INTERVIEW

January 23, 2001

Interviewer: Marion Blackburn

Marion Blackburn: John, would you please introduce yourself.

John Watson: I'm John Watson from Bethel, North Carolina formerly with Pitt Memorial Hospital.

Marion Blackburn: It is still almost impossible for me to believe there was a time when hearses carried perfectly well, not well but perfectly alive people, from either their homes to the hospital or from one hospital to the other.

John Watson: That is exactly what the situation was until January of 1968. Until that time the funeral directors or morticians used their hearse to transport patients from automobile wrecks, from sick beds, from hospitals to back home or from one hospital to another. The hearses were the only vehicle that could be equipped or that was equipped to transport patients in a prone position. Vans were not popular then like they are now. There were a few commercial vans but nobody had private vans. There were a lot of pickup trucks and that sort of thing but there were no vans of the type we see now running about.

There were station wagons; in fact, the first rescue vehicle that Greenville had was a Chevrolet station wagon loaned to them for one year at a time by White Chevrolet Company.

Marion Blackburn: What year was that? Would that be after 1968?

John Watson: That was right after World War II. What they would do is they would use this Chevrolet station wagon as a demonstrator or a test ride as a demonstrator. The rescue squad would use it for a year and then they would take it back and put it on the lot and sell it as a demonstrator.

Marion Blackburn: So that was the only emergency vehicle that we had?

John Watson: That was the only emergency vehicle besides the mortician's hearse.
Marion Blackburn: I don't want to get ahead of the game but how did the morticians get involved?

John Watson: They had the vehicle, they had the only vehicle that would accommodate a prone patient. They would put a little cot in there instead of the standard casket. They would put an ambulance cot in there. They took the curtains down and put the patients in. It sounds like they were in competition with themselves and some of them had been accused of picking up a dead patient and leaving a live patient. That accusation had been made and I can't witness to it but I have heard the stories.

Marion Blackburn: So, in other words, it sounds like today we think about medicine and we think about health care and we look at EastCare and we know when an ambulance vehicle comes to get us that we are in such good hands. It almost sounds like what you are saying is that after World War II you might get an emergency vehicle or you might just get a hearse.

John Watson: At that time. Now after the Korean War that is when emergency medicine really took a turn. If you remember M.A.S.H., those soldiers were picked up on the battlefield and within a few minutes they were in an operating room. When those GI medics got back home they looked at the situation here that the civilians were having to put up with and they got busy and we had a change in emergency medicine.

Marion Blackburn: I am curious. When one was in a wreck, how did he know if he was going to get the station wagon or the hearse. In other words, was there a method of determining whether a person got that emergency vehicle or whether they got the hearse.

John Watson: The highway patrolman responded to the wreck and he had his radio and he would call and say to send a rescue vehicle to such and such a place and whatever that community had they would send. If they had a rescue truck they would send it. The patient had no choice.

Marion Blackburn: Did people feel funny about that or was it just the way things were?

John Watson: It was the way things were. You were glad to get it.

Marion Blackburn: Now, Mr. Watson, I am going to backtrack a little bit. Up until 1968 this was the situation. I want to hear a little about you before we bring the two back together. Did you tell me you had some military service?

John Watson: Yes, I was in the military.

Marion Blackburn: Any wars, were you in Korea?

John Watson: I was in World War II in the Pacific. I was a medic, a hospital corpsman, the Navy called it and then during the period of emergency I was working as an operating room technician.

Marion Blackburn: You were a hospital corpsman, meaning you had gone over there to serve in a hospital?

John Watson: That is the terminology the Navy used for their medics, hospital corpsman. I think it has changed but I am not sure what it is now.

Marion Blackburn: You were serving, I guess, when the war started and you immediately went over to the Pacific?

John Watson: No, I wasn't in the Navy in 1942. The war was well underway when I went in and I was stationed "stateside" we called it. I was stationed in a hospital in Portsmouth, Virginia for about a year and a half. At that time, you could only stay stateside for one year and if you had been stateside for a year then they put you on a list to go overseas and my number was coming up and I wasn't quite ready to go so I applied for an upgrade to go to technician's school which left me for six more months. As soon as I finished that I got my orders to go.

