In our small town, we had to call the fire department and they would come with the "inhalator". I don't know if that is the proper name but it was the only name I heard. It was a volunteer department so the operator would have to call one of the firemen who was home at the time and they would have to leave their home and drive to the firehouse, get the ambulance and then come to the emergency. We did have a few emergencies in my lifetime. I remember two train derailments. One happened right in front of our house and we had people from the train in our house waiting for transportation to get them back on their way. Lots of police cars and ambulances. It was pretty darn exciting for us. Noone was seriously hurt thank God. That was the most excitement we had for a long time. At that time, there were three sets of railroad tracks that came by our house. Now. there is only one.
For other emergencies, you would go to the Doctor's office to be treated and then he would decide if you needed to go to the hospital. Usually, you could be treated in the office. When I was six, I had to go to the hospital when I broke the end off the humerus. I had surgery and spent several days in the hospital and entirely too many weeks wearing a cast from shoulder to thumb.
We can't know if people died because there wasn't immediate care given. We didn't go to the doctor as often then as we do now. Cuts were more often just taped rather than sutured. There were home remedies for colds and flu. Maybe we were hardier then or just didn't have the time to worry about it so much. There wasn't tv to tell us about all the ways we could be sick or get infected. So, maybe, we just didn't know and weren't the worse off for it.
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