In the last 50 years, Whatcom County Emergency Medical Services has grown from a scrappy upstart to a nationally recognized organization under the leadership of Dr. Marvin Wayne, who stepped down as medical director at the end of 2024.
“I’ve been in EMS for a long time and I’ve known a bunch of great medical directors, but a few really stand out, and Marv is one of them,” said Steve Cohen, the Whatcom County EMS training specialist. “His experience, his ability to communicate and his knowledge base is remarkable. I think Whatcom County is extremely lucky and should be grateful he stayed for 50 years to be a mentor and leader and innovator. He’s a real mensch.”
Wayne, 81, is from Detroit and received his medical degree at the University of Michigan. He was drafted into the Army and served as a combat surgeon in Vietnam, where he received a Bronze Star for valor and once removed a live grenade from a soldier’s abdomen. Back home, during a surgical fellowship in Seattle, Wayne took a trip north to moonlight in the emergency room in Bellingham and eventually made the move to Whatcom County in the early 1970s.
Humble beginnings
Back then, Wayne said, Whatcom had “more cattle and berries than people” and emergency medicine was basically the Wild West. Local fire districts and the Bellingham Fire Department pieced together most of the pre-hospital care in Whatcom County.
There was no centralized dispatch, and patient transport was performed by a private outfit, Crown Ambulance, that Wayne delicately describes as “substandard.”
Concerned the community wasn’t receiving the care it deserved, a group of physicians and firefighters coordinated in 1974 to elevate the ambulance standards required in Bellingham and the county, which caused Crown Ambulance to abruptly cease operations in what Wayne called “an effort to hold the city hostage.”
Nine Bellingham firefighters with EMT training leaped into action with one ambulance borrowed from the Lynden Fire Department and another on loan from the Blaine Air Force Station. Wayne was convinced to take a leadership role, one that would eventually become known as the Whatcom County EMS medical director.
Drawing on guidance from EMS programs in Seattle and Los Angeles, Wayne taught the first paramedic training in his living room.
From that humble beginning, pre-hospital care in Whatcom County has become a sophisticated machine, Wayne said, with a multi-agency dispatch center, upgraded equipment, cutting-edge trauma response and research papers published in every major medical journal in the nation.
Local classes, originally held on an as-needed basis, morphed into two regularly scheduled EMT training programs and a nationally certified paramedic training program — a “real feather in our cap,” as far as Wayne is concerned.
Whatcom County EMS is now a coordinated response program with two tiers: basic life support (BLS) and advanced life support (ALS). Ten fire districts, one fire authority and two city departments provide BLS service, while Bellingham Fire Department and Fire District 7 provide ALS service. Today, almost 700 EMTs and five paramedic units serve the county.
“It’s mind-boggling what we’ve accomplished in 50 years,” Wayne said. “I think we’re unique in that we’re big enough to be big, but small enough to be small.”
Innovation in heart attack response
Wayne believes nothing stands out as an accomplishment more than Whatcom County’s early adoption of automated external defibrillators and the subsequent improvement in patient outcomes after heart attacks.
Just after Whatcom County EMS formed, Wayne heard from a pathologist in Oregon who had access to a new portable defibrillator device that could shock people who were experiencing abnormal heart rhythms. But no one else was interested in trying it out in the field because of the perceived risks. Wayne was intrigued and willing to take a chance. He responded to a heart attack call on State Street in Bellingham and used the AED to shock the patient, who “came back to life.”
He helped write a paper on the device and unsuccessfully tried to submit it for several years before finally getting published in a 1979 journal. Medical professionals were taken aback at the idea of letting laypeople use an AED, but now the devices are a common sight in many public settings and an integral part of community CPR training.
“Every time I see an AED or hear of one being used, it feels good,” Wayne said.
Whatcom County EMS offers regular CPR classes as well as Stop the Bleed and Narcan trainings designed to help community members reverse overdoses.
Whatcom County’s rate of resuscitation from cardiorespiratory arrest is more than double the national average, but Wayne wants that number to be even better. He encourages everyone to get trained, learn the locations of AEDs near them and download the PulsePoint Respond app to receive alerts when someone nearby is having a cardiac arrest.
“We try to be innovative but smart,” Wayne said. “If you never try to move forward, you either hold yourself in mediocrity or you’re a fool, and I like to think the people of Whatcom County are neither mediocre nor fools.”
No leisurely retirement
Wayne is convinced if he were a young person in this day and age, he’d be medicated to the gills for ADHD, but as it is, he’s led a remarkably varied life. In addition to his military, academic and medical careers, he has also driven race cars, made movies, operated a cookie company and written multiple cookbooks, and he still loves heated pickleball matches and foil windsurfing.
Acknowledging his own voluble personality, Wayne believes his wife should be known as Saint Joan due to her patience with him. The couple has two daughters, six grandchildren and one great-grandchild on the way.
Wayne has no intention of settling into a leisurely retirement of golfing and boredom, because he believes that would kill him. Instead, he’ll be director emeritus, or a “cling-on” to his successor Dr. Ralph Weiche, who is currently the supervising physician for the Bellingham Fire Department. Wayne will stay with Whatcom County EMS doing quality management, innovation and research.
“I’m very fortunate I’ve spent 50 years fighting the fight, pissing people off, un-pissing people off,” he said. “My father had a quote that I always remember: ‘If we make waves we will hit rocks, but if we never make those waves we will never change the shape of the world.’”
Celebrating past and future
The system has continued to grow, and in 2016, Whatcom County EMS first asked the community to support its operation costs, training and equipment through a new levy, which passed with 60% approval.
In 2022 the levy was again approved, but Jim Hallett, a retired financial professional and former elected official who moved to Bellingham from Port Angeles in 2018, recognized the program had more needs than could be supported solely with the countywide tax.
Hallett suffered a cardiac arrest around two years ago, and thanks to a speedy, high-quality EMS response, he beat the odds and made a full recovery. When he offered to make a donation in gratitude, he learned Whatcom County EMS had no supporting nonprofit, so he decided to help establish a 501(c)(3) to fundraise for education and research. He is now the president of the EMS Foundation of Whatcom County and serves on the EMS Oversight Board.
“If you are fortunate or unfortunate enough to interact with the emergency medical system, you probably don’t really think about it — you dial a number and someone shows up,” Hallett said. “But it’s thanks to the leadership of Marv and the others who were part of the evolution that resulted in what we see today.”
The EMS Foundation is hosting a gala on Feb. 8 at Chuckanut Bay Distillery to honor the program’s 50-year history and envision its promising future.
Wayne said he’s looking forward to celebrating the entire operation and knows he’s only one small part of the puzzle.
“One of the most important things I do is try to motivate others to accomplish better care,” he said. “My motto is — we provide both care and caring. There are a lot of good EMS systems but great ones have added that dynamic where it’s more than just putting a Band-Aid on. It’s making a difference in people’s lives.”
Julia Tellman writes about civic issues and anything else that happens to cross her desk; contact her at juliatellman@cascadiadaily.com.
