Feb. 24, 2023 Dr. Leonard Cobb’s program to send firefighters with cardiac equipment on serious calls was called radical.

By Elise Takahama Source The Seattle Times (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Feb. 24—It’s difficult to pinpoint how Dr. Leonard Cobb came up with the idea to train firefighters in emergency medical care, but friends and family believe one particular afternoon more than 60 years ago played a role.

Cobb and his wife, Else, had stopped at a market in Seattle’s Madrona neighborhood for a frozen snack when they noticed a man slumped over in a nearby car.

When Cobb opened the car door to check on him, the man sagged to the ground.

Cobb stayed with the man while his wife rushed to a nearby fire station for help. A firefighter hurried over to bring oxygen, but there wasn’t much else he could do until the man was taken to the hospital, Else Cobb, 88, remembers.

“It was an incident where Leonard felt the fireman could have done more if he had known what to do,” his wife said this week.

In the following decades, Cobb devoted his career to researching cardiac care and developing Medic One, one of the country’s first efforts to deliver emergency medical care to patients before they arrived at the hospital. He was 96 when he died in his home at the Terraces of Skyline last week, surrounded by family.

The former Harborview Medical Center doctor was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1926, eventually earning undergraduate and medical degrees at the University of Minnesota.

In the late 1950s, Cobb moved to Seattle to practice cardiology at the University of Washington — where he eventually met his future wife, Else Snoep at the time.

Their first date, a UW football game, was the first time she had seen the sport.

“I’m a Dutch girl, and I grew up with soccer,” she said. “I told him that maybe he should take someone else because I wouldn’t know what was going on. He said, ‘I’ll explain it all to you.'”

Cobb was already passionate about improving areas of cardiology in the 1960s, but was particularly determined to find faster ways to get care to patients outside the hospital, said Dr. Michael Sayre, current medical director of the Seattle Fire Department and its Medic One program, which now responds to about 550 calls a year.

At the time, the idea of firefighters providing serious medical care was “pretty radical,” Sayre said.

Paramedics didn’t exist then, and extensive medical training wasn’t required for many ambulance crews. Ambulances were stocked with bandages and oxygen, but little else, he said.

Cobb wasn’t alone in his thinking. Because new research and technology on emergency medicine was emerging from Europe in the late 1960s — particularly the use of mobile defibrillators — several physicians in the United States were also brainstorming ways to speed up care in life-or-death situations.

Cobb knew there weren’t enough doctors and nurses to deploy to every emergency medical call, Sayre said, but firefighters were already well dispersed throughout the city and could get places quickly.

He teamed up with Seattle’s fire chief, Gordon Vickery, to map out a pilot training program for firefighters and secure federal grant funding. In 1970, the city launched its initial version of the program, which trained firefighters and equipped “aid cars” for the first time with portable electrocardiogram units that read heart activity, pacemakers, resuscitators and defibrillators, in addition to standard first-aid equipment, according to The Seattle Times archives.

The program planned to dispatch the mobile unit — which initially consisted of two firefighters and a doctor — to heart-attack calls if the patient could be reached within five minutes, The Times reported.

About a year later, follow-up coverage reported Medic One had already responded to more than 600 calls, including to 16 patients who were revived after being found “clinically dead,” Cobb said in an interview at the time. Popularity of the program was growing and things were going smoothly.

Then, in late 1970, federal cutbacks whittled down the program’s grant and nearly put Medic One out of business. But Cobb and Vickery organized a fundraising drive — which yielded an “extraordinary response,” archives say.

“The community stepped up,” Sayre said, referencing bake sales and door-to-door efforts. “They needed to raise about $100,000 and they raised $200,000.”

The Seattle Fire Department eventually incorporated Medic One into its system for good. The idea has popped up in other parts of the country since then — but all of Washington’s Medic One and EMS systems are modeled after Cobb’s initial program, Sayre added.

In 1972, Cobb’s and Vickery’s Medic Two, which aimed to also train community members in CPR, came along. To date, more than a million members of the public have gone through the program, according to the Seattle Fire Department.

“We continue to see how important that is,” Sayre said. “People who get CPR started by a member of the public are twice as likely to survive. … It has to happen quickly, or it’s impossible for your heart to restart.”

He continued, “Now, millions of people learn this skill in high school. But that was a novel idea in Seattle at the time.”

In 2008, Cobb also helped introduce the city’s Resuscitation Academy, which trains EMTs to further improve outcomes for cardiac arrest patients.

Former colleagues remember Cobb as a hands-on leader with a relentless work ethic and constant desire to improve his programs, Sayre said. He even continued working on research up until two years ago, according to John Cobb, his younger son.

“He was forever writing papers on hospital medical care,” Else Cobb added. “Forever looking for better outcomes.”

Now, Seattle is “renowned for one of the finest EMS systems in the country,” according to the volunteer-led National EMS Museum, which documents the history of emergency medical response in the U.S.

Sayre, who knew Cobb for nearly 20 years, said he’ll never forget his mentor’s humility.

