Emergency Medical Services

            In Millinocket’s early days, there was no 9-1-1. In a medical emergency, a phone call connected you with a local town physician by ringing the local telephone operator and having her connect you with your doctor. The doctor would then come to your home, dispense some pills or, in some cases, treat the patient in the home or one of the doctors’ private hospitals.

            During the epidemics of cholera, diphtheria, small pox and typhoid. “Pest houses” were built to quarantine the sick from the rest of the population. The first pest in town was on the road to Stone Dam in a small building purchased from L.J. Butterfield. Another, on Medway Road also had several separate cabins to house families of the sick. A third near was near the current high school. Some hotels and rooming houses were also pressed into use.  

            Millinocket did not have an “ambulance” until the 1930’s. One article says the police department’s blue “paddy wagon” was pressed into service. It had long upholstered benches on either side which were used as temporary beds. The back door swung out for “convenience.”

One news article states that one time a patient was loaded into the paddy wagon for an emergency trip to Bangor (via Medway and down through Mattawamkeag). The dirt road is described as “less than a boulevard” with “chuck holes, ruts and thank-you-marms.” At one point, the patient was thrown to the floor. The surprised driver “braked to a quick stop and gaped at the patient.” The patient, unresponsive at the start of the trip, was conscious and looking well. (It does not say if there was a doctor riding along on the ambulance.) The patient supposedly suffered from meningitis.

Mill accident cases were mostly sent on stretchers in the baggage cars of the B & A to Old Town (end of the line) where they were transferred to the Maine Central RR for the rest of the trip to Bangor. The Laverty book refers to the “Black Maria,” an old hearse belonging to GNP “that carried the sick to the train.”

            A later ambulance (date acquired unknown), is described in a Katahdin Journal article from 1972 as the “present ambulance.” A Cadillac, it was equipped with enough oxygen to get a patient to Bangor. It also carried a resuscitator and emergency first aid equipment. Eleven attendants were licensed to drive the ambulance so it was available at all times. It was equipped with three separate communications systems, a CD band, a regular police and fire short wave system and a standard broadcasting system. This ambulance also had a specifically designed board for removing patients with back injuries. The ambulance could be converted to holding two patients at a time by folding down two of the seats and sliding a convertible bed over them. This ambulance could transport a patient as far as Boston.