EMS West

Information on the Wills for Heroes event in Beaver County on May 29, 2026.

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles.

Ed Hutchinson was a fighter by nature.

He would have been the first to say he’d rather have a spirited discussion of issues than to sit back and not make his views known. It’s the arguments, in his opinion, that lead to the very best decisions being made.

Ed was involved in many disputes as the field of EMS went through its growing pains in the 1960s and 1970s. As one of the early EMSI board members, Ed spent seven years on the board with pioneer Jerry Esposito at the helm.

As the representative for Westmoreland County, Ed worked with other leaders as the then 13 county region worked to establish a unified EMS council. Ed became an advocate for the more rural communities to ensure they had a voice.

In the mid-1960s, Ed helped develop the first state ambulance course at Westmoreland Hospital. At that time, ambulances were ill equipped to handle medical emergencies and undertakers in the area made many of the transports. In Westmoreland, many communities had no ambulance service at all. The course he helped develop trained EMTs to respond to calls and begin providing critical medical servicers while enroute to the hospital, ever from rural areas. This included mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which Ed stated Westmoreland County started using years before the Red Cross adopted the standard.

Following the successful development of the ambulance course, Ed bought and built Mutual Aid Ambulance Service in the late 1960s. He owned the service for 20 years before handing over the reins in the late 1980s.

Throughout his long and successful EMS career, Ed always remained true to his first love: firefighting. He was the fire chief for the Greensburg Volunteer Fire Department for more than 60 years. He saw the role of the fire department in relation to EMS services growing daily as ambulance services became overtaxed.

In many rural areas, Ed stated the fire departments could play a large role in ambulance assists, especially with AED calls. Firefighters in Westmoreland County were some of the first to become equipped with AEDs, thanks to the work of Ed and Dr. Richard Kunkle, a physician at Latrobe Area Hospital, who were instrumental in raising funds and developing a system for placing AEDs in the communities.

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles.

As the first paid EMS coordinator in the state, Bracken Burns had EMS in his blood. His public career began in the early 1970s when he coordinated the Washington County EMS Council as a subcontract under EMSI. As the staff director, he was whisked into the world of EMS, which was beginning to grow at a frenetic pace.
Bracken helped organize EMT and paramedic training for the Washington County area while working diligently on trying to obtain funding for his ambulance services.

Bracken was at the forefront of some of the early CPR training for the general public. He began teaching this live-saving measure five days a week…resulting in personally training thousands of people over several years.

But his love of EMS began before his days as the EMS coordinator. He started his career as a student in Indiana County where he worked under the direction of Jerry Esposito and side-by-side with Glenn Cannon. He took a job with the American Heart Association in Washington County, and then quickly became involved in the local ambulance service working nights and weekends.

In 1972, Bracken graduated from the first Pennsylvania EMT class and immediately began his EMT II paramedic training. That same year, the Washington County EMS Council was formed, and Bracken was hired to run the council in 1974, a job he held until 1996. In 1985 he assumed additional responsibilities as the director of the Emergency Management Agency for Washington County. In 1996 he was elected county commissioner for Washington County.

Bracken spoke with pride of the development of a countywide Quick Response System (QRS) that, in many areas, evolved into a Paramedic QRS. This system, which utilized the equipment and manpower of area fire departments, allowed paramedics to respond to emergency calls from their homes, significantly reducing response times in rural areas. Washington County was the first to develop this revolutionary system that was used in other rural areas statewide.

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles. Check back throughout the week to learn more about the origins of EMS in our region.

Dr. James A. Garrettson, Jr. spent a lifetime taking his EMT work home with him – literally.

As a pioneer in the development of telemetry EKGs from the field in the mid-1970s, Dr. Garretson was intimately involved in the early medical command system at Citizens’ Ambulance Service. An emergency physician in private practice, Dr. Garretson, worked closely with EMTs in the field to send EKGs via the phone line to his office, where he would prescribe intervention. To provide 24-hour access, he and his partner took the telemetry equipment home with them in a Samsonite suitcase every evening.

Within a few years of developing this portable system, Dr. Garretson initiated the first medical command in Indiana County for local emergency rooms where there were no full-time emergency staff. This included developing and teaching courses on paramedic training and modules on airway management training.

The training started with approximately 12 EMTs from substations around the county and then grew exponentially as paramedics from all substations began to seek training. Eventually, after the educational components became standardized, Indiana University of Pennsylvania took over the extensive training sessions.

Several years later, Dr. Garretson was named the director of the Emergency Department at Indiana Hospital but continued to work in an advisory capacity on protocols for EMT training. He also remained as the medical director of Citizens’ Ambulance Service.

