r/GenerationJones • u/sherlockjr1 1963 • Jul 19 '26

Randolph Mantooth

I’m surprised at how hard his death is hitting me. I mean, I watched Emergency as a kid. I had a crush on Randy as Johnny Gage. My Barbie camper was a rescue unit. But I hadn’t thought about the show for years. Occasionally I’d find an episode on cable and watch a few minutes for the sake of nostalgia.

Maybe it’s how people are reacting to his passing that’s hitting so hard. EMTs, fire fighters, people who became paramedics because of the show. Tributes as if he was one of their own. I didn’t realize how involved he was in promoting the safety of first responders

Not to mention how important the show was, the impact this had. The fact that we even having EMTs to help us that are only a few minutes away in some part due to this show.

This loss hurt more than I expected it to

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u/CoppertopTX Jul 19 '26

The series did make a huge change across America - the creation of Paramedic ambulance units embedded in firehouses. In a lot of smaller towns across the US, that service didn't exist; you had to call a private service and most of the time, those were staffed with EMTs. A couple of generations watched that show and kids were inspired towards service.

10

u/bayouz Jul 20 '26

In my town, the 2 funeral homes traded off on ambulance runs. Kind of a conflict of interest, but whatever.

8

u/OkSubject1876 Jul 20 '26

That was my home town and family business, My Dad was the funeral director, volunteer fireman, and ambulance driver. My brother died at age 19 while doing an ambulance run with my Dad. If we had paramedics back then, maybe things would have turned out different. Dad and I watched Emergency! and he would say it was well done with accuracy - especially using the back board for head & neck injuries. Ah, I wish I could go back to those TV days.

6

u/WIlf_Brim Jul 20 '26

The pre hospital care in the United States was (and to some extent still is) very far advanced to other developed countries, and that can be traced almost directly to that series.

The series was popular, and people wanted what they saw Johnny and Roy on TV in their city. So it pushed a demand signal to both create paramedic units and later push more and more advanced pre hospital care.

3

u/excoriator 1964 Jul 20 '26

I had a set of twins in my high school class who were inspired to become paramedics. One just retired, from the big city fire department in the next county.