Friday, June 25, 1999

Life squad runs enriched couple's lives

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BY JOHN JOHNSTON
The Cincinnati Enquirer

        Evelyn Ford wasn't quite sure what she and her husband, Harry, were getting into. Or whether she could handle what would surely be a difficult job.

Everyone has a story worth telling. At least, that's the theory. To test it, Tempo is throwing darts at the phone book. When a dart hits a name, a reporter dials the phone number and asks if someone in the home will be interviewed. Stories appear on Fridays.

        It was 1972, and the Woodlawn Life Squad needed help. Unlike the paid emergency crews of today, the squad back then operated with volunteers.

        Evelyn and Harry remembered how well squad members had treated their oldest daughter when she cut her foot. And so the Fords, who had lived in the village just a few years, decided to become certified emergency medical technicians and join the on-call crews.

        They did it 21 years. Evelyn, who is now 68, and Harry, 67, saw all manner of tragedies: gruesome accidents, murder scenes, domestic violence, suicides.

        For Evelyn, the hardest thing was walking into a home where a hysterical parent had lost a baby to sudden infant death syndrome.

        For Harry, the scariest thing was watching a police officer wrestle with a violent mental patient. The cop, patient and Harry were in the back of an ambulance that was speeding down Interstate 75.

        Harry, who was a chauffeur during the day, usually answered emergency calls at night. Sometimes he slept with his clothes on, so he could respond faster.

        Evelyn, a mother of three, often was on call during the day while their children were in school. When she was paged one cold winter morning and her car wouldn't start, she hitched a ride to the station on a garbage truck.

        Many times, the people who needed their help were friends. “We know just about everybody around here,” Evelyn says.

        But they had never met the young woman who needed them on Feb. 10, 1986.

        It was a Monday morning, and Evelyn and Harry were the only EMTs on duty when the call came in: OB run. Somebody was about to have a baby.

        The dispatcher said it was the woman's first child. This was good news, because the Fords knew a woman usually labored longer in such cases.

        But when the Fords arrived at the home, they learned this would be the woman's sixth child. “The police (officer) looked at us and said, "You got time (to get to the hospital),' ” Evelyn says.

        They put the woman in the ambulance. With Harry driving and Evelyn beside the patient, they headed south on I-75.

        A few minutes later, with the woman screaming in pain, Evelyn shouted, “Harry, speed up, the baby is comin'!”

        “I put the foot to the gas,” Harry says.

        Which is about the time that the right front tire of the ambulance blew out. Harry steered off the highway, stopped at the gate to Vine Street Cemetery and called for help on the radio.

        He jumped in back with Evelyn, just in time to see the crown of the baby's head appear.

        And then, in no time, Evelyn was holding a baby girl in her hands. Harry used a finger to unwrap the umbilical cord from the child's neck. Moments later, another life squad arrived to take mother and the healthy newborn to the hospital.

        After that, Evelyn and Harry served as life squad volunteers for another six years. Not every day had a happy ending.

        Still, “It was very rewarding,” Evelyn says. “I never regretted being on the life squad. I felt we did something that touched lives.”

        She needn't have worried about being up to the challenge. She and Harry did just fine.

       

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