Editor’s note: In describing paramedics’ responses to potentially life-threatening emergency calls, The Day has sought to preserve the anonymity of patients by avoiding the use of their names, addresses and other personal information.

New London ― Medic 11, at the time a custom-built Ford Bronco, responded to the first call 35 years ago.

Since then, Lawrence + Memorial Hospital’s paramedic intercept program has added three more “trucks” ― Ford Explorer SUVs christened Medic 12, Medic 14 and Medic 15 ― and, recently, two discharge ambulances that transport patients between hospitals and other health care facilities.

Ron Kersey, the program’s manager, decided long ago there would be no Medic 13. No reason to mock fate, he reasoned, especially when you’re in the business of saving lives.

It’s anyone’s guess how many lives L+M paramedics ― the original staff of four full-timers now numbers 30, including 10 full-time, four part-time and daily paramedics ― have helped save since that first run on March 19, 1988.

Thousands? Maybe. Hundreds? Certainly.

“People in this business get into it to help people,” Tim Law, 58, of Waterford, the program’s chief paramedic, said last Monday. “That’s what we do.”

There’s something else, too.

“I really like the excitement of it,” said paramedic John Gavin, 65, of Old Lyme, who’s been with the program for more than 30 years and has no plans to walk away from it.

On Monday, Gavin and Law climbed into Medic 12 shortly after 10 a.m., joined by a reporter and a photographer. Normally, Gavin, who did the driving, would have been alone, as the paramedics operate solo ― one to a truck. They do not transport patients to the hospital.

The location is east of the Thames River, putting it in range of Medic 12, which mainly responds to calls from the Emergency Communications Center in Groton. Medic 12’s territory extends to the Rhode Island border and as far north as the Voluntown line. Medic 11, which responds to calls from Waterford Emergency Management dispatchers, covers the area west of the Thames, from New London to the Lymes. L+M paramedics’ four units ― Medic 14 and Medic 15 act as “floaters,” serving as back-up wherever they’re needed ― cover 550 square miles, an area encompassing 15 municipalities.

En route to the call, Gavin describes his judicious use of Medic 12’s flashing lights and siren. Contrary to TV depictions, they’re not meant to enable driving at high speeds. Rather, he says, he applies them to navigate traffic, alerting drivers of other vehicles to move aside and letting them know he’s about to travel through a red light, say.

At 10:35, Medic 12 arrives at the scene, where an ambulance crew and emergency medical technicians, or EMTs, from a local volunteer fire department have sprung into action, removing the patient, strapped to a stretcher, from the house and providing “basic life support,” which can include such things as cardiopulmonary resuscitation, use of an automated external defibrillator and removal of airway obstructions.

Gavin exits Medic 12 and approaches the patient bearing a backpack loaded with 40 pounds of medications, intravenous kits, airway management tools, a nebulizer ― enough to treat two patients ― and a 30-pound cardiac monitor machine.

He evaluates the patient, debriefs the EMTs and speaks to the patient’s spouse. The patient is deemed stable enough to be transported by ambulance to L+M Hospital for further evaluation.

The call concluded, Medic 12 heads to a central location.

Law, once a firefighter in East Hartford, got his certification as a paramedic in 1989, changed careers and never looked back. He considers what he’s doing a “premier job” in his field, and said L+M’s paramedic program is the only one of its kind operated by Yale New Haven Health and is one of few in the state.

In most cases, paramedics have experience as EMTs. In addition to providing basic life support, they have the training to provide advanced life support, which means they can treat cardiac arrests, strokes and other heart conditions. They can install intravenous lines, and perform an intubation (insertion of a breathing tube through a patient’s mouth or nose) and a tracheotomy, which involves inserting a tube into a patient’s wind pipe through an incision in the neck. Paramedics can administer certain medications, perform basic medical tests and interpret the results of those tests.

“As paramedics, we bring the emergency room to the patient,” Gavin said.

During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, about half of L+M paramedics’ calls involved drug overdoses, which paramedics can treat by administering Narcan, he said.

