4 | NEMHS
North East is a team of people who not only
embody the industry’s fullest measure of
professional paramedic training, but also the
exceptional, if not extraordinary, commit-
ment to respond to the call of duty with both
compassion and expert capability. NEMHS
is also a dynamic trendsetter and some of
the programs it advances have potential to
become national service models in the era
emerging from adoption of the Patient Pro-
tection and Affordable Care Act. The evolu-
tion of this enterprise and its expanding role
in influencing the global evolution of health
services is a story that essentially begins with
a winter camping excursion that took place a
little more than thirty years ago.
THE EMERGENCE
OF NEMHS
In 1982, Charlie McCarthy was a teenager
who had just earned a scholarship to par-
ticipate in the winter program of Outward
Bound. The experience was so enriching
that McCarthy imagined himself becom-
ing an Outward Bound Instructor, a posi-
tion which necessitated emergency medical
technician training. After completing ini-
tial courses, McCarthy learned that a local
volunteer ambulance service was in need
of EMTs. He signed up, was assigned to a
crew and fell so thoroughly in love with the
job that he soon forgot all about Outward
Bound. He went on to complete additional
