The television show Emergency premiered in 1972, and I waited excitedly for it to come on every Saturday night — it was a big deal for a snowbound kid in Iowa. The following spring, my friends and I even decked out our bicycles to be Squad 51 and Engine 51. We responded around the neighborhood, helping other kids who were pretending they had been in a big crash, or rescuing people out of a tree fort. So when an odd-looking vehicle with the Star of Life on it showed up at a neighbor's house, the local cadre of little firefighters assembled.

One of the neighbors was a lieutenant with the local volunteer fire department. Some of the firefighters had taken a Red Cross class on first aid and recently had completed the crash injury-management course (the predecessor to the DOT EMT curriculum). A couple of them had been with the Iowa Air National Guard unit in Des Moines and had been trained as military medics. Much of the work to outfit the new International travel-all ambulance was done in the neighbor's garage.

A few years later, the underage-drinking, girl-chasing and cow-tipping shenanigans a teenager gets into in Iowa gave way to the realities of going to college. Because of funding cuts, I left for Iowa State in January, before spring graduation. I found myself in high school one day and college two days later.

I pledged a fraternity that had a fire-truck mascot. I began tinkering with that old fire truck and soon had it running. I was the only one who knew how to drive it, as it needed the finesse of operating a double clutch. I developed a fondness for old fire trucks that I shared with EMS guru Jim Page — who, by the way, served as a technical advisor to Emergency. In fact, a 1964 International with a John Bean pump currently sits in my yard awaiting my attention.

While studying late one night, a car struck a utility pole in front of the fraternity house, trapping the driver. I watched as the two-person crew from Mary Greeley Medical Center went to work on the patient. The medics asked me to help, and I was hooked.

When I returned home the following weekend, I asked my stepdad — the lieutenant I mentioned earlier — about EMT training. He suggested an EMT course taught by an old medic buddy of his from the Air National Guard unit. I found myself in the class at Mary Greeley, where I was befriended by great mentors such as Lee Thomas, Scott Guetzko, Larry Rossman and Jerry Johnston. They were hard on me as an EMT and made me a good clinician. I also discovered a new EMS magazine called JEMS and a conference called EMS Today in Kansas City, Mo., that were creating a lot of buzz.

I found myself on a squad the day after receiving my National Registry EMT card. That summer, I took an EMT-Intermediate class from Mike Smith at Mercy Hospital in Des Moines, where I learned not only about intermediate EMT skills, but also about EMS bravado. Mike was very passionate about EMS, and you couldn't help but leave his class excited about the career.

I then enrolled in paramedic training back at Mary Greeley. My life was consumed by EMS two days a week attending Iowa State full time, three nights a week in paramedic school, and on the weekends riding the ambulance in my home town of West Des Moines — with clinicals in between. JEMS began showing up at home, as my stepfather and mother managed the volunteer ambulance. I still have some of those early editions that have traveled with me to every home I have owned.

In 1984, Life Flight Des Moines out of Methodist Hospital decided to take on volunteer attendants to assist the flight nurses. As an EMT-I, I was selected to be part of that program. Once a month I flew weekends with a local helicopter service. Chief Flight Nurse Cathy O'Brien and the rest of the team took me under their wings. It was an extraordinary education in compassion, professionalism and teamwork. As a 20-year-old kid flying in the busiest helicopter in central Iowa, I grew up quickly.

As a new paramedic, I found myself wanting to practice everything I had been taught. Central Iowa in the early '80s was very restrictive in its protocols, and the pay and opportunities for full-time EMS practitioners were poor. I began looking elsewhere. After filling out a reader-service interest card in JEMS, I received a packet in the mail from Mercy Ambulance in Las Vegas. On a whim, I drove to Columbus, Ohio, where Mercy supervisors where picking up new Horton ambulances. EMS Supervisor Mike Sherwood showed me footage of the MGM Fire and a recruiting video — and I was sold. I packed my belongings and moved to Las Vegas, starting at Mercy Ambulance in 1985 for $2.98 an hour, or $14,900 a year.

