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| My Employer | My Interests |
Welcome to my web site. My name is Michael Rowlette. I have been a South Carolina certified Paramedic for 27 years. During my career I have been employed with Midlands Technical College in Columbia, SC and Piedmont Technical College in Greenwood, SC as a certified Basic Emergency Medical Technician instructor and also have taught various first aid and CPR classes for their continuing education divisions. I have worked with Greenwood, Newberry and Richland County EMS and am currently employed as a Paramedic by Saluda County Ambulance Service.
The name Ditch Doctor comes from providing emergency care in the worst possible locations in the worst possible conditions, i.e. roadways, ditches etc. I once had to climb inside a large garbage truck and dig a homeless individual out who had chosen (quite poorly I might add) to sleep in a trash dumpster and had literally been taken out with the trash and compacted. This was quite possibly the worst call I have ever run. It took two weeks to air the ambulance out and my uniform was confiscated and destroyed by the receiving hospital. The patient survived with a few broken bones and eventually returned to the relative comfort of the streets.
Of the many high points in my career two stand out above the rest. On December 23, 2000 I made my 28th career delivery (and not an ugly baby yet)! This one was a little girl who weighed in at 9 lbs. 9 ozs. and was her parent's first child. It was a great Christmas. I received this picture of her at 19 months old from her parents. Another was August 21, 2001 when I was chosen to serve as dedicated paramedic for Vice President Dick Cheney when he attended the funeral of Floyd Spence in Columbia. This assignment was kept from me until the morning I reported for duty and caused a great deal of personal anxiety until he was safely back on Air Force II and out of sight.
The service I work for serves the rural community of Saluda County in SC and is the only EMS service based and operated out of a nursing home to my knowledge. We staff 3 units daily with at least 2 at ALS level. The administrator of the nursing home created the service in 1974 and has continued as director since then. It is operated as a department of Saluda Nursing Center and receives very limited county support. I have received a wonderful education in dealing with the elderly due to my involvement with the residents in the home and only hope that all those that serve this portion of our patient population would treat these people as they would wish their own parents and grandparents treated. Over the course of my career I have worked in Saluda County 14 years and have found it to be the most rewarding of all the services that I have worked with because of the people that I serve. "If you ain't country, you ain't cool."
Saluda County does not have it's own hospital so we routinely transport our patients to one of
15 different hospitals in the surrounding counties and Georgia. There are 2 Level 1 Trauma Centers which serve our area. One is in Columbia, SC and the other in Augusta, Ga. Each is exactly 50 miles from our base. We get alot of patient care time when transporting and I like to think we are better because of it. We do have the support of 4 helicopter services which we use for the most seriously ill and injured but in inclement weather it is a long ride by ground.
My inclusion of information about my service on this site in no way implies that any of the opinions published on my site are anyones other than my own nor are they endorsed by my employer.
My interests after saving lives is digital photography, desktop and web publishing.
 | September 23, 2006 |
