the paramedics and all of the folks who served the people were out there trying to help in any way they could.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I mean, we went on calls with people where they elderly had just fallen and they lived alone. And they'd finally made it to their phone, maybe a day or two later, just to be w what do they call assisted lifting? And and basically that's what they were so they knew paramedics that they were just showing up to lift them up off the ground, make sure they were okay, take their vitals, you know, make sure they have their medicine, and then and then leave. And and they do it with the same kind of compassion as if someone was having a heart attack. And and that's really incredible.

SPEAKER_05 27:25

Yeah, and and and when you see these people do it, you see in their eyes, they're they're not bored with their job, they're not they're not um uh tainted in any way. They they truly care for the people that they're that they're working with. And that's what just makes my heart swell that that I have anything at all to do with paramedics, because it really takes a special kind of human being to do what a paramedic does. And and like I've said so many times, you don't learn to be a paramedic so much as you are born to be a paramedic.

SPEAKER_00 28:02

That sense of compassion and empathy.

SPEAKER_05 28:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

So talk about the title into the unknown. Tell about the origin of that.

SPEAKER_05 28:11

Well, you know, my memory of that is different than yours. Um, but uh all I know is that it's just it's perfect because when we were on the show, you you would hear man down, and they would give the address, and the paramedics they didn't know why was the man down, you know. Was he having a heart attack? Was he hit by a car? Was he shot? You know, what we didn't know. And so when we got there, you know, so we're literally driving into the unknown. We don't know what to expect. And and and a paramedic has to be pretty light on his feet uh to assess it and to address it. And uh um that's and so when when it was brought up, I went, oh, into the unknown. That's that's pretty good. And then I think you tagged on the paramedic's journey. We do we didn't want to specify one paramedic, it was just the paramedics journey. Is that how you remember it?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Well, actually, I I remember it was a conversation, we were all on a conference call, we were talking about it, and the issue came up of you know whether or not when they got the call, you know, did they know, did they fully understand what you know what the call was about? And it was actually, you know, a Chief Steve Martin who said, actually, you know, they're walking in the in into the unknown. They have no idea what they're walking into. They don't know. You know, it could be this, it could be that. And when I heard into the unknown, I'm like, that's it.

SPEAKER_05 29:46

That's it.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

So no, came from Steve.

SPEAKER_04 29:48

See, I remember that it came inadvertently for me, which was walking. I I had walking a lot into the unknown, and Steve said, No, into the unknown, drop the walking.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

That's what that's so back to the time for you to say, actually, it came from me. And I said, The true co-producers of the show. So basically, collectively.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

We've all witnessed an accident, and everybody has a different version of the accident. Okay. I'm believing Kevin's story first.

SPEAKER_05 30:20

Well, I believe that uh that I thought it up.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

I take the whole as the whole as the whole movie, Mr. Minneton.

SPEAKER_05 30:32

Baxter pushed Kevin away from his microphone just to get to the you know, so he would make his statement.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

His beer, not the microphone. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

The Into the Unknown podcast is brought to you by Firstnet, built with ATT. FirstNet is the only network built with and for first responders, including paramedics and EMTs. It's designed to fit your evolving communications needs with innovative mission-critical solutions so you can keep yourself and your communities safe. So this is the first time you guys have executive produced a documentary. Well, what's been the biggest surprise for you?

SPEAKER_05 31:22

The amount of freaking work. Good grief. I had no idea. I thought, you know, hey, I'm an executive producer, I'll sit back and give orders about that. That isn't the case at all. Uh, and you guys have done all the work. I mean, all the work. So I can't take any credit for it. But it's just the amount of time to get it right, to to line up the right people, and to interview people who possibly were gonna film, and to get it right, and uh, it's just a lot of work. How you do it, Tanya, and still run the San Diego International Film Festival is beyond me. You can juggle, I can't even cook one egg. If somebody's talking in a room, I go, stop! I'm cooking an egg here. How you can how you can do that is is beyond me. And my hat is totally off to you.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

I'm not sure this year.

SPEAKER_05 32:25

Well, no, I am. I am.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

So, Kevin, what's been your big surprise?

SPEAKER_04 32:32

Um I think just seeing uh you know how when you you you open the field up to everybody's uh participation, how everybody brings things in, and they're not only some strong strengths, but they then make you come up with something. Uh we we we respond, we're responding to one another creatively. And I like those sessions when they happen. Like the what we had one just before we went on air here. Yeah. You know, where it was it was fun.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

Yeah. Yeah, it was, absolutely. Yeah, because I think it's it's one of those things where everybody's kind of pushing each other, and and you know, and out of it comes something deeper and richer.