Marion Blackburn: How old were you, nineteen or twenty or were you a little older?

John Watson: I was twenty-one I think.

Marion Blackburn: So you had an operating room title?

John Watson: I was an operating room technician, a surgical technician.

Marion Blackburn: You were twenty-one and did you serve on a ship at this point?

John Watson: Yes, my ship was the U.S.S. Astoria which was a light cruiser. A cruiser was named for cities and that was named for two cities - Astoria, New York and Astoria, Oregon. Both of those claimed our ship.

Marion Blackburn: Before this time did you say, "okay, I am going to go into medicine or I want to do something with medicine"?

John Watson: Okay, I'll tell you how I got started in medicine. I went to CCC camp right after I got out of high school in 1938 and my first permanent assignment was as a first aid man; in other words, I was an assistant to the doctor. We had about two hundred men in camp and one doctor and one assistant and I became his assistant.

Marion Blackburn: What were CCC camps?

John Watson: Civilian Conservation Corps. It was a depression era project and it was designed to get young men off the streets and give them something to do, to give them a small income and teach them a trade. We would do well if we had it now.

Marion Blackburn: So you went into that during the depression and you went into CCC not really knowing what you were going to do.

John Watson: I was just looking for a job.

Marion Blackburn: So you had an interest, an aptitude for things medical and you found yourself doing that.

John Watson: Not until I found myself in the Infirmary as a doctor's assistant.

Marion Blackburn: So, you found you liked it?

John Watson: I liked it and after awhile we discovered that East Carolina was having a first aid instructor's course. I think George Wilkerson of Wilkerson Funeral Home was an instructor and George put on this first aid instructor's course and the doctor at the CCC camp sent me over every night from Washington to Greenville and a driver with an army truck was sent to bring me to this instructor's class.

Marion Blackburn: That is pretty special. Little Washington?

John Watson: Yes.

Marion Blackburn: That's pretty special and it sounds to me like the doctor was saying he wanted to send a man who has a lot of promise.

John Watson: Well, he needed to do it. He wanted to have all the truck drivers and all the leaders in the camp to have a knowledge of first aid. He got me set up as an instructor when I got back to camp and I had to start teaching classes for all the truck drivers and all the non-commissioned officers.

Marion Blackburn: So you went from being a doctor's assistant to being a first aid instructor.

John Watson: We taught the Red Cross standard first aid course.

Marion Blackburn: That was something that I don't know about that era, but I know that my mother did that. She said a lot of people used to do those first aid courses and she said it was a very, very valuable thing to do.

John Watson: Absolutely. It saved many, many lives when they educated the population.

Marion Blackburn: So, you are in the CCC, you are an instructor for all the camp leaders and for all the truck drivers, a very important position .

John Watson: Well, I stayed in the camp for two years and I got out in 1939 and I got a job in Greenville and I was invited to join the volunteer fire department.

Marion Blackburn: What was your job?

John Watson: I was a clerk at Bissetts Drug Store.

Marion Blackburn: Downtown - You weren't married then?

John Watson: No, my wife was one of my students.

Marion Blackburn: So they asked you to join the volunteer fire department.

John Watson: Yes, and as soon as the chief found out that I was a first aid instructor I had to go and teach first aid to the fire department.

Marion Blackburn: It sounds like from about 1939 until you went to the war in 1942 you were here.

John Watson: I went into the service in 1942 and actually got into combat in 1944.

Marion Blackburn: In combat, I guess on the ground?

John Watson: No, on the ship. We never saw what we were shooting at until the suicide planes started trying to dive on us and then we saw it all.

Marion Blackburn: That must have been just a tremendously stressful life change for you.

John Watson: Stressful is a good word.

Marion Blackburn: Were you married at that time?

John Watson: When I went overseas I was married. I got married as soon as I finished the operating room course in 1943.

Marion Blackburn: My husband's grandfather was in the Battle of the Bulge.

John Watson: My brother-in-law was also.

Marion Blackburn: Those are some stories of bravery. He didn't talk about it much and I don't want to say we pried it out of him but we really wanted to hear his stories and we actually gave him a book and he wrote it down for us and gave us some pictures and it was so meaningful for us. There are things that we just can't know about that people have been through and done in the service at that time.

