110° Magazine-East County Living

My neighbor still talks about the first time he went by our house, saw the ambulance sitting in my driveway, and noticed the sign on the side, ‘animalmedics.com.’ He thought like a lot of people think, “Animal Medics! That can’t be right! Why would you have an ambulance just for animals?”

I can give a number of good reasons in answering that question. Just as with people, the survivability rate of wounded and sick animals can soar when the response time for medical attention is greatly reduced.

For example, dogs will get into snail bait and become deathly ill. Lethargy sets in, multiple-system organ failure begins to take place, they go into a coma, and in most of the cases the untreated animals die. However, snail bait poisoning comes with more than a two-hour window during which, if properly treated, the animal’s life can be spared in 70 percent of the cases.

That two-hour window is usually plenty of time for us, since one of our ambulances can normally get to any point in Contra Costa County in about 20 minutes. We’ve saved the lives of about 40 dogs from snail-bait poisoning in the 16 months that we’ve been responding to emergency calls.

So far we have done about 600 transfers, transporting injured or sick four-legged and winged patients to health facilities. Besides the snail bait poisoning cases, the animals have been sick, injured by cars, shot, or fallen out of windows.

Implementing a Strange,
Wonderful Vision
I started AMERS (Animal Medical Emergency Response System) in part because of a sad event that happened to an acquaintance of mine. My mom’s friend bought a dog and kept the beloved animal for nine years. She was walking the dog around Lake Merritt one Saturday when the dog just collapsed.

Not knowing what else to do, the woman called 911. The paramedics who responded said that they didn’t know how to perform CPR on a dog and that it was against Health Department regulations to put a dog in an ambulance. As a result, the distraught woman simply had to watch her beloved animal die.

I heard this story and thought, “There has got to be a better way than this.” After reflection and research I drew up a business plan, created a model, and took it to the banks. The bankers all laughed us out their doors. (Judging from their reactions, some of those bankers might still be laughing.) We went to friends and family members and scraped the money together to start the business.

I’ve been a paramedic since 1993, but have been running AMERS since the Summer of 2002. We began with a single ambulance; we currently have three ambulances in active service.

Nobody in the world is doing what we’re doing on the level that we’re doing it. And we’re just getting started! The San Francisco SPCA is building a $25 M veterinarian hospital and we recently became the hospital’s contracted ambulance service. We must purchase four new ambulances in order to carry out the terms of service specified in the contract. We are pretty excited about this, since the contract will provide a nice cash infusion into our business!

The most difficult thing about marketing the animal ambulance business is simply letting people know that our service is available. A problem when starting a new business in a niche where no similar business ever existed before is the challenge of educating people about what we are doing and about how they can access our services.

I feel like I have a wonderful job through which I’ve been able to have amazing experiences. Some of the things I see are completely unbelievable. One of my patients, a little Pomeranian, for example, has his own room, with his own TV Set, complete with a DVD Player.

“What does your dog usually watch on TV?” I asked the proud owner. “Animal Planet” the owner replied. (I know it sounds like a bad joke. But so help me I’m telling the truth.)

Operation Goldfish
We have run into many challenging and heart-rending situations in the course of our work with the animal ambulance service. Sometimes, of course, we get into situations that later make us smile.

Probably the strangest case we ever had involved a woman who called us late one night frantically claiming that her goldfish were dying. In fact, she said they were drowning. We told the woman to keep her eye on the fish and to call us in the morning if there was no improvement.

At 5 a.m. she called back and said that the fish still weren’t better. The woman lived in Emeryville and we finally located a vet in Fremont who treated goldfish. We arrived at the Emeryville address and discovered that the woman lived on the fifth floor of a condominium. We climbed the stairs to her rooms and discovered that she had four goldfish. She tearfully explained that she had gotten the goldfish from her brother who had recently died.

The whole experience took on a surreal quality at that point, since these were your normal 25-cent
goldfish, each residing in its own large 20-gallon tank. The woman brought out four 5-gallon traveling tanks, filled each tank with five gallons of water and with one fish each, leaving us to carry each 5-gallon tank back down five flights of stairs.

Once the fish and their owner were loaded in the ambulance, we transported the five of them to Fremont, driving carefully in order not to spill the water but, nevertheless, ending the trip with the entire inside of the ambulance soaking wet.

We met the disbelieving vet at his office, carried the fish into a treatment room, and the surreal experience continued. The vet sat wordlessly in front of each fish and observed each one for about ten minutes. After concluding his careful scrutiny of each finny patient, he brought a jar of black fluid into the room, carefully put a single drop of the black fluid into each tank, and announced in a confident voice, “They are going to make it.”

The woman burst out in tears of gratitude. We hauled her and the fish back to Emeryville, carried each of the 5-gallon tanks back up to the fifth floor apartments, and dumped each of them back into their individual 20-gallon tanks.

We followed up the case a few weeks later, contacting the woman to ask how the fish were doing, and she said that they were all doing fine. So Operation Goldfish ended on a positive note, which leaves me gratified (along with still being mystified).

Providing Help in a Time of Disaster
Often, of course, being an ambulance driver for animals involves real drama. The job got especially intense in October when I drove one of the ambulances to Southern California to help rescue animals that had been injured by the wildfires or displaced as their homes had burnt and their owners had evacuated.

We arrived in San Bernardino County about 7:15 one evening and counted 23 fire trucks parked at the base of a mountain just below the Grapevine. We were amazed that the fire trucks were seriously outnumbered by the enormous number of media trucks. There were more than twice as many media vehicles as there were rescue vehicles.