SPEAKER_05 33:13

And in in that push, we're learning, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:17

So we you know, you you you brought up um ATT FirstNet, Mass Mosul, incredible. They came in very, very early on, really kind of saw the vision that that you guys really crafted and kind of brought to the table, really, really behind it. And that's been incredible to see the industry as a whole really come in and and really support it. And and that's been that's been really and the associations that have come in, the advisor advisory board. I mean, it it is has that surprised you to see that kind of support across the industry?

SPEAKER_05 33:53

It it didn't, it did with the associations, because they they they sometimes don't play play nice with each other in the sandbox. Uh but the um uh the the the board I kind of knew uh who I wanted, you know, some on the board. But then when Bax and Steve came in and we started pulling in all these these names, and I said, Well, I don't know whether they'll sit on the board or not, they probably won't. Well, they all did. Everybody jumped in saying, Yeah, we want to be part of this. Now that surprised me. All the associations lined up. Yeah, I think 19, 20, uh, they all lined up. And and listen, you know, ask back Baxter. This is like, you know, wrangling mice, uh, getting these getting these people to uh to all be in the same room.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

Well, they really cross all of the aspects of EMS, which is interesting. Yeah, you know, because of everything from dispatch to top. Emergency nurses, yeah, f emergency physicians, flight, all of that, and fire. Yeah, it's it's been fascinating to see that.

SPEAKER_05 35:01

And for all of them to hold hands and sing kumbaya is like, you know, not m that doesn't happen very often, if ever.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Well, and and you know what's interesting is that I I know in the early days, when especially when we talked to the dispatch associations, and that was so fascinating for me because I think that's an element that most people see it one way, but it's really another way. And I think that's one thing that really has come out of the filming is seeing the stories that come out of dispatch. And I think that's an area that doesn't get the understanding fully.

SPEAKER_03 35:35

No.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

And and doesn't understand that it's so it's so intricate the complexity of the education that it takes and the and the patience to stay with it, and then they let it go and they hand it off, and they never know what happens. And so they may stay with it. In one story, uh a woman doing dispatch said the longest time she had stayed on a call was 45 minutes helping someone through CPR and it was a child. And that woman took that in. So when you talk about trauma and you talk about what they what paramedics see and what they experience, think about what the dispatchers can only are dealing with, can only hear, and they're the very first touch. Yeah, and so that's also a story. And they start the people.

SPEAKER_05 36:26

They start the ball rolling. Right. They make the decision do I call, do I call in the the the uh police, do I call in the fire department, do I call in EMTs? Right. They they have to make that that that call. And that kind of can weigh heavy on you.

SPEAKER_04 36:42

And then you have have the exemplary position of the paramedic, coming back again to the broad, broad education, the uh reach, the the total reach that's out there in the field. I'm reminded of uh a line by Wallace Stevens, how high that highest candle lights the dark. That to me is what the paramedic means to medicine.

SPEAKER_00 37:05

I love that. Say that line again.

SPEAKER_04 37:07

How high that highest candle lights the dark.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 37:12

Anyway.

SPEAKER_05 37:17

That was a throwaway for Kevin, and that was nothing.

SPEAKER_00 37:20

That was very impressive. I'm writing that down. So tomorrow night there's going to be an award, there's gonna be a show, um, a bit of a retrospective awards? Well, not awards. All right. I think Steve and I are getting awards tomorrow night. Oh, you are tomorrow? Yeah, yeah. You guys are presenting it to us.

SPEAKER_05 37:39

Oh, well, nice to let me know that now.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

But it it's a bit of a retrospective, it's a bit of kind of looking back and and also kind of talking about all the people also that were involved in the show and get a chance to hear from them as well.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

And and what's that what's it feel like leading into something like that?

SPEAKER_05 37:59

Well again, it makes you feel old. Uh you know, I I thought I was, you know, coming into a nursing home when I saw half these people. And uh I was like, okay, all right, well, you know, I'm just as old as they are. And uh it again, it's hard to quantify uh uh, you know, the the amount of emotion that it that it that it really sets off in me because you know I've I I could never shake EMS when I left the show. I can never shake firefighters and shake paramedics out of my soul. I don't know, it just touched me in a way Well what why?

SPEAKER_00 38:41

Well I don't know what was the the the spark for you?

SPEAKER_05 38:46

I I don't know. It's it's hard to really kind of nail down. It's just that I never had been exposed to people who were paramedics, who were firefighters, who were EMTs. I'd never been exposed to that kind of a human being before. And they were so selfless. And you know, you have to understand Kemisnik kind of were in a business where, you know, the paramedic will always turn around, and and I had a paramedic who was kind of I was riding along with him. Bob Bellavo said, turn around and he's he's and I was following him, you know, and he said he turned around and he looked at this the scene that we were at and he said, always turn around before you leave. He said, always turn around and ask yourself, what more can I do for that person? And I was like, oh, wow. Because Kevin and I were in a business where they would turn around and say, What more can I get from that person? Wow. And and and that never left me. And I thought, man, that's that's how that's who I want to grow up to be.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

That's humanity.