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles. Check back throughout the week to learn more about the origins of EMS in our region.

Millie Fincke knew firsthand the valuable role that nurses play in the field of EMS. She put this knowledge into good work when she was actively involved in helping set the standard of care for nurse practitioners in this region’s early days of EMS.

Deep in her heart, Millie always knew that emergency physicians and emergency room nurses were at the core of good quality care as the EMS profession began to take shape. She began working closely with Allegheny General Hospital to set up an Emergency Nurse Practitioner program that became a model for nurse practitioner programs across the country. Her efforts led to the founding of the Western Pennsylvania Emergency Nurses Association in Pittsburgh.

In 1974, Millie began working with Glenn Cannon to write and secure a grant from the US Department of Health and Welfare Public Health Services for the Emergency/Ambulatory Nurse Practitioner Program – a revolutionary program in emergency room nursing. A Presidential grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation followed.

Over the years, she saw more than 300 nurses graduate from Allegheny General’s program, which included students from as far away as British Columbia and Hawaii.

As an original board member of EMSI, Millie was actively working with EMS services to “get doctors and nurses working together with the hospitals to be sure that there were qualified personnel available to treat all patients the way they should be treated.”
A constant advocate on the national scene, Mille was a board member for the Emergency Nurses Association established in 1970, serving as president of that organization in 1975.

It was at the University of Texas at Herman Hospital where she first saw up close a successful helicopter transport system. She was so impressed that she began working with personnel at Allegheny General Hospital to establish helicopter services in Pittsburgh. Several years later, Allegheny General Hospital lent its full support to the program and in September 1978 started the first hospital-based helicopter service (LifeFlight) in the region. At the forefront of the new program were emergency nurse practitioners who went on runs and provided care to patients through air to ground communication with emergency room physicians.

Millie’s local and national notoriety came about from humble beginnings when she graduated from the Allegheny General Hospital School of Nursing in 1947. The day she graduated, the hospital appointed her head nurse in the emergency room, a job she held until 1952 when she took a short break to have children. In 1958, she returned to Allegheny General to help in the Emergency Department during a severe flu epidemic. She then moved to North Hills Passavant Hospital as the supervisor in the Emergency Department and instructor in the Emergency Procedures and CPR program before returning to Allegheny General in 1966. She eventually worked her way up to the position of associate vice president of the Emergency Department in 1982. Millie retired as the vice president of nursing – the first Allegheny General nursing graduate to hold that position.

Millie is seen on the right in this picture.

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles. Check back throughout the week to learn more about the origins of EMS in our region.

With great finesse and diplomacy, Dr. Clara Jean Ersoz was a woman who excelled at the art of bringing people together for a cause.

She began her career at the University of Pittsburgh, where she was the first fellow in the newly formed Critical Care Medicine Program developed by Dr. Peter Safar at Presbyterian-University Hospital. An anesthesiologist, Dr. Ersoz was appointed medical director of Presby’s ICU in 1966. In 1970, she joined the staff at St. Clair hospital as director the ICU and later served as the vice president of Medical Affairs until her retirement in 1993.

Dr. Ersoz’s expertise in team building was put to the test when she brought together government officials from seven municipalities, EMS experts, and police departments to develop EMS systems that included professional paramedics and EMTs in the South Hills area of Pittsburgh. Under her leadership, St Clair hospital provided the medical direction, including the first medical review board to over see the field performance of each paramedic under St. Clair’s command. This was the first time in the county that communities joined together to provide shared services.

Through her guidance, Medical Rescue Team South was formed in 1975 for the communities of Mt Lebanon, Castle Shannon, Baldwin Township and Dormont. In 1978, she helped form Tri-Community South EMS for the communities of Bethel Park, South Park and Upper St. Clair. Her vision and concepts were used as a model for other Allegheny County municipalities developing EMS systems.

Dr. Ersoz also was responsible for St Clair Hospital becoming a leader in prehospital oversight as the hospital began innovative radio transmissions of EKGs to the hospital’s Emergency Department. At the same time, Emergency Department physicians directed care to the paramedic in the field from the hospital.

Dr. Ersoz passed away in the crash of TWA 800 off the waters of New York City.

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles. Check back throughout the week to learn more about the origins of EMS in our region.

Cardiac life support and trauma support are the heart of modern-day EMS services. But for Dr. Allen Schattner, the 1970s saw a surge in the intensity of training in the crucial areas that led the way for the quality EMTs that are on the road today.

