Paramedic Dick Harvey recently passed away after a distinguished career of more than 20 years with Empress, but what makes his story even more remarkable is that he didn’t begin his EMS career until his 50s, a time when many people begin thinking about their retirement.
Paramedic Bill Rothschild, who organized a luncheon in December to honor Harvey’s memory, said he once asked Harvey’s wife, Linda Harvey, what made him want to enter the EMS field at that point in his life, and she said it was because someone told him he couldn’t do it — that got his back up, and he thought, “I’ll show you.”
Harvey had already had a successful career running steakhouses in New York City. He owned a boat, and, according to Rothschild, had appeared on the cover of Wooden Boat Magazine. He was also a classic car enthusiast whose distinctive green Buick Riviera won awards at car shows.
Paramedic Daryn Baia said that Harvey showed up for his interview at Empress expecting not to be hired.
“When I interviewed him, he didn’t think I was going to hire him because he was 50 years old. He gave me the typical Dick Harvey look, and he said, ‘You’re not going to hire me because I’m 50,’ Baia recalled. But he was hired and went on to have a lengthy career at Empress.
Rothschild, who has worked at Empress for 38 years, said he helped train Harvey when he was new on the job more than 20 years ago.
“He was my student and partner. When you’re new here, you work with someone who’s experienced,” he said.
Not only did Harvey become a paramedic, he even developed a reputation for handling some of the most devastating emergency situations.
“He was truly on some of the worst calls in this company’s history,” Rothschild said. “Just on a regular basis, he would be involved in a horrendous call. When someone had a lot of bad calls, they would say, ‘That’s like a Dick Harvey-level shift.’ ”
As an example, Rothschild mentioned that Harvey and an EMT responded to a call to a quadruple fatality on the Taconic State Parkway. A man in his car with his two kids had run over the center divider, hitting a car going the opposite way on the other side. Harvey and the EMT were the only people on the scene for 20 minutes because it was a busy day and other first-responders could not get there immediately.
Harvey was so used to difficult calls that Rothschild said he was unruffled when a new one happened.
He was also known for his physical resilience.
“He had his knees replaced and returned to work in six weeks. Normally it takes more like 12 weeks. He had both done at the same time. He was always very determined to get things done,” Baia said, adding that Harvey was very devoted to his family — he had two sons and a daughter — and to his work as a paramedic.
“He worked 80 hours a week. He would come in and work, and he had some of the worst calls that you can imagine. He was the only paramedic to receive a supervisor’s award. He thought he was never going to make it as a paramedic, but he proved to all the supervisors that he could be a great paramedic. He was given the Empress Supervisor’s Award. They made up an award for him. He outperformed what everyone thought he could do. He kept proving everyone wrong.”
Baia said he only retired three years ago.
“He had to stop because of heart issues, which broke his heart.”
When COVID hit, Harvey had not been working for a while.
“He had stopped a year or two before that. He was on medical leave, and we were giving the COVID shots. We called him, and he was here for every possible thing we could do. We were all over the state. New York was hiring Empress to go all over the state to give vaccinations.”
While Harvey was a skilled paramedic, Rothschild recalled that he was not a lover of technology.
“He made me look like Albert Einstein when it came to computers,” Rothschild joked, noting that during shift changes, when people would hear the sound of Harvey climbing the stairs and putting down the bag where he kept his supplies, a hush would fall over the room as those who were there waited for the inevitable.
“Everyone would be trying to stifle their laughter,” he recalled. “You’d hear a click or two of the mouse, and he would inevitably explode in a rush of curses. It was the same thing every week,” he recalled. “It was literally just entering your name and password, but he would mess something up every time and get frustrated. It was like that movie Groundhog Day where the same thing kept happening over and over.”
Rothschild said that Empress employees will ride in memory of Harvey at the EMS Memorial Bike Ride this summer.
