Grady EMS is an emergency care provider owned by Grady Healthcare System.
History
As a vision of Henry W. Grady, (the editor of the Atlanta Constitution newspaper in the 1880s), Grady Memorial Hospital opened in May 1892 with 100 beds and established the first citywide ambulance service in 1896 with several horse-drawn modified enclosed wagons. Prior to 1892, the city did not have any formal ambulance service and regular horse-drawn wagons at best served to transport the sick and injured. Grady, along with Charity Hospital in New Orleans, Bellevue Hospital in New York City and Cincinnati General was among the first hospitals to operate ambulances in America. In 1890, the population of Atlanta was recorded as 65,533 and included both the downtown area and Inman Park. Its Northern limits did not extend much past 14th street and travelling further north quickly transitioned into rural countryside. By 1895 the city limits was expanded and saw the annexation of West End in 1896.
Like other hospital based ambulance service, interns or even surgeons would often ride the ambulance to the most severe ambulance calls and had a medical bag complete with instruments that had proven effective in treating civil war battlefield injuries several decades prior. According to old records, as Grady Hospital entered the twentieth century in 1900, the ambulance service responded to 2140 ambulance calls. As motorized "horseless carriages" began to appear on Atlanta streets, so did the adoption by Grady to this "new fangled" technology. And ambulance design also began to improve in the vehicles suspension and overall design of the Ford Model T. Atlanta area funeral homes had also entered the arena of providing ambulance service as a community service using hearses that could be quickly changed to accommodate a Bumgartner or Washington Mortuary Company single level stretcher. In the 1930s and during World War II, Grady Hospital Ambulance Service used Packards as ambulances.
In 1946, many Grady ambulances responded to the tragic Winecoff Hotel fire in Downtown Atlanta which injured hundreds and killed 146 and is still regarded as the Nation's worst hotel fire disaster. That same year, a Grady Ambulance responded to "Five Points" in downtown Atlanta to transport "Gone With The Wind" author Margaret Mitchell to Grady where she later died from her injuries after being hit by a taxi.
In the 1950s the service gradually changed over to GMC truck chassis when the hospital's operation was taken over by the City of Atlanta. With the municipal takeover, the ambulance service became a part of the hospitals security department and Tom Moreland was appointed as the first security department director who also oversaw ambulance operations. The ambulances were driven by security hospital employee's who wore the uniform of the Atlanta Police Department and were commissioned as an Atlanta Police "Special Officer" and also wore a duty belt with firearm, handcuffs and flashlight. In the early 1950s Grady began using low-roof white over red International "Travelall" trucks as ambulances that had a single roof mounted beacon and a siren mounted on the front fender. There was only a stretcher, a fixed upright oxygen inhalator, a basic splint box and a "physicians black bag" as a first aid kit.