At 11:07, the Groton dispatcher reports a call from a nursing home, where a resident is having trouble breathing. Gavin steers Medic 12 onto Interstate 95, the traffic parting on cue as he intermittently applies the siren and flashing lights. When Medic 12 arrives at the nursing home at 11:18, an ambulance crew and fire department EMTs are there.

The patient’s OK, but will be taken to the hospital by ambulance as a precaution.

It’s been a slow day so far. A rarity. Gavin says that in his more than 30 years, he’s experienced no more than a handful of “no-hitters” ― entire shifts without a single call.

“It’s when you’re not getting calls that you start to worry,” he said. “You keep checking your radio, your phone. ‘Is something not working here?’”

The aforementioned Kersey, 59, who manages the L+M paramedics program, also serves as the hospital’s disaster preparedness coordinator. He heads a clinical simulation center at the hospital and an American Heart Association training center. He got his paramedic training at Backus Hospital in Norwich and has been with the L+M program since its inception. He’s answered many an emergency call and knows what it takes to be a good paramedic.

“Knowledge, skill, compassion,” he said. “Picture coming upon a wrecked car, someone’s trapped inside and you have the responsibility to provide the highest level of medical care to ensure that person’s survival. At the scene, the fire chief is always in control, but the paramedic has responsibility for medical care.”

A scenario in which an L+M paramedic is apt to be the first responder on the scene is a car crash in the wee hours on the “rough stretch” of Interstate 95 between Exit 88 in Groton and Exit 92 in Stonington, Kersey said.

“When we pull out of L+M on Pequot (Avenue) at 2 a.m., we know we’re going to be the first to arrive at a wreck there, though we won’t be by ourselves for very long,” he said.

Gavin and Law recalled responding to such an incident on a Memorial Day weekend some 25 years ago that involved a three-vehicle crash at Exit 91 in Stonington. Law intubated three victims ― one in each of the vehicles ― while waiting for Life Star and more paramedic support to show up. Not all of the victims survived.

On April 21, the day of a fatal crash involving a fuel oil tanker and another vehicle on the Gold Star Memorial Bridge, Law responded to a fatal, two-car crash in Waterford that was linked to traffic congestion caused by the accident on the bridge.

Law said he’s helped deliver five babies without complications. Gavin recalled a delivery in which he dealt with a tangled umbilical cord.

During a lull Monday, Gavin, Law and their guests visited the Groton emergency center, where dispatchers Richard Foreman and Stefanie Mumford sat before the eerie glow of banks of computer screens. Foreman reported that the center handled 10,652 EMS (emergency medical services) calls last year, 4,658 of which required the dispatching of a paramedic.

Kersey said L+M paramedics handle a total of 11,000 to 12,000 calls a year, up from 2,195 calls in the program’s first year.

That growth in demand, attributable to the region’s aging population and other factors, is the reason the paramedics program has expanded over the years and it’s the reason L+M, part of the Yale New Haven Health system since 2016, continues to subsidize the service, according to Kersey.

The program does bill patients and their insurance for the services it provides but derives relatively little revenue from those sources, he said.

Among paramedics, there is much longevity and little turnover. And that’s a good thing, Kersey said, since attracting recruits could be challenging. Few young people are embracing the profession.

At L+M, one who has embraced it is Kyle Douchette, the 21-year-old son of L+M paramedic Jeff Douchette, a 30-year veteran of the program.

At 12:15, within minutes of leaving the dispatch center, a call comes in from an institution where an individual has had an allergic reaction to food and is having difficulty breathing. A health care professional has already administered epinephrine injections, and an ambulance is on the scene when the paramedics arrive at 12:19, ahead of the fire department. Gavin starts an IV in the patient and accompanies the patient in the ambulance as it heads for L+M, as is the protocol in such cases.

Law waves off the fire department when it arrives, and settles into Medic 12’s driver’s seat to rendezvous with Gavin at the hospital.

“Calls can be repetitive and you see the same people day after day,” Law says. “But the day is never the same.”

b.hallenbeck@theday.com