“That really made him a great leader,” he said.

But outside of medicine, Cobb’s top priority was his family.

Son John Cobb, 58, especially has fond memories spending summers at their cabin on the Oregon coast, playing bocce ball on the beach and crabbing on the Nehalem River.

When Cobb died, he opted to end his life through Washington state’s Death with Dignity Act, which allows terminally ill adults to request lethal doses of medication.

“His mind was all there, but unfortunately, his body was giving out,” John Cobb said. “He had lost his eyesight. He couldn’t walk. For him, he knew it wasn’t the type of life he wanted to live any longer.”

The day before Cobb died, he spent time with his family and longtime Medic One friends. The next morning was peaceful, his son said.

“In his last minutes, his grandson read one of the poems that had been written for him [by a family member],” John Cobb said. “Those were the last words he heard as he fell asleep. It was a wonderful moment.”

Cobb is survived by his two sons, Eric and John; his wife, Else; and five grandchildren, Alex, Pate, Lindsay, Miles and Owen.

A public memorial ceremony, organized by the Seattle Fire Department and UW Medicine, is in the works. His family has asked that contributions in his memory be made to the Medic One Foundation at 11747 N.E. First St., Unit #310, Bellevue, WA, 98005.

Feb. 23, 2023 Casilia Loessberg’s suit calls what she was subjected to at the San Jose Fire Department “horrific and unlawful.”

By Ethan Baron Source Bay Area News Group (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Casilia Loessberg dreamed of becoming a firefighter. After seven years in the U.S. Marines, she turned her dream to reality when she joined the San Jose Fire Department — but sexual abuse, racism and anti-Semitism drove her out, she claims in a lawsuit filed this week.

Loessberg joined the San Jose Fire Department in 2015, according to the suit filed Wednesday against the City of San Jose.

“What happened next was horrific and unlawful,” the suit in Santa Clara County Superior Court alleges. “For the next six years, Casilia was sexually assaulted, harassed, discriminated against, and humiliated, by the very firefighters with whom she worked.”

San Jose City Attorney Nora Frimann said she had not seen the lawsuit or Loessberg’s claims, and that her office doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

When Loessberg started in the San Jose Fire Department, women made up less than 4% of career U.S. firefighters, according to the federal government’s U.S. Fire Administration, which reported that female firefighters repeatedly describe discrimination and harassment as key barriers to having more women in firefighting. A 2020 Santa Clara County civil grand jury report said only 4% of firefighters in the county were women because of gender bias, insufficient female recruitment and a “lack of inclusivity,” and that San Jose’s department had only 2% women.

The City of San Jose has paid out more than $1 million in a judgment and settlements to female firefighters in lawsuits involving gender-based retaliation, discrimination, and harassment, the grand jury found. A City of San Jose response to the grand jury report said the number of female firefighters in its department plummeted from a peak of 43 in 2010 to 17 in 2020. In October, a bikini-clad woman was seen on video stepping out of a San Jose Fire Department engine truck and into The Pink Poodle strip club, and GPS data revealed the engine later stopped outside a San Jose bikini bar.

During Loessberg’s probation, a supervisor insinuated that she was unable to do her job because she was a woman, then pinned her against a fire truck with his body, reached inside her pants and groped her buttocks, Loessberg claims. The man rubbed his crotch against her and whispered in her ear, she alleges. A “shocked” male co-worker who witnessed the purported incident said nothing, Loessberg claims. Because the man outranked her, and she had to “live with her fellow firefighters and rely on each other during life-or-death situations,” she did not report the incident to higher-ups, according to her suit.

The supervisor also made other “unwelcome advances” to her, and she learned he had “allegedly assaulted a female paramedic who worked for a Santa Clara County ambulance company,” the suit claims. Her pleas to superiors to keep her from assignments to the man’s location “were met with apathy” and she used personal time off to avoid working alongside him, she alleges.

In 2017, Loessberg became the first woman firefighter at San Jose’s Station 3, considered to be a “rough and tough” location nicknamed “the cowboy station,” according to the suit. There, a supervisor began sending her nude photos of women who looked like her, with messages saying “thinking of you” and “this reminds me of you,” her suit claims. One photo showed a frontal view of a woman standing with one leg against a wall, her genitals and breasts exposed, Loessberg alleges. In harassment that went on for months, the man, married with children, regularly subjected Loessberg to comments such as, “You smell really, really good,” her suit claims. Because the man was closely related to a chief in the department, she feared for her safety, and possible retaliation for reporting his behavior, she alleges.

Also at that station was a “known Nazi sympathizer” and racist, who would “regularly and openly make racist and anti-Semitic remarks, including continual use of the ‘N’ word, statements about genocide of the Jewish people, and his support of the Nazi party,” Loessberg claims. The man drew swastikas in the firehouse kitchen, and a fire captain who saw the images told him to “calm down” but imposed no discipline, her suit alleges. When the man asked Loessberg if she was Jewish she told him she believed she was German, and he insisted that because of her last name she must be Jewish, and said, “Jews should all be put into the ovens,” she claims in the suit.