John Watson: We were so fortunate on our ship. We never got hit.

Marion Blackburn: There was combat but then it was over in 1945.

John Watson: It was over in 1945 and I was home in Bethel exactly one month after.
Things hadn't changed back home but it was different to me. I came into Greenville to see if I could get my old job back. At that point I was working for the Greenville Water and Light Department which is Greenville Utilities now. Someone else had been hired in my old job.

Marion Blackburn: That must have been difficult for you.

John Watson: No, not too bad. My wife was in Portsmouth, Virginia and so I got a job in the post office in Portsmouth, Virginia. That was my wife's home. I met her while she was going to school here and she graduated about the time I was sent to a hospital in Portsmouth and the hospital was about five or six blocks from her house. I think we were destined to get together.

Marion Blackburn: Your wife was in school here in Greenville and then you got a job in Portsmouth in the post office. How long were you in Portsmouth?

John Watson: About two years before we came back to Bethel.

Marion Blackburn: Back to Bethel and that year would be about 1948. So, now I guess the history is going to start converging. At this point did you get involved with the hospital?

John Watson: After getting back to Bethel I was invited to join the fire department. They were considering organizing a first aid ambulance rescue truck and the fire chief in Greenville came over to teach a first aid course to the Bethel Fire Department and he asked why they didn't have me in this department and said I used to be one of the best firemen in Greenville. So then they asked me to join.

Marion Blackburn: And this was a volunteer fire department.

John Watson: They were thinking about organizing a rescue squad.

Marion Blackburn: Did Greenville have a rescue squad at that point?

John Watson: At that point they did.

Marion Blackburn: Would that be a volunteer rescue squad?

John Watson: Some of them were paid - I think that before the war Greenville had three firemen who were paid permanently. The rest of the manpower was provided by volunteers.

Marion Blackburn: So, you got involved with the rescue squad effort.

John Watson: I was a Charter member of the Bethel Rescue Squad.

Marion Blackburn: Charter member - and that was as a volunteer. I'll bet they had you teaching there some too.

John Watson: I didn't teach much in Bethel. Someone had already started those classes and he continued. Later on after I came to work over here in Greenville with the Ambulance Department I taught classes over here for the ambulance drivers and the rescue drivers.

Marion Blackburn: How did we go from a rescue squad with hearses to ambulances?

John Watson: It wasn't the rescue squad who had hearses it was a mortician group. They and bystanders would put the patient into the hearse and take them to the hospital or to the morgue whichever. There wasn't a rescue squad available. Later on, the squads got organized but some communities had to use the morticians because all small towns didn't have rescue squads.

Marion Blackburn: It sounds like that even when there were rescue squads that still the morticians had enough business, I guess.

John Watson: The first rescue squad was Greenville/Pitt County. This was organized sometime in the mid-fifties. The Bethel squad was organized in 1960. Later on Grifton, Stokes, Pactolus, and Belvoir were organized.

Marion Blackburn: And were you back in the post office at this point.

John Watson: I worked at the post office as a part time substitute when I came back to Bethel in 1948. I got a job running a laundry route and farming. I was operating a farm and running a laundry route.

Marion Blackburn: So, in 1960 you became a charter member of the Bethel Rescue Squad. Was there a rescue vehicle at that point?

John Watson: Yes, we bought a Chevrolet van which was called a Suburban, I believe. It was a 1960 model and converted that into a rescue vehicle. We put stretchers in it, put a radio on it, an oxygen bottle in it.

Marion Blackburn: What kind of radio?

John Watson: A two-way radio.

Marion Blackburn: At this point would you say that the funeral homes were getting out of this business?

John Watson: Mostly, except in remote communities that didn't have a rescue squad.

Marion Blackburn: Now were you paid at this time or was it still volunteer work?

John Watson: No, it was all volunteer work.

Marion Blackburn: Did you give up your nights and weekends?

John Watson: Nights, weekends, Sundays.

Marion Blackburn: How many hours a week would you say you were volunteering with the rescue squad?

John Watson: Not many because Bethel is a small town and we didn't get that many calls - perhaps two or three a week.

Marion Blackburn: Two or three calls a week?

John Watson: At first and then it grew. Sometimes we would get two or three a day.