SPEAKER_05 40:01

Yeah. And and that exposed me to that. And I just could never shake that feeling. And I I you know, I I'm sure it was there before, but he brought that out with that comment. And he was so selfless and so sincere about it. And he just turned, walked away, didn't didn't debate it, didn't talk about it. He just that was just the most selfless thing I'd ever been exposed to. And you know how I see that today. I see it in Baxter Larman, I see it in Steve. And that's who I want to be around.

SPEAKER_00 40:40

So it's a real sense of kind of something greater than yourself and with a with a higher purpose.

SPEAKER_05 40:47

Yeah, but more than that, that you're you're willing to sacrifice yourself. Wow.

unknown 40:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:57

It doesn't get more poignant for.

SPEAKER_00 41:01

Put your life on the line for somebody else.

SPEAKER_05 41:03

Yeah. Yeah. And and I saw it on a daily basis.

unknown 41:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

Kevin, thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_04 41:09

No, I I'll leave that.

unknown 41:12

Leave that with Randy.

SPEAKER_04 41:16

He captured that pretty nicely.

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Well, he was trying to top your poem. Yeah, yeah, that was a very good thing. It was a poem. It was a bit of a stopper. Well, it's been incredible to talk tonight. Um, as I said, we you know, I agree with you, Randy, and Kevin. You know, I think it's been an incredible journey. Um, you know, I feel honored to be part of the team, uh, honored to work with Stephen Bax and and um be out on the road with with Tom and the team. It's been really incredible. And and it w just kind of on a side note, on a production standpoint, you know, I've been a producer for a very, very long time. We started filming in March, and and it's been uh interesting thing because when you go out on the road and then you come back and you go back out on the road, very often your crew, they've got other jobs, and so you're kind of working with new people all the time, but not in this case. Like every time this crew who is so busy and so in demand, they always open up their time and they want to be on this shoot. And that's really unusual.

SPEAKER_05 42:19

I didn't know that. Yeah. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 42:21

And it's really unusual, and it's really a testament because they feel like this is a story that needs to be told and they want to be part of it. We did lose one of our crew members. We were really disappointed in that.

SPEAKER_05 42:35

But now, now you have to explain that. We did lose.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

We lost him. Uh he was our first AC, and he decided he wanted to leave the profession and he wanted to go to paramedic school, and so he is being taught. That's um, and he is going to paramedic school, and so he is excited to do that. And he had gone on, you know, we had been filming quite a bit, and he was really he felt like that was his calling, and so that was really, really, really incredible.

SPEAKER_05 43:03

You know, if if this film changed that one person, th then that's fine. I'm I'm hoping that we can change uh uh, you know, hundreds of people, uh thousands maybe. But the fact that we we got one and we hadn't even shown the film yet, you know, when he got exposed to the kind of people that I'm talking about, uh and decided, yeah, that's my calling. For him to quit uh a very lucrative job of what he was doing just to be a paramedic, my hat is off to him. And you know, just one other note. It's like this industry has profited so much on the backs of paramedics and EMTs. And, you know, if they want to help tell the story about the paramedic, if they want to help the paramedic, and and they they do need help, then you know, get involved. Get involved. And if if you want to help support us, if you want to if your involvement is helping support this film, that's great because your livelihood depends on these paramedics.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

Yeah, and we've seen that across the board. Yeah, the industries have really stepped up and said we really believe in the film, and we really believe especially in the topic of mental health and wellness, and and really supporting the paramedics. So a lot of people ask how can we how can they support an individual basis? And we say, you know, follow us on social media at Into the Unknown Doc.

SPEAKER_05 44:42

And get involved with us.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Exactly. On Instagram and also Facebook, and then also, you know, share our podcast and come back and listen to us next time.

SPEAKER_05 44:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:51

All right. Well, I think we're gonna enjoy another glass of wine and uh call it a night.

SPEAKER_05 44:55

Um I'm I'm gonna do too.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

All right, except I think you're drinking beer, so another beer for Kevin. All right, thanks for joining us tonight, Into the Unknown Podcast. Good night. Thank you. This Into the Unknown podcast is brought to you by the Public Safety Group, a Jones and Bartlett learning brand. Public Safety Group has become the world's most innovative and trusted source for educational materials and certification solutions for emergency medical services, fire and rescue. To learn more, go to PSGleearning.com.