At least three times, the man told her she would have to pay the “coal toll,” which she understood to be a reference to being Black, she alleges. That man, too, made an “unwelcome” and “sexually laden” invitation for Loessberg to come to his home, when his wife and children were absent, her suit claims.

In late 2021, during a training session outside Sacramento, another supervisor texted her to invite her to shower in his room, she claims. She reported the message to her direct supervisor, who reported it to a battalion chief, who interviewed Loessberg and told her a deputy chief was trying to “squash this,” her suit alleges.

Loessberg claims it was her participation in extensive anti-sexual-harassment training in late 2021 that empowered her to “fully fight the mistreatment she was enduring.” After a video-meeting with a human-resources representative, Loessberg was interviewed three times between December 2021 and November 2022 by representatives of the City of San Jose, according to her suit.

She claims she was “constructively discharged” from her employment as a firefighter, a legal term describing when a person leaves a job because of intolerable working conditions. Loessberg, who had aspired to work her way up the ladder to become a battalion chief, “was given the unfathomable choice of leaving her chosen career or, alternatively, being forced to put herself at risk, work with her abusers, and continue to suffer the consequences,” her suit alleges.

She claims the alleged abuse, and the City of San Jose’s purported failure to stop it, caused her to suffer “extreme emotional distress and severe trauma,” and that her reputation in the firefighting community and her future employment prospects have been damaged. She is seeking unspecified damages, and compensation for lost wages.

Feb. 23, 2023 San Antonio Firefighter Scott Deem was fighting an intentionally set fire in a strip mall when he died.

By Emilie Eaton Source San Antonio Express-News (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Feb. 22—The man accused of intentionally setting a shopping center ablaze in 2017, which caused the death of San Antonio firefighter Scott Deem, is expected to go to trial this year.

The case against Emond Johnson, 44, has been tied up in pretrial proceedings for nearly six years. He faces charges of murder and arson resulting in death.

Johnson appeared in court Wednesday for a hearing to determine when the trial could begin. One of his attorneys, J. Charles Bunk, suggested Sept. 18 or Oct. 10. Prosecutors said they needed to talk with witnesses to know if those dates worked for them.

Investigators say Johnson was behind on lease payments on his gym in Ingram Square, a shopping mall on the Northwest Side, and had other debts, prompting him to set the building on fire on May 18, 2017.

Deem, 31, was killed trying to extinguish the blaze.

The delay in going to trial was lengthened by the COVID-19 pandemic, which slowed the courts and postponed even high-profile criminal cases. Before the pandemic, Johnson’s attorneys attempted to have the trial moved, arguing that extensive publicity had made a fair trial impossible in Bexar County. A judge denied that motion in 2019.

During Wednesday’s hearing, prosecutors said they had already turned over all evidence to Johnson’s defense attorneys. Bunk said seven months would be an adequate amount of time to review all the material and prepare Johnson’s defense.

State District Judge Kristina Escalona asked Johnson at the end of the hearing if he understood what was going on.

“Yes ma’am,” he responded.

Escalona said attorneys and court personnel were doing “everything we can to get you to trial.”

Another hearing is scheduled for March 22, at which time attorneys and prosecutors will finalize the trial schedule and dates to hear pretrial motions.

Escalona said she expects the trial will take five weeks.

Feb. 23, 2023 The cost of basic life support ambulance service through the city’s 9-1-1 system would rise from $900 to $1,385.

By Chris Sommerfeldt, Leonard Greene Source New York Daily News (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Patients and the companies that insure them would have to pay more for rides in FDNY ambulances under a rate hike proposed to offset the cost of inflation and salary increases for emergency medical technicians and paramedics, fire officials said.

Under a proposal published Tuesday by the FDNY, the cost of basic life support ambulance service through the city’s 911 system would rise from $900 to $1,385, a 54% increase.

The proposed fee schedule also calls for an additional charge of $20 per mile traveled, up from $15 per mile.

“The charges for ambulance service were last increased two years ago, in January 2021,” the department said in a notice announcing a public hearing on the rate hike.

“The proposed rates in part reflect increases (including recent EMS collective bargaining increases and inflation) in personal services costs and other than personal services costs required to provide emergency ambulance service. The proposed rate increases have been calculated to reduce the portion of such costs that is currently borne by city taxpayers.”

The cost of providing oxygen will remain the same at $66.

The last rate hike was delayed because of the COVID 19 pandemic.

An FDNY spokeswoman said increases are expected to take effect this spring and would result in a $4 million revenue boost for the city for this fiscal year, and a $16.3 million revenue bump for next fiscal year.

The FDNY has scheduled an online public hearing on the issue for March 24.

But Bronx City Councilman Oswald Feliz, who is a member of the Council’s Fire and Emergency Management Committee, doesn’t need that long to weigh in on the proposal.

“I’m definitely concerned about how this can affect low-income families who might need these services for medical emergencies,” said Feliz, who represents one of the city’s poorest districts.