This from Drew Smith:
In various comments by Bill Post, Phil Stenholm, and others the term “inhalator” is used. The original inhalators were beasts and heavy. Here are a few pictures as well as a newspaper article about Prospect Heights FD’s first E&J Resuscitator-Inhalator. The PHFD currently has two of these although neither is in-service. As indicated in the article, the first unit was acquired in 1948. A second unit was acquired sometime later. The black and white photo with the E&J is from sometime in the 1960s. In a wooden case, with two steel D cylinders and the large brass chrome-plated “guts” this thing is easily close to weighing 50 pounds.
Prospect Heights Fire District history
E&J Resuscitator-Inhalator. Prospect Heights Fire District photo
E&J Resuscitator-Inhalator. Prospect Heights Fire District photo
E&J Resuscitator-Inhalator. Prospect Heights Fire District photo
click the image for a full size download
1948 newspaper article – Prospect Heights Fire District history
click the image for a full size download
#1 by Drew Smith on August 12, 2017 - 7:33 PM
According to Ron Olsen (retired PHFD deputy chief), who is the guy doing the compressions, the other gentleman is Bob Blaine
#2 by Matt on August 12, 2017 - 11:07 AM
I recognize Ron. Is the other one Earl Cleal?
#3 by Phil Stenholm on August 10, 2017 - 6:18 PM
This isn’t about the Prospect Heights Fire Department’s inhalator, but just for some historical perspective…
A mechanical resuscitator known as the “Lung Motor” was demonstrated at Evanston Hospital in October 1912, and it was purchased by the City of Evanston in 1913.
The Lung Motor was placed into service at Fire Station # 1 at 809 Grove Street, and it was a big hit. In fact it was so successful that the Evanston Fire Department received a $25 award from the Life Saving Devices Company of Chicago as the “Top Life Savers in the Nation” at the end of 1913.
Over the Lung Motor’s first couple of years of service, the EFD responded on numerous mutual-aid rescue calls, from Rogers Park to Niles Center to Winnetka. (The Chicago Fire Department placed three Lung Motor-equipped “auxiliary squads” into service in 1913, but the closest one to Rogers Park was at Engine Co. 34’s house at Aberdeen & Randolph).
The EFD’s Lung Motor was kept at Fire Station #1 and was loaded onto Engine 1 (the 1911 Robinson “Jumbo” motor-engine) when needed, and then beginning in 1916, one fireman was assigned to ride with two police desk officers (“barn coppers”) in the Evanston Police Department ambulance (which was kept in a bay adjacent to Fire Station # 1) when responding to Lung Motor calls (later known as “inhalator” calls).
The first automobile Evanston Police ambulance was built by William Erby & Sons on a White Motor Company chassis in 1916, and it was demolished in a collision with a bus in September 1927. (Two police officers and an EFD captain were seriously injured in the crash). The inhalator was then placed aboard Engine 1 again, and Engine Co. 1 responded to inhalator calls city-wide (from Howard Street to Isabella Street, Lake Michigan to Crawford Avenue) 1927-52.
While the inhalator was assigned to the Evanston Fire Department, the Evanston Police Department continued to provide ambulance service throughout the years 1927-76, first with the police ambulance kept in the “barn” at the police station (next-door to Fire Station #1), and then with three stretcher & first-aid equipped station-wagon patrol-ambulances (“Car 31,” Car 32″ and “Car 33”) beginning in 1958.
A second inhalator was kept as a spare at Fire Station #1, but the Evanston Fire Department consistently averaged only about 100 inhalator calls per year (about two per week), so the second inhalator wasn’t needed very often. (Inhalator calls were considered “rescue calls,” and were generally limited to full-arrest heart attacks, drownings, electrocutions, asthma attacks, a person choking on food or overcome by natural gas, or smoke inhalation at a fire),
The inhalator was placed aboard the EFD’s new rescue truck (“Squad 21″) at Fire Station #1 in 1952, and inhalators were assigned to all five engine companies beginning in 1959 (which greatly improved response times to inhalator calls).
Inhalator calls and police station-wagon patrol-ambulances were phased out in Evanston when the EFD’s Emergency Medical Service (with paramedics assigned to MICU ambulances) was established in 1976.
#4 by Chris on August 10, 2017 - 2:00 PM
Is a Pulmotor different or is it a trademarked name?