Just to flesh it out:
-Real equipment
-Real settings
-Real FIREMEN, COPS and EMTS in both acting and consulting roles.
-REAL SITUATIONS (many of them pulled from the LAFDs files).
But, yeah, Bill Cosby in a hopped-up Ford van with Raquel Welch is much more realistic.
I’m 48 now, but I know at least three EMTs who swear that “Emergency” changed their future.
Well, yeah. Have you ever ridden in the back of an ambulance, circa about 1972? A hopped up Ford Van was exactly what our squad had. Though, "hopped up" is a misnomer, because it could barely get out of its own way. :-)
When the squad upgraded to an E350 with a box on the back, it was great. You could almost stand up in it, sort of, if you had good balance. :-)
Working on a volunteer squad, operating on a shoestring, gives a slightly different perspective. For instance, we used a lot of "repurposed" army surplus material. What the heck, it worked. I learned how to take a car apart with little more than hand tools...there was a "Jaws of Life", that was shared out among 8? 10? towns. Good luck waiting on it, it was faster to crib up the cars so they were solid, then pull them apart. We did have a mini-jaws, called a "PortaPower" that was good for cutting doorposts and steering wheels.
Licencing requirements were substantially different - as a "volunteer" squad, we weren't allowed to admin anything IV, also defibrillators were a major no-no, not that we could have afforded equipment like that, anyway.
But, we did a pretty good job with what we had, considering that a "Full-Blown" rescue squad was an 45 min or more away - one way. One of the prouder moments I've had - I recently went back home and wandered through the old neighborhood. I was talking to one of my old neighbors, and she made a special point to introduce me to her - now college aged - granddaughter. "This is Bill. His mom saved your life when you were a baby and you stopped breathing." I didn't have the words to reply. Told Mom about it and I could hear her grinning through the telephone.
Anyway - to get the thread back on topic - Emergency! Definitely a fun show. Realistic? Well, maybe from a distance, if you squinted a bunch.