The ambulance: from the police wagon to the EMS Division

1907–2026 · THE LONG ROAD TO FIRE-BASED EMS

A police ambulance: The first ambulance in this record is the police department's. The business men's leaflet of 1907, reprinted in Howard's history, lists a "Police ambulance system" among the city's assets, beside the Gamewell fire and police alarms — the patrol wagon doubled as the ambulance, the standard arrangement of its decade, and the leaflet is the whole of the documentation: no purchase, crew or hospital arrangement for it survives in the record reached.

The undertaker's contract: A generation later the city's ambulance was a contract, and the contract survives whole. On 1 April 1935 the Board of Public Safety entered an agreement with Earl Hollis, an undertaker of St. Joseph County, who covenanted to furnish ambulance service for all indigents requesting it — other than emergency cases — and to furnish the city ambulance service in emergencies when a second call was required, twenty-four hours a day, subject to call from the proper authorities, exercising proper skill and care over the persons coming into his care. The city's own medical transport, outside the police wagon's emergency work, was thus a funeral director's sideline, bought by the year. How long the arrangement ran, and what succeeded it, is not in the record reached.

The fire department takes the ambulance: The fire-based system that now runs the city's ambulances is documented from its financing forward. The dedicated EMS Capital Fund — Fund #288 — was created by the Common Council in the 1970s, as Assistant Chief Rick Switalski told the council's Personnel and Finance Committee on 16 August 2005, and "has benefited the department by providing funds for equipment, turnout gear, etc." By November 1991 the city's bond statement lists ambulances among the South Bend Fire Department's equipment, in a department of 212 firefighters that also fielded pumpers, river rescue boats, ladder trucks and hazardous materials trucks. The 2005 budget testimony gives the system's scale at that date: 248 sworn firefighters, all but fourteen on twenty-four-hour duty; 51 paramedics used in the EMS operations; some 18,000 ambulance calls billed; revenue from a 911 EMS contract; and a working partnership with Ivy Tech for paramedic classes. The exact year the fire department began running ambulances is not in the record reached, and is named as a gap; the fund's creation in the 1970s is the earliest dated anchor the department's own testimony gives.

The modern EMS division: By 2013 the system had a division, a billing office and a training regime, all documented in Chief Stephen Cox's annual report of 22 April 2014. The EMS Division provided recertification training for all personnel — CPR, Advanced Cardiac Life Support, Pediatric Education for Prehospital Professionals — and monthly EMS training department-wide; when the state changed its EMS certification classifications, about a third of the department was affected, and fifteen firefighters took the state's one-time bridge class from Intermediate EMT to paramedic. The SBFD EMS Billing Office's personnel had all achieved national certification as Certified Ambulance Coders, and the department's EMS reimbursements passed $3 million in 2013. SBFD personnel provided EMS coverage for most Notre Dame sporting events — football, basketball, hockey and soccer — and covered all campus 911 EMS calls; the department answered over 20,000 calls for service in 2013 and sat on the operations board of the county's new consolidated dispatch center. In March 2018 the department launched a community paramedicine program — firefighter/EMT Suzie Krill visiting frequent 911 callers whose needs were not time-dependent emergencies, under Assistant Chief for EMS Andy Myer — modeled on programs in Raleigh-Durham, Minneapolis–St. Paul and Tucson. The division's command was an established chair by then: Steve Cox, a later chief, had been assistant chief of EMS from 2007, as the Public Servants section records.

The division today: The department's EMS Division page, last updated 8 May 2025, states the present establishment in its own terms. The division "provides the largest fire department based EMS system in northern Indiana" — the division's own description, printed as its claim — led by an assistant chief and three shift captains. Its structure: 73 paramedics, 44 intermediate emergency medical technicians, 24 advanced EMTs and 84 basic EMTs, with five Advanced Life Support ambulances responding within the city — the Medic units the stations page distributes across the houses — and ALS ambulance coverage extended to the western and southern portions of St. Joseph County under an intergovernmental agreement between the mayor and the county commissioners. The department sits on the St. Joseph County EMS Committee, with medical direction provided by Memorial Hospital of South Bend and St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Mishawaka, and its partnership with Ivy Tech has grown into an Associate of Science in Paramedic Science, its classes held in the central fire station's classrooms and its ambulance clinical rotations run on the department's own medic units. The ambulance that began as a line in a booster leaflet and an undertaker's contract is now, by the department's own account, the larger half of what the fire department is.

Sources:

1. South Bend business men's leaflet, reprinted in Howard (1907), vol. 1, "Sec. 7 — South Bend Summary" — "Police ambulance system" among the city's assets, 1907.
2. City of South Bend, Board of Public Safety minutes, 1 April 1935 (city document archive) — the Earl Hollis ambulance contract, read in the minutes' text.
3. City of South Bend, Personnel and Finance Committee minutes, 16 August 2005 (city document archive) — the EMS Capital Fund created in the 1970s; 248 sworn firefighters; 51 paramedics; 18,000 ambulance calls billed; the Ivy Tech partnership.
4. City of South Bend Redevelopment Authority, official statement (November 1991) — the fire department's 212 firefighters and equipment including ambulances.
5. South Bend Fire Department, 2013 Annual Report (Chief Stephen Cox, 22 April 2014, city document archive) — the EMS Division's training, the billing office's Certified Ambulance Coders, reimbursements over $3 million, Notre Dame event and campus coverage, 20,000 calls.
6. South Bend Tribune, 25 March 2018 — the community paramedicine launch; Assistant Chief for EMS Andy Myer; firefighter/EMT Suzie Krill.
7. City of South Bend, South Bend Fire Department Emergency Medical Services Division page (southbendin.gov, last updated 8 May 2025) — the division's structure, ALS ambulances, county agreement, committee, medical direction and Ivy Tech degree partnership.