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Paramedic pioneer dies of heart attack
By LOGAN D. MABE
© St. Petersburg Times, TAMPA -- Dr. Brent Amey, a veteran emergency room physician who helped pioneer paramedic services in the city, died Friday after suffering a massive heart attack. He was 55. "He had taken the day off on Friday and was painting a barn with his son," said Isaac Mallah, chief executive officer and president of St. Joseph's Baptist Health Care, where Dr. Amey was vice president of medical affairs. "It was hot. He came in for a glass of water and things just started cascading from there." Ironically, the first medical personnel on the scene were Tampa Fire Rescue paramedics, the corps of life savers Amey helped train when the service came on line almost 30 years ago. Dr. Amey, along with Dr. Eric Harrison and Dr. Ed Straub, drew up the program that turned firefighters into paramedics when the service began in 1972, said Jack Ballinger, a captain with Tampa Fire Rescue. "These three guys basically were inventing the wheel," Ballinger said. "They had to piece the concept together, select the people and create the curriculum for them. At the time, "paramedic' had no meaning in the vernacular." Tampa was one of the first cities in the country to move to a paramedic system, on the heels of Miami and Seattle, Ballinger said. "In 1972, the norm was that ambulances were run out of funeral homes. They'd rush to an accident scene, with carnage all over the place, and they'd take the dead first," Ballinger said. "The living got taken out later." County ambulance workers had only basic first aid training and none of the lifesaving equipment or training common among today's paramedics. "The public's expectations of what kind of emergency care they can expect have been redefined since those days," Ballinger said. And much of that redefinition came at the skillful hands of Dr. Amey, who spent more than 20 years as a physician in St. Joseph's emergency room. "He was one of the pioneers," Ballinger said. Dr. Amey, who lived in Odessa, was a larger-than-life personage from Kentucky who made an impression the moment he came through the door. "Brent was this massive figure," Mallah said. "I mean he was a big man with a big booming voice, and he had a real presence to him. You knew it when he was around." Dr. Amey, a diplomate of the American Board of Emergency Medicine, joined St. Joseph's in 1974 as an emergency room doctor and during the next 20 years rose to chief of the department. In 1995, he became vice president of medical services and moved to vice president of medical staff affairs in 1997. Dr. Amey moved easily from the trenches of the emergency room to the corner offices of administration. "The thing you need to understand about this kind of job is that you're on the line all the time between the medical staff perspective and the administrative perspective," Mallah said. "Brent was my bridge for that. What he provided that was so crucial was the ability to find common ground for the benefit of the patient. The medical staff trusted him. If he told them something, it was the truth. If he told them something was going to get done, it got done." Dr. Amey brought a down-home sensibility with him that rubbed off on those with whom he worked, Mallah said. "He was as unpretentious a person as you'd ever want to meet." Mallah said Dr. Amey's most recent administrative campaign was an effort to eradicate the wearing of neckties. "That was after he had already convinced me to get rid of sport jackets," Mallah said. Dr. Amey is survived by his wife, Twila Richards; son, Grant; and daughter, Ashley. A funeral will be at 11 a.m. today at Idlewild Baptist Church, 1515 W Bearss Ave. At the family's request, donations are to be made to the St. Joseph's Hospital Foundation, attention Tampa Children's Hospital, 4600 N. Habana Ave., Tampa, FL 33607.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
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