My History with Emergency Care: Editions 1-13

By Dan Limmer

My association with the Emergency Care EMT textbook is long and passionate. When I was too young to take an EMT class, I was in a Red Cross Advanced First Aid class next door to an EMT class at the University at Albany. I met the EMT instructor and asked if he had an extra book. He sold me his copy of the 1st edition of Emergency Care.

I took my EMT class a few years later using the 2nd edition of Emergency Care.

Fast forward 10 or so years. Brady needed help with the 6th edition of Emergency Care. I’d sent a proposal to Brady to write a scene safety and survival book for them (never wrote that book) so I was on their radar screen. I began by writing the “Street Scenes” feature for every chapter and eventually revised more than 25% of that edition.

The early 1990s brought some big changes to EMS with the EMT-B curriculum. A new author team of me, Mike O’Keefe and Ed Dickinson were brought onboard to write the new edition. We’ve been doing it ever since, including the 2009 change to education standards.

There have been a lot of changes in the nearly 30 years I’ve been writing. Brady’s parent companies have changed quite a few times. I’ve seen a lot of amazing editors come and go. The transition to electronic processes and products has had its fits and starts over the years. The one thing that is consistent is the importance of solid educational products for EMS providers and the passion involved in EMS. Passion in the students learning, passion in the educators and passion in writing the Emergency Care you see today.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning the groundbreaking work by Harvey Grant and Bob Murray.  J. David Bergeron came on the project in subsequent early editions. I am in awe of these pioneering individuals who pitched an idea to the Robert J. Brady publishing company so long ago. That pitch turned into a legacy I am very proud to continue.

I’ll be sharing quite a bit more from the early editions of Emergency Care but today I’ll share the covers of the 1st and 13th edition. I am known at Brady for my fanaticism about maintaining the yellow color in the Emergency Care cover. Many still know it as “The Brady Book” and “The Yellow Book,” and under my watch that won’t change.

I find it comforting that the covers bear significant similarity in their color and repeating patterns. The first edition highlighted symbols of the public safety community and the 13th features the human beings who wear those symbols.

I look forward to sharing more of the Emergency Care history with you. From it we will see our evolution of both clinical medicine and the ideals that have made us what we are today.

Do you have any Emergency Care memories or photos you would like to share?