(Source of picture: 1956 Jacksonville phone directory; picture below: Florida State Archives)

Click here for Funeral Home Ambulances, Part Two

Let's say that you or someone else was sick or injured and needed to be rushed to a hospital.  Not so long ago, you would probably have called a funeral home!  As late as the mid 1970s, funeral home ambulances transported people to emergency rooms.  The services shown above were provided by Jacksonville funeral businesses during the mid Fifties.  By fulfilling a vital function, their ambulances saved numerous lives that would have otherwise been lost. 

The advertisement above came from a 1956 Jacksonville phone directory.  It publicized a funeral home with radio-dispatched ambulances that contained oxygen & resuscitator equipment.  The photo below shows a ambulance from 1922.  It was provided by a Miami Beach undertaking establishment.

The first motorized ambulance in America rolled out in 1899.  Battery powered, this van zoomed along at a whopping 16 miles an hour.   In 1901, it transported the dying President William McKinley after he was shot by an assassin.

In the years to come, it often fell to funeral homes to double as ambulance services.  Their hearses seemed well suited for carrying a person quickly, comfortably, and horizontally; the vehicles were large enough to accommodate long stretchers.  And funeral personnel were already on call twenty-four hours a day. 

ANTIQUE JAX AMBULANCE -- Was the River City's first ambulance a hearse?  A newspaper account of it is ambiguous.  Nevertheless, a local funeral home did provide the vehicle.  In 1910, Jacksonville became "the second city in the South to secure an automobile ambulance," according to the Florida Times-Union of December 15 that year.  The auto was purchased by Marcus Conant Funeral Directors & Embalmers, located at 16 East Forsyth Street, which today would be across from the windows of the Florida Collection at the Main Public Library downtown.  (A parking garage now occupies the spot.)  Boasted the Times-Union,  "The handsome machine arrived yesterday and was immediately put in service..."  A 50-horsepower, four-cylinder engine powered the ambulance, "a beauty in every respect."  Its most noticeable feature was "the lack of vibration," which would otherwise "disturb the patient."  

The Times-Union furnished other juicy details about the new emergency vehicle:  "The interior of the machine is finished in mahogany, the attendants seats are upholstered in black leather, and an elegantly upholstered bed (is provided) for the patient.  The machine throughout is equipped with three kinds of lights (gas, electricity, and oil), while the interior of the machine is fitted with electric fans, speaking tubes, thermometer, and water cooler, all of brass finish.  The tires are heavy and of the quick detachable type with demountable rings enabling the driver to make a complete change in three minutes... The exterior of the ambulance is of a silver gray color, trimmed with gold.  The speed is from three to sixty miles per hours, and the machine is equipped with every possible safety appliance."   

LIFE & DEATH CONCERNS -- By the 1960s, over half of America's ambulances were not vehicles made specifically for the care & transport of patients.  Instead, they were hearses, station wagons, vans, or trucks.  During the Sixties & early Seventies, however, an increasing number of ambulances proved to be mini-hospitals on wheels, complete with two-way radios.  There were many reasons for this change.  They include the following:

* Ambulance attendants could take advantage of increased educational opportunities concerning emergency medical assistance.  The medical training of ambulance personnel became much more comprehensive.

* In 1966, Medicare regulations required ambulances to contain personnel trained in Advanced First Aid by the Red Cross.

* In order to decrease auto fatalities, the federal Highway Safety Administration focused on the "medic" concept that had worked so effectively in Vietnam.

* Federal laws regulated the pay of ambulance attendants.  Consequently, many funeral homes couldn't earn enough money from their vehicles to maintain the ambulance services.

* The public perception of ambulance attendants largely changed because of the hit TV show "Emergency!"  Broadcast from 1972 to 1977, the series made "paramedic" a household word.  On the weekly drama, the paramedics, played by actors, provided highly skilled medical assistance to patients as they were raced to the hospital.  The ambulance personnel seemed so advanced at the time, communicating with doctors by special radios.  (Jack Webb was the producer who got the ball rolling for the show.  He also created "Dragnet" and played the stone-faced Sergeant Friday.)

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