I worked with many fine medics and many colorful characters at Mercy. After a few short months working for the legendary ambulance tycoon Bob Forbuss, I became part of the management team and a recruiter for Mercy. This put me out at national conferences and on the road to bring the best talent to Mercy. It was at the fourth annual EMS Today conference in San Diego that I first met Jim Page. Jim was interested in what I was hearing from the paramedics I met during my recruiting trips. We stayed in touch, and when I had the opportunity to go to the Henderson (Nev.) Fire Department and leave the private ambulance service, I sought Jim's council.

After watching the constant turnover of good people in Henderson and becoming disheartened by the Medtrans merger that took away the family atmosphere of Mercy, I began looking for new vistas. My interest in the fire service had dwindled, as the gift of medicine was where my heart was. But when I talked to Jim about this, he suggested building something great in Henderson versus going somewhere else. I stayed, and Jim commented many times in the years following about what a great fire-based EMS organization Henderson had become.

Somewhere along the line, I was asked to take over the “EMS Viewpoints” column for FIRE CHIEF. Jim had authored the column for many years before publishing JEMS. Soon afterward, I became involved with the National Fire Academy after a near miss with a chlorine spill that damaged my lungs. I was looking for good training on toxicology and was in the inaugural class of advanced life-support response to hazmat incidents. Jeff Dyar was the chair of the EMS programs at the time. He was always on the lookout for opportunities, and he began pairing me with other fire-based EMS leaders. Jim and Jeff had a special friendship, as Jim was a staunch advocate of the NFA and was lobbying constantly for more EMS at the academy. This push eventually resulted in the addition of EMS curriculum to the Fire and Emergency Services Higher Education project. Standardized course titles and content for EMS management courses became a reality. Annual attendance at the academy is one of the richest experiences you can have in the American fire service.

With the endorsement of then-Las Vegas Fire EMS Chief Ken Riddle, I became involved with the International Association of Fire Chiefs' EMS Section as part of the planning committee for Fire-Rescue Med. This involvement gave me an opportunity to see things from a national perspective, and Jim always was in those circles bestowing his wisdom. The EMS section's mantra of, “Decisions are made by those who show up,” was inherited from Jim. Jim was connected to all of these people.

When Ken Bouvier reached out to the IAFC for more participation in the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians, I found myself involved with the safety issues of America's EMTs. It was a gigantic challenge to take on the role of the safety chair with the full intention to build an EMS safety course similar to Prehospital Trauma Life Support. As that process gets closer to reality under the direction of the NAEMT, the wisdom of the stories in Jim's book Simple Advice resounds the strong safety message we must live by every day.

It was Jim who inspired me to write. As a fire captain, I had thought about writing a book; the more I was becoming removed from EMS as a fire captain, the more I thought there was a lot of information to pass down. Jim promptly sent me a box of material that he had started writing for a new company-officer book with a note: “See what you can do with this.” Later he told me that he had started to revise his Effective Company Command book and felt that it needed a current company officer to do it justice. The offer from Brady Publishing to write the Management of EMS materialized, beginning a three-year odyssey. I see what Jim enjoyed about writing — in doing so, you learn so much and then you want to write more books and articles, and follow many more creative ideas.

Jim Page had an influence and hand in my career in so many ways, as he did with so many others. So I ask the question in the most humble way: How did I get here, to the James O. Page Leadership Award? I did it through the mentorship, kindness and good graces of a network of people who dreamed that the EMS profession would turn out leaders who show up and do what's best for their patients and the community. It has been — and always will be — about making a difference.

Bruce Evans is the EMS chief for the North Las Vegas (Nev.) Fire Department. He also is the fire science program coordinator at the Community College of Southern Nevada and an adjunct faculty member for the National Fire Academy's EMS and injury prevention courses. He has an associate's degree in fire management and a master's degree in public administration.