We arrived as dusk was beginning, but no stars were visible because thick, billowing smoke hid the entire canopy of the sky. The smoky air was brilliantly lit by an enormous fire that was in the process of consuming the side of a great mountain right by the edge of the 215 freeway. Our headlights illuminated particulate matter and heavy ashes that were flying through the air. It looked like we were driving through a sooty snowstorm.

There’s something apocalyptic and frightening about driving into LA and seeing no traffic. We were directed to the main San Bernardino Animal Control Shelter, but discovered that most of the animals had been moved to the San Bernardino County Fairgrounds.

Intervening in a Desperate Situation
We found the Fairgrounds to be in almost perfect chaos. It had become the dumping ground for more than 800 dogs — plus over 360 cats, 43 goats,
23 horses, 16 pigs, and 43 chickens.Besides this great mass of animals, a host of reptiles and birds had been moved to a nearby facility that could provide the heating lamps that they needed.

When we parked the ambulance, our immediate job was to begin monitoring the animals who were ill and injured. During the panicky initial evacuation, workers had crowded more than 700 dogs into a single open pit. With no supervision and lacking sufficient area to maintain appropriate private space, the alpha males began fighting among themselves. It required 23 animal control officers to go into that pen and separate the fighting animals.

The outcome was horrible! For example, a Golden Retriever was attacked in that hellish place by two Pit Bulls and required 42 staples in his hind leg. We had to insert a drain to relieve the swelling in his head and shoulder, as well as sew up other wounds with innumerable stitches.

The most seriously burned animals were taken to a local pet hospital, but many of the less severely burned animals were brought to us. Our patients had a lot of 2nd and 3rd degree burns. Other patients of ours had escaped into the desert and had been bitten by rattlesnakes. We treated about seven dogs for snakebites.

We had both animal and human refugees in the center. About 200 people would not leave their animals and go with the other owners to the main evacuation center in San Bernardino. These people just hung around and at night slept on whatever piece of ground they could find.

The human evacuation center was just behind the animal center. The look in the children’s eyes was spooky. “Don’t be afraid,” the parents would say. But, of course they were afraid. They could smell the smoke as well as anybody could. They could tell the problem was not over.

A Small Short-lived Doggy Nirvana
Some of the events of those days made us smile. For example, one cage had not been properly secured, so the dogs escaped and found their way into a big truck full of chopped beef.

One of the dogs absolutely ate himself into oblivion and was found the next morning sleeping it off with his head cradled by the beef and, I imagine, with a big doggy smile on his face. He paid a price, however, because he was sick for the next two days and still was not back to eating his dog food when I left.

Those days saw a lot of sad experiences for residents, animals, and rescue workers. One of the firefighters told of a cat who, fully engulfed in flames, ran out of a burning area on a mountainside and directly into another part of the mountain setting it on fire, as well. Another fireman reported the sad sight of a woman sitting in a bathtub holding a dog in her lap, both of them dead from smoke inhalation.

Stirring Examples of the Human Spirit
I was reluctant to go to LA in response to the appeal for help because I always had the impression that people in Southern California are a bunch of superficial, self-centered egotists. What a surprise the residents down there gave me during those difficult hours!

It was inspiring to see how the residents in the LA area pitched in together during those terrible days. For example, there was a shortage of 2-way radios so we called a NexTel dealer who showed up within an hour and dropped off 20 brand new NexTel radios. It was incredible!

People didn’t hesitate. “Whatever you need,” was the theme of their generosity. I think people feel helpless in times of disaster and just do whatever they can to make any kind of difference.
People who had lost everything in the world would just come walking in to help us out. They would just pitch in to clean up after the animals. They wanted to do something to make a difference; they just wanted to be useful.

Some of the people had been previously evacuated to a shelter that caught on fire itself, leaving the people with no clothing or supplies at all. Some of the RV dealers brought up motor homes and trailers to provide places for people to sleep.

I saw an 18-wheel WalMart truck, loaded with pillows, blankets, toothbrushes, soap, deodorant, shoes, and sweaters, pull up to an evacuation center and just drop the whole load off for the people to use. It is always a moving experience to observe displays of uncommon generosity. When that truck opened its doors, I don’t think there was a dry eye in the whole place!

We went to a town called Hesperia, which had just been evacuated two hours prior to our arrival. It was like a ghost town. Everything was closed except for the A & P. The door was open and only a single woman was left behind the counter. “Why are you here?” we asked.

“Well, if I wasn’t here, how could you get gas for your ambulance?” she answered.
They put a hundred trucks around the perimeter of Hesperia and saved the town and the store with its courageous attendant.

One of the residents told me, “The longer the fire goes on, the more distant are the engine companies whose trucks I see going by. I’ve seen fire trucks from more Northern California communities than I ever saw in Northern California.”

I had the same experience. I saw emergency vehicles from more Northern California communities than I ever saw in Northern California too.

Good for Goodness Sake
This business isn’t going to provide overnight wealth. But the reward goes beyond what any monetary gain could ever be. When I help an animal, the animal often tries to display its gratitude. We set a broken leg, for example, and when the animal feels relief you can see the demeanor change immediately.

Animals have no egos you have to try to protect. They won’t try to bite you after you’ve helped them. I never yet had an animal cuss me out or try to shoot me. They behave a lot better than some of my human patients have in the past.

They can’t say, “thank you,” but I can tell they are grateful. After all the chaos and commotion is done, the payoff comes when the relieved joyful owner is able to return home with his beloved and once-again healthy pet.

Margaret Mead made the great observation,

“Never believe that a few caring people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”

I guess that’s what we’re trying to do; we’re trying to change the world for the better, one stricken animal at a time. °