As the EMS medical co-director and head emergency room physician at Columbia Health Center in Wilkinsburg (later Forbes Metro), Schattner was on the leading edge of training and medical command in the region. In the early 1970s, he started a medical command program at Columbia that led to his involvement with Glenn Cannon in the mid-1970s. At that time, Glenn was involved with Citizens’ Ambulance Service in Indiana and was interested in Dr. Schattner’s medical command successes. Glenn wanted Dr. Schattner to help develop a similar program for the newly formed EMS Services in the Eastern suburban areas including Monroeville, Penn Hills, Forest Hills and Wilkins-Churchill.

Dr. Schattner gladly agreed and began a paramedic training program that focused on cardiac and trauma support. He moved the training into the hospital and started the first hospital-based medical command system. This allowed many of the paramedics in the field to receive advice and information from a physician who was on-site at the hospital.

Dr. Schattner and several critical care and emergency department nurses trained paramedics in an extensive 80-hour 13-week course designed for advanced critical care and trauma training. The training also included 20 hours a month working under hospital conditions to maintain skills. Over a three-year period from 1973-1976, Dr. Schattner and his group trained 117 paramedics for Pittsburgh EMS and suburban services in Allegheny County.

He offered paramedic training and medical command for approximately 10 years until Columbia became Forbes Metro in 1980. He continued to work in the emergency room and doing medical command until his retirement in 1992.

Thanks to Andy Blenko for the picture

In the fall of 2003, EMS West (then known as EMSI) published a newsletter with articles about "The Pioneers of EMS". During EMS Week 2026, we will be reproducing these articles about leaders, legends, and visionaries. Our thanks to Camille Downing for the original articles. Check back throughout the week to learn more about the origins of EMS in our region.

Glenn Cannon’s interest in EMS began when he was a young man in college in Indiana PA. On one fateful night a man drove his car into a tree in front of one of Indiana’s fraternity houses. Glenn was there and went to the man’s aid. He found him not breathing and began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the local ambulance arrived. The man’s life was saved thanks to Glenn’s quick action and the work of the Citizen’s Ambulance service personnel, including Jerry Esposito. Glenn knew at that moment that he wanted to be involved in the work of saving lives.

Shortly after, Glenn signed up with Citizens’ working on the ambulance. He was able to take part in the first CPR class ever offered by Dr. Peter Safar. While in college, Glenn became increasingly involved in the field of EMS. He worked closely with Esposito, Safar and Dr. Don Benson on designing the first ambulance that allowed a seat to be placed at the head of the patient for proper airway maintenance during transit. He also helped train the new Freedom House Ambulance personnel who traveled to Indiana County to work in Citizens’ vehicles.

After college, Glenn returned to Pittsburgh and became involved in the creation of the first EMS council in 1972 where he was the deputy direct under Esposito’s leadership. The Allegheny County Council on Emergency Medical and Health Services, later known as EMSI (and now EMS West), developed the process of training and certifying ambulance personnel as EMTs. While with the Council, Glenn was active in helping many communities secure funding through the National Highway Traffic Safety Act to help fund training programs and purchase new vehicles and equipment. It was also during this time that Glenn helped many community colleges and vo-tech schools create EMT training programs, including the first EMT instructor course at Community College of Allegheny County.

In 1975, Glenn was hired by the City of Pittsburgh to plan, develop and implement a new advanced life support ambulance system. He was named the director of the newly formed City of Pittsburgh Bureau of Emergency Medical Services and oversaw the transition from the old “rapid transit” police ambulance service to the highly sophisticated ambulance service staffed by paramedics trained in emergency medicine. The paramedics used radio-equipped “super ambulances” that were categorized as the first mobile intensive care units to operate city-wide out of five stations in the West End, South Hills, North Side, East End and Hill District areas of the city.

Glenn remained active in rescue and other non-traditional ambulance work. He was able to successfully expand the EMS service into the areas of paramedic rescue, river rescue, trench and specialized rescue. He also created the City of Pittsburgh’s first hazardous materials response team, the first in Pennsylvania.

Glenn worked with several of the early physician pioneers to bring about quality prehospital emergency care in the days before the State EMS Act and State paramedic certification. He also worked with Dr. Sol Edelstein and Dr. Nancy Caroline on developing a medical command system that included emergency physicians in the prehospital process of service delivery. The concept grew rapidly into what is todays’ Center for Emergency Medicine and the affiliated emergency residency,

In the mid-1980s, Glenn was named the City of Pittsburgh Public Safety Director where he continued this advocacy for EMS, from training 911 call takers in giving pre-arrival instructions to callers in need, to adding the fire department first responders to the EMS system.

Glenn is on the far right in this archived photo.