Before Charleston County had an official EMS department, emergency transport often fell to local funeral homes, the only ones with vehicles that could carry a patient lying down. That changed in 1973, when the county established its first EMS department, and the Charleston Medical Society stepped in to help make it work. Three physicians, including Dr. Charles Summerall III, Dr. Dabny Yarborough, and Dr. Ray Invester, trained the county's first ambulance attendants in fundamentals like oxygen administration, patient assessment, and trauma care, at a time when there was no formal EMS curriculum to draw from.
That early partnership helped set the county's EMS system on a path that would later earn it National EMS System of the Year honors in 2010. More than fifty years later, as Charleston County EMS prepares to open a new headquarters and training center in North Charleston, the collaboration between physicians and EMS professionals that began with the Society continues to shape emergency care across the Lowcountry.
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