It was with great heartfelt sadness that I first learned of Steve’s passing this morning. I first met Steve in 1970 when he was a young man of 23 working for Metro Ambulance Service out of the Spring Street Atlanta office. In that year, I still remember Steve telling me one day that he truly felt that working on an ambulance to alleviate suffering and saving lives was God’s calling for him in life. In the summer of that same year, Steve was accepted to attend a special American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons (AAOS) Emergency Care Advanced Training course in New Orleans which built upon his already completed Red Cross Basic & Advanced First Aid training. It was Steve’s passion to learn to be the best even a year before the first formal EMT courses would begin in Georgia. And his passion for saving the many lives as he did over the years as both an emergency medical technician and EMS dispatcher, allowing him to continue his great skills in delivering medical help within critical life-saving minutes. In the follow-on years I would not get to see Steve as the passage of time would take its toll. But in later years I would once again have the opportunity to interact with Steve as he worked as a dispatcher for Metro Ambulance and later at Atlanta South EMS in East Point. I can especially remember that Steve, while dispatching, had the remarkable ability to mentally track and know the location and status of a myriad of ambulances even as he was engaged in answering a multitude of incoming emergency calls. He would always dispatch the closest ambulance and in countless instances he truly saved a life. This ability was especially remarkable in the day and age when 911 and computers, as we know it today, simply did not exist. Several years ago, Steve had the opportunity to recall his early 70’s personal experiences aboard a Metro ambulance when he was interviewed as part of a documentary EMS history film project that captured stories of Atlanta EMS pioneers while they could still be told. If a EMS Dispatcher “Hall of Fame” were to ever exist, there is no doubt that Steve Howard would be an inducted member due to his great dedication, knowledge and experience as a dispatcher over the decades. My sincere condolences go out to his wife Sandra, his son Matthew, his mother Nell, both of his brothers Michael and David, his sister Donna and the remaining Howard family. The great Kevin Costner baseball movie “Field of Dreams” once described aspiring players who hitchhiked to distant cities “for the love of playing the game.” Steve will forever remain in our hearts as a great Atlanta EMS ambulance service legend that represented a similar bygone golden era of Metro Ambulance medics who pursued their EMS careers based on a passion to save lives and being part of a true college like fraternity like that of which existed in those years.##imported-begin##Tom Barlet##imported-end##
