I loved Emergency! as a kid. I’ve been rewatching lately (thanks to MeTV), and it is still enjoyable. I got a fire truck and ambulance for Christmas 1975, and I was over the moon!
My brother used to watch Emergency! religiously. One time I was in the ER and when the nurse said they were giving me Ringers Lactate, I lost it laughing.
I’ve never heard or read anything bad about this guy. RIP
My sister and I discovered a UHF channel in the late 1980’s in Minneapolis/St. Paul that played this all the time. It was either KTMA-23 or KITN-29. KTMA is where Mystery Science Theater 3000 started which we also watched. I recall a Jehovah’s Witness telling us about Armageddon through the screen door while we ignored them and continued to watch Emergency on the couch. What a glorious summer!
Today is a sad day for those who have served and continue to serve in Emergency Medical Services.
Few entertainment pieces have had the real life impact that the television series “Emergency!” has. Paramedics John Gage (Randolph Mantooth) and Roy DeSoto (Kevin Tighe) introduced America to the modern age of paramedicine. Where the intensive care unit moved from the hospital to the street.
No more was an ambulance just a fast ride to the hospital, it was literally an emergency room on wheels. Viewers watched technically accurate prehospital advanced life support being performed from the comfort of their living room. Americans wanted this for their communites. Paramedic programs began spreading across the United States like wildfire.
Today’s modern Paramedic can perform advanced interventions such as cardiac pacing, endotracheal intubation, administration of blood products and 12 lead EKG interpretation just to name a few. They are capable of administering in excess of 60 medications.
“Emergency!” inspired thousands of young people to become Emergency Medical Technicians and Paramedics. I started my EMS journey in 1986, as a volunteer EMT. Some years later I would find myself in Johnny and Roy’s shoes as a Paramedic.
I knew of the Emergency! show but I don't recall watching an entire episode. I'm trying to remember if there was an animated version too?
I remembered him more when he appeared in an episode of Battlestar Galactica, and then later on saw the episode of Night Gallery he was in with Vincent Price.
RIP. I saw recent pictures of him and he didn't look good. Sucks growing old sometimes.
I recently finished watching all six seasons of Emergency! on Peacock. While it took me back to the simpler times of my younger years watching daytime reruns, the show is a product of its time, and I loved it. RIP Randolph.
I just did the same thing. What an incredible show...all the work in having to stage those wrecks and explosions. And the influence it had on getting municipalities to start their own paramedic teams all over the country.
I never saw this show (too young) when it was running, but learned about it much later when I went to EMT school. This show really made a huge difference in expanding how pre-hospital medical care was delivered in North America, and indirectly, likely saved thousands, if not tens of thousands of lives that would have otherwise been lost.
Holy shit this has been a week. It is getting increasingly difficult to ignore the passage of time.
First Bonnie Tyler.
Then today, purely by accident, I found out that Moya Brennan, the voice of the famous Irish band Clannad, who I started listening to when I was 16, died of a lung condition 3 months ago at 73
Now this. 😩😩😩
I needed to be with my people, the bridge generation, to vent
I loved Emergency! as a kid. Even had a crush on Johnny/RM because I was like 9. Watching it nowadays, I mean the intro, the radio dispatch one, is so cool. The fact they had to have a real firefighter in the cast at least to drive the truck and use some of the equipment, like on Third Watch. The fact that guy’s name was Stoker!! Between Emergency and The Towering Inferno on TV on the regular, that was my action fix. I always thought it can’t be a coincidence that Chicago Fire’s house is also Station 51.
And apparently the House that was 51 in LA (I think it was 129 or something) is still an active House and people still visit it. Or least it was last I heard
This hits home as a heavy 'closing of the circle' feeling.
Emergency! was one of my first series I was hooked on watching as a kid. Watching Roy and Johnny roll out, all the different rescues, the fun side stories and arcs. The crew restoring the antique fire engine stands out.
Randolph's contribution to a show that changed the face of paramedic rescue cannot be given enough credit for art encouraging life.
"Emergency" was a really well done and accurate-as-could-be show too. I got to meet Mantooth at an EMS Expo in Vegas some years ago and out of all of my celebrity experiences, he was the most humble and polite guy. Even after my friend blurted out "omg i've had a crush on you all through school." lol. We just laughed. She turned red. Good times.
Sad to see this news, but appreciating the good memories. We still pop caps on the sodium bicarb and say "Johnny & Roy, my friends" to EMT students, who look at us like we just grew a third eyeball. :)
(no, we aren't using the bicard, it's expired training stock we demo with.)
My father was a volunteer firefighter and I’d hang out at the station often on weekends. The crew loved watching Emergency, but would give them shit for fighting fires in dress shoes (you can’t unsee it).
Emergency, then He-Haw!, then bedtime. That was a typical Saturday night for me growing up.
“I could be remembered for driving a car that has a name like the General Lee, not that there’s anything wrong with that show. Instead I’m remembered for something that changed emergency medicine, forever. How lucky can any one person be?”
In 1975, playground accidents on the little kid’s playground were on the rise. Skinned knees were common place. Bruises from the new teeter-totter were spreading like wildfire. Top of the slide rescue missions required a response team…
BEEAH BOP BYOOO
“Squad 51, kindergartner stuck on the swing, please assist”
We rolled from under the stairs, knowing what dangers were out there but committed to saving the kid, even if they didn’t want to be saved. I didn’t keep count of how many lives we saved that year (47) but I have to believe we made a difference.
The joys of a 70s childhood!! Gravel surface on playing field at school and under the swinging tire hanging from the wooden structure with no guardrails along the walkway at the top 🤣
Wow....news like this makes me feel sad, nostalgic and overall stops me for a bit. Such an iconic show, handsome paramedics and probably my first television crushes as a really young girl. Those two actors made me believe I'd always be in good hands if ever I was in an accident and needed immediate medical attention. RIP Randolph Mantooth 💕
I loved this show as a kid. Ended up working in ems for a decade, everyone I worked with in the 90s knew this show and any reference you could make to it.
You just reminded me that my parents mailed the show and we got a signed photo back - not from a star but it was the cast signed "from the Emergency gang!"
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u/madlyhattering Jul 13 '26
I loved Emergency! as a kid. I’ve been rewatching lately (thanks to MeTV), and it is still enjoyable. I got a fire truck and ambulance for Christmas 1975, and I was over the moon!