The ambulance: the police wagon, Mayor Prickett's service, and the fire department's medics

BEFORE 1978–2026 · FROM FIRST AID TO A MODEL PARAMEDIC PROGRAM

The police ambulance era: Before Mishawaka had an ambulance service, the ambulance was the police department's: in De Kever's account the police operated an ambulance whose drivers and officers had little training beyond first aid. The era's national pattern ran through funeral homes elsewhere; Mishawaka's documented predecessor is the police wagon, and it is printed as the record gives it.

The founding, late 1970s: In the late 1970s Mayor Margaret Prickett set out to create a city ambulance service and turned to Michael Hargreaves — then Memorial Hospital's EMS coordinator, who had begun as a firefighter near Lansing and worked as a Union-Lakeville EMT — to build and run it. Under Hargreaves as director, an initial staff of six EMTs was hired, two EMTs always on duty in twenty-four-hour shifts, driving the ambulance to the scene and treating patients in contact with the hospital over a hospital-to-ambulance radio system. Hargreaves was Mishawaka's first paramedic, and in De Kever's judgment he "developed a highly effective paramedicine program that became a model for other cities."

Hargreaves whole: Michael Hargreaves served as the city's EMS chief and then, after EMS merged with the fire department, as its training and instruction division chief, retiring in 2005. The Tribune's measure of the career, in its 7 February 2016 account: he assisted in delivering 39 babies, worked some 550 fires and some 500 CPR incidents, and answered some 15,000 ambulance calls. He died in November 2019, aged 73, after fifty-two years in fire and EMS. The merger year itself rests on the Tribune's obituary account — he retired in 2005 "after EMS merged with the fire department" — and is printed at that strength: the merger stands accomplished by 2005, its exact year a named gap, its settling source the city's ordinances and Board of Public Safety record of those years.

The EMS division inside the fire department: The merged service runs today as the fire department's EMS division. Its chiefs surface in the record at their documented points: Brian Thomas was EMS Division Chief by 2019, quoted in the Hargreaves account; Bill Conyers, the department's EMS Officer, was named 2025 Indiana EMS Officer of the Year by the Indiana Fire Chiefs Association, on the city's announcement of 22 September 2025. The service's legal place is stated in the city's own labor contract with Mishawaka Firefighters Association, IAFF Local 360, effective 1 January 2018: "The City recognizes the Mishawaka Fire Department as the sole provider of paramedic and ambulance services other than mutual aid agreements."

Where the ambulances live: For years the crews were based at one station, on Mishawaka Avenue — the EMS house of the stations entry. The economics pushed outward: ambulance-run revenue rose from $676,000 in 2010 to $1.141 million in 2011 and $1.153 million in 2012 to mid-December, in the Tribune's December 2012 account, and the 2013–14 contract restored a third ambulance crew — first started in 2011, then backed off after a staffing-levels ruling on the union's dispute — and spread the ambulances to three stations: Union Street, North Main Street and Douglas Road. Today the medics run with the engines from the four stations; the department bills for ambulance service through the third-party biller EMS|MC, on its own page.

Sources:

1. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History — the police-operated ambulance before the city service; Mayor Prickett's late-1970s founding; Michael Hargreaves as director; the initial staff of six EMTs, two always on duty in twenty-four-hour shifts; the hospital-to-ambulance radio; the model paramedicine program.
2. South Bend Tribune, obituary account of Michael Hargreaves, November 2019, as carried by Firehouse.com (26 November 2019), with the Tribune's 7 February 2016 career figures — Mishawaka's first paramedic; EMS chief, then training chief; retired 2005 after EMS merged with the fire department; died November 2019 aged 73; 39 babies delivered, some 550 fires, some 500 CPR incidents, some 15,000 ambulance calls; Brian Thomas, EMS Division Chief, quoted 2019.
3. City of Mishawaka and Mishawaka Firefighters Association, IAFF Local 360, collective bargaining agreement effective 1 January 2018 (city Compass posting) — the fire department recognized as sole provider of paramedic and ambulance services other than mutual aid.
4. South Bend Tribune, December 2012, as carried by Firehouse.com (17 December 2012) — crews based at one station on Mishawaka Avenue; the third ambulance crew's 2011 start, suspension, and restoration under the 2013–14 contract; the spread to Union Street, North Main Street and Douglas Road; ambulance revenue 2010–2012.
5. City of Mishawaka announcement, 22 September 2025 — Bill Conyers named 2025 Indiana EMS Officer of the Year; City of Mishawaka, Fire and EMS page — ambulance billing through EMS|MC.