Richard Land
2006 TASA Lifetime Achievement Award
This team member began his EMS life experience with the Knoxville Rescue Squad in the early sixties. He progressed to work for Knox County Ambulance Service where he worked as an ambulance attendant (before EMTs). During this time he worked with some very notable persons, some who moved forward in EMS and others who moved into the penal systems and not as guards. He then assisted in the first EMT class taught in East Tennessee and the second in the State.
He is one of only 8 EMS personnel with a current license number of less than 100.
He was one of the first persons asked to join the State EMS Staff in the summer of 72. He worked for some time in Nashville and was then assigned as one of the first Regional EMS Consultants to Knoxville.
In those early days he was responsible for all of the counties from Roane to the Virginia line. He traveled much and along the way helped the financial condition of a number of cities and counties as he sped on his mission to improve patient care in EMS. He also dedicated several items of clothing as he demonstrated how Oxygen supports combustion while teaching in EMT classes (his tie and shirt). Along the way he managed to meet Jane who became the love of his life and mother of his twins. Jane has supported him in the ups and downs in EMS and is his pillar of strength.
He was then asked to relocate to Nashville to the State EMS office (he and Jane donated a cat to the Nashville homeless population when EMS co-workers moved him and locked the cat in the truck in Knoxville and one day, two hundred and fifty miles and ninety degrees later in Nashville the cat emerged never to be seen again), where over the years he has been responsible for many tasks, projects and problem solving. No one ever talks with him, they mention a subject and then listen as he provides more information than any one person has a right to divulge on the subject. He has traveled many miles, worked many hours and dedicated many millions of brain corpuscles to EMS and to all of the EMTs over the years in Tennessee. There is no one, who can question the genuineness and drive of him to improve EMS in Tennessee.
Some sayings of EMS Richard (not as in Poor Richards almanac, but Richards EMS words of wisdom):
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Volunteerism is no excuse for shoddy service in EMS.
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I am glad Joe Acker is gone so maybe now I can get credit for what I have done (not Phillips).
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Officer my cruise control is broken that's why I was speeding.
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I did not mean to turn the siren off in the middle of that intersection, I just woke up and it bothered me, so I turned it off.
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Let me show you the correct way to put on a short spine board.
It is my pleasure to present the 2006 TASA lifetime achievement award to affectionately known as Rescue Richard, Richard Land.