Emergency! (TV Series)

The Wedsworth-Townsend Act (1972)

Robert Fuller: Dr. Kelly Brackett

Quotes 

• [Brackett is addressing a legislative committee to promote support of the bill to allow paramedics to operate] 

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : Gentleman, you are all in danger. If an earthquake or a bomb should hit this room right now, I might be the only doctor available to all of you. Oh sure, independently owned ambulances with attendants would be here in a few minutes, and rescue units from the fire department. But all they could do is carry you off to where another doctor is waiting. I wonder if you could all last that long. Now, what about first-aid? Sure, these men are permitted to render some elementary first-aid. Like your mother did when some kid bloodied your nose, or your wife when she pulls a sliver out of your finger. Have any of you seen a freeway accident lately? I mean up close, where you can't tell the bodies from the steel. Or, have any of you had a heart attack recently? Seventy percent of all cardiac cases never live long enough to reach a hospital. How do you think your mother, or your wife, or the good-guy next door would make out under those conditions? Well, those *are* the conditions we're talking about. Now, I've given you the impression I'm in favor of fire department personnel, with a crash course in emergency medicine, taking human lives into their own hands. I am not. I'd like to see a specialist handling every bloody nose, so we'd know whether it's the result of a good right-cross or a tumor. I'd like to see a cardiologist on the scene every time someone drops in the street with a killing pain in his chest. But, you can't ask someone not to die while you're trying to find out what's wrong with him. And they *do* die, gentlemen; on the way from where it happens to my hospital. They die by the hundreds every year; not from mortal wounds, but from neglected wounds. Not from incompetence or indifference but from time, from lack of time. I'm in favor of more doctors, more hospitals and better equipment. And, I'm also in favor of this bill until those other things come along, because it *will* save lives. Maybe a dozen lives, maybe a thousand, maybe just one. And, who knows which one? Thank you, gentleman, for your time.

• Nurse Dixie McCall : Kell.

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : Yes?

  Nurse Dixie McCall : 51 on the link.

  [indicates communication radio link to field paramedics] 

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : What do they want?

  Nurse Dixie McCall : Help.

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : [into transmitter link]  51, go.

  Paramedic Roy DeSoto : [over biophone]  We have a male, tunnel worker, approximate age 60, was trapped under a digging machine. Patient had a cardiac history. He is now diaphoretic. Vital signs: 80 over 50; rate: 100 and irregular; respirations: 12 and shallow.

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : Do you have your EKG hooked up?

  Paramedic Roy DeSoto : Affirmitive, doctor.

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : Send me something so I can get a reading.

  [turns on EKG printer] 

  Paramedic Roy DeSoto : This will be Lead 2.

  [turns on ELG transmitter] 

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : [reads EKG strip]  Multiple PVC's.

  [sees reading change] 

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : V-Tac.

  [reading changes again] 

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : He's starting to fibrillate.

  [to DeSoto] 

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : Defibrillate! 400 watt/seconds!

  Nurse Dixie McCall : Kell! They're not authorized to...

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : [into link]  Are you receiving? Come on, 51! You've got a dying man on your hands.

  Paramedic Roy DeSoto : Doctor, if we administer shock and we lose him...

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : You're losing him right now!

  Paramedic Roy DeSoto : You said yourself it wasn't worth risking the program for one case!

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : I just heard from Walski in Sacramento. The bill passed late last night.

  Nurse Dixie McCall : Kell... You never heard from Walski.

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : Yeah, well I should have.

  Nurse Dixie McCall : Do you know what you're doing? If that bill doesn't pass Kell, they'll crucify you.

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : [looking at EKG strip]  I don't care about that. We're not at a party or talking to a committee. That man's dead right now.

  [into communication link] 

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : Zap him, dammit! Zap him!

  Paramedic Roy DeSoto : [watches as Gage applies the defibrillator paddles to the man's chest]  400 watt/seconds!

  [Gage shocks him] 

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : [reads strip]  No conversion.

  [into link] 

  Dr. Kelly Brackett M.D. : Hit him again!

  Paramedic Roy DeSoto : 400 watt/seconds!

  [Gage shocks the man again. At the hospital, Brackett sees the EKG adopt a normal rhythm]