Marion Blackburn: I guess this sort of continued until you joined the hospital?

John Watson: Until 1967 when the Association of Funeral Directors gave a notice to the public that after January 1st of 1968 they would no longer provide ambulance service.

Marion Blackburn: I guess they were still doing a little bit of that.

John Watson: Yes, until 1968 even here in Greenville. What they were doing mostly was the routine patient transfers from the hospital home or from one point to another which was not an emergency. They couldn't call the rescue squad for that.

Marion Blackburn: I guess they picked up the phone and they called John Watson, is that right?

John Watson: Well, later on but after they made that announcement Pitt County called a planning session consisting of the representatives from the county commissioners, hospital, sheriff's department, all the county police departments, all the county rescue squads and the morticians. After one or two meetings it was decided that Pitt County would organize its own ambulance service to handle routine patients. It was to be based at the hospital and operated as a department of the hospital and the county was to reimburse the hospital for the cost of it. The first fee that we charged was $17.50 an hour anywhere in Pitt County and $1.00 per mile one way out of the county. For instance, if we were going to New York we start measuring at the county line and charge the $17.50 plus $1.00 for each one of those miles outside of the county. We would take people as far as Northern Michigan, as far as the Everglades.

Marion Blackburn: When this ambulance service started did they go ahead and get that vehicle in place right away.

John Watson: We had two used hearses. The county bought two used hearses and one of them was a vehicle that Wilkerson had been using for that same purpose. We bought his vehicle. We took his sign off and put the ambulance sign on. We also hired his two drivers.

Marion Blackburn: That would be 1968 and is that when you started working at the hospital?

John Watson: That's right. I started working on January 1st of 1968.

Marion Blackburn: Wow, all of a sudden you have a whole new career. I mean it was not new in the sense you had been doing it ever since high school but all of a sudden you are somebody very, very critical and all of a sudden you were getting paid for it. You had a very important role at that point because this had never been done before and you had to organize it.

John Watson: It hadn't been done before but I had some mighty good help - Mr. Richardson, Mr. C. D. Ward who was the hospital administer at the time.

Marion Blackburn: What was your official title then?

John Watson: I was the department manager.

Marion Blackburn: So, your title was Ambulance Department Manager. What was the first thing that you did when you got on the job?

John Watson: I set up my office. They gave me a room which was a space at the end of a hall at the old Emergency Room. They put a glass wall across it. It was about a 12 ft. x 12 ft. space and fortunately it had a bathroom in it. There was a bathroom at the end of that hall so that came with it. In addition to the two drivers who were working for Wilkerson, Charles Mayo was the first non-rescue person that I hired and Charles is still the supervisor of that department.

Marion Blackburn: Now, you have two drivers and you have Charles Mayo. Was he a medical person?

John Watson: No, he was just out of high school.

Marion Blackburn: Did you have rescue people?

John Watson: Most of the people that I hired were rescue people and they had to have additional training. The Ambulance Service came under the supervision of the State Health Department and they came up with a course of instruction that we used. Then they had what we called the EO-3 Course and the EMT Course and later the Paramedics Course. I never got into the paramedics myself. I retired before getting that far.

Marion Blackburn: You were not only organizing the department but you were also going out on rides and taking patients?

John Watson: The two drivers that were hired were both firemen and they were working alternate shifts - one of them would be on one day and the other one the next. So they couldn't take an overnight trip so at first I had to go on almost all of the overnight trips and the fireman that was off duty that day would go with me but if it was overnight they had to have somebody else who was not on duty the next day.

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Marion Blackburn: So, would it have to be somebody you would have to call in special?

John Watson: We had to have somebody else. We had auxiliary drivers that were on our schedule that we could call in. They worked on a call schedule and they would be on call certain nights and if we got a trip that night then they would go.

Marion Blackburn: This would be in addition to the two drivers from Wilkerson?

John Watson: In addition to the two drivers who worked during the day.

Marion Blackburn: Tell me what your day or night would be like during this time.

John Watson: Well, my regular schedule was 8:00 a.m. -5:00 p.m. at the office or 8:00 a.m. -6:00 p.m. if we happened to have a call come in because our night people came on at 6:00 p.m. and worked until 6:00 a.m. the next day or they were on call at that time. Of course, if you got a call at 5:30 a.m. they couldn't take it because they had to go to work at 6:00 a.m. So, some mornings I would get called. Initially I filled all the gaps.

