CEO Recalls Hospitals' Reluctance to Deal with Paramedics

Joe D. Lane chuckles at a photo from the time Lane Funeral Home started an ambulance service.

Some black hearses in the photo from the 1950s have black hoods. Others have white hoods, so those were the ones that would go out in a medical emergency.

Sometimes, however, those cars couldn't go, so a crew unattached the white hood and put it on another hearse. Then it would go to the emergency.

Bent over in the back of a hearse, the crew could do little except get the ailing person to the hospital as fast as possible.

"All we could do was give oxygen and put on a splint," Lane said. "If there was any other problem, we didn't know what to do."

Lane is doing a lot of reminiscing these days as Lane LifeTrans celebrates its 50th anniversary. Now chief executive of both Lane LifeTrans and Lane Funeral Homes, as well as being a lawyer, Lane, 53, said employees were surprised to see photos of him in his younger days when he had long hair and drove ambulances.

It was back then -#in the 1970s -- when a younger Lane decided the changing face of emergency care provided an opportunity for the funeral home company operated by his father, the late Joe O. Lane.

New regulations were taking effect.

No more hearses Funeral homes were no longer permitted to use hearses for both funeral services and medical emergencies. They also were required to have a separate staff handle ambulance runs. Ambulances were required to have emergency medical technicians and further training was provided for workers to become paramedics.

Over the previous decades, funeral homes had accepted the role of providing ambulance service because they had the vehicles, knew the area and had staff answering calls.

With the new regulations, however, most funeral homes were dropping their ambulance service. Just out of college and mortuary school, Joe D. Lane had other ideas.

He was excited about training that was available after he became an EMT in 1976 and later an EMT instructor.

The funeral home business often is perceived negatively because funerals are sad, he said. He told his father that this was a chance for Lane to be seen in a positive light.

His father agreed to make the investment in training, vehicles and equipment.

In 1978, they split the funeral home and ambulance companies and began sending employees for training to be paramedics.

Met resistance The next problem was gaining acceptance from the medical community, which wasn't ready for advanced care to be delivered outside the hospital.

Lane recalls one meeting when he and his father made a presentation to a local medical society. After a chilly reception, the elder Lane suggested that his son give up.

Lane kept plugging away, however, and eventually he found a doctor at Trumbull Memorial Hospital who had seen advanced ambulance services in another community. This doctor signed the standing orders the ambulance crews needed to provide care.

Still, emergency room doctors at area hospitals resisted dealing with the ambulance service. Lane wrote letters to the doctors, and many called to say they wouldn't support his efforts and didn't want to work with the paramedics.

A turning point Then a man dropped over in an Austintown grocery store. His heart had stopped. A nurse who happened to be nearby started cardiopulmonary resuscitation. When the Lane crew arrived, paramedics used a defibrillator to shock the man's heart back to life.

The next day, a doctor from Northside Hospital called to praise the Lane crew. Barriers between Lane and the hospitals quickly began to come down.

By 1981, Mahoning County had an advisory board of doctors, nurses and fire chiefs that developed standards for paramedics.

A big question faced the company, however, Lane said. "We had to decide what direction to go. We had won that battle, but how big were we going to be?"

The decision was made to continue to grow.