Marion Blackburn: How long did you do that?

John Watson: I did it for a year or two.

Marion Blackburn: Were you very tired?

John Watson: I was enjoying it.

Marion Blackburn: What did you like about it?

John Watson: Everything just about. I liked meeting the people; I liked being able to help the people that needed help; I liked the people I was working with at the hospital; I liked the opportunity to travel.

Marion Blackburn: Were there ever any, I guess, memorable emergencies that you would like to talk about where something happened and all of a sudden you were needing your medic skills or you had an emergency you had to respond to or anything like that?

John Watson: Fortunately on our routine calls there weren't many of those. One time we had a stroke patient that needed to get transferred to Chapel Hill before we had a neurosurgeon here and we transported her up there at a high rate of speed and she got along fine until we pulled the stretcher out of the ambulance at the hospital and she arrested and we had to do resuscitation right on the stretcher with the interns and the emergency people and I thought we were going to tear my stretcher all to pieces before they got through. They were doing CPR on the stretcher and it was a pretty heavy operator who was doing it but the patient died.

Marion Blackburn: I guess just as during the war whenever you have been involved with rescue work there is always that element that you are going to lose a patient like this lady.

John Watson: You know you are going to lose some but it is not easy and you never forget them.

Marion Blackburn: What is your happiest story?

John Watson: It is hard to say.

Marion Blackburn: It sounds like it was just a good time and a good period and I guess from interviewing you that from 1967 until 1986 when we got Eastcare. Did you keep your title that whole time until you retired in 1986.

John Watson: I worked there 18-1/2 years.

Marion Blackburn: What made you decide to retire?

John Watson: There were too many birthdays.

Marion Blackburn: What do you miss most about it?

John Watson: I came back and worked as a substitute for a little while but that wasn't satisfactory at all because those boys that were standing by counted on those extra hours and every time that I worked I was taking some work away from them.

Marion Blackburn: Did you ever have to drive the ambulance yourself?

John Watson: All of us drove, especially on long trips. Actually the first day we did six trips. We had an ice storm the first day we were in business. In 1968 we had an ice storm and there were sixteen operations done in the hospital that day for broken bones and we made six trips that day.

Marion Blackburn: Were you taking people back home or taking them to the OR?

John Watson: There was a lady over in Stokes and the electricity went off and she didn't have any heat so she wanted to be transferred to her son's house in Greenville so we had to go to Stokes and get her and bring her to Greenville.

Marion Blackburn: There was no other way to get her there I guess.

John Watson: No, she was a stretcher patient. There were similar cases like that but I don't remember all of them. The rescue squads were busy all day and we were too.

Marion Blackburn: That must have been a shock-your first day on the job and you have an ice storm. Was this on January 1st?

John Watson: Yes, it was a shock and it happened on January 10 which was our first day of service. We were really cautious as ambulances skid too and the red light does not always give you the right of way. I found that out the hard way in Havelock.

Marion Blackburn: That must have been a very difficult thing to have an accident.

John Watson: Well, it was. There was a neonatal trip that we were on and I had the neonatal crew that were going to Morehead to pick up a neonatal baby. When we got to Havelock I was being cautious and everything and I had a red light and I had the lights and siren going and I slowed down and the people on either side that had been waiting for the light to change were still holding and looking at me so I accelerated to go on through and the first car on my right accelerated to go as he was watching the stoplight and not the traffic and I hit him. It didn't hurt any of us but it destroyed the ambulance and I got charged for running a red light.

Marion Blackburn: You were the ambulance driver, so you did learn the hard way. That must have been quite a shock.

John Watson: The Judge threw it out.

Marion Blackburn: I'll bet so-good for the Judge.

John Watson: Well, that is the law. The law says that you can go against a red light as long as you can do it safely.

Marion Blackburn: Mr. Watson, do you miss it?

John Watson: I miss the people but I don't want to come back but I did enjoy it.

Marion Blackburn: I'll bet you were mighty valuable to the hospital and to the people you worked with.

John Watson: Well, I was doing a job and I enjoyed it.