Crown Point’s first paramedic retires from EMS

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George Pyle, a retired fire fighter for the city of Crown Point, was one of the first paramedics on the department. | Photo Provided~Sun-Times Media

CROWN POINT — At the end of his day on Turn number 1, on the last day of 2011, city firefighter/paramedic George Pyle retired.

It actually was at 7:20 a.m. Jan. 1, 2012.

Pyle originally started serving the city with a private company called Crown Rescue. That was the predecessor to the Crown Point Fire Department EMS. According to Fire Chief Greg DeLor, a lot of the guys came from there, so all have the same start date of January 1, 1979.

Coming with Pyle from Crown Rescue were Brad Allen and Dean Luebcke on turn 2 and Gary Gale on Turn 3. Division Chief of Operations Mark Baumgardner Sr. also came from Crown Rescue.

As far as Turn 1 is concerned, if they allowed Pyle to be the cook they would be still waiting for the food. It was also well known around the firehouse that Pyle would regale you with tales if you let him.

He has seen a lot. He has seen a lot of changes in the area. The city’s population has gone from around 16,000 to about 30,000 today. In that period of time he has seen a lot of mayors come and go, from Mayor Dick Collins to the current Mayor Dave Uran.

He has one of the lowest paramedic numbers in the state of Indiana, back from when they took over for the funeral homes. Before becoming a paramedic Pyle worked for one of the funeral homes. According to his friends at the fire station he still carries his mortician’s license.

According to Lt. Dean Luebcke, in late 1973 the Crown Rescue stared. It was a private service owned by Joe Smith. They provided emergency aid and transfer calls.

Merrillville and Crown Point started the paramedic training. Pyle was in the first class and Captain Gary Huys was in the second. Pyle got his EMT certification in 1975 when he graduated from the first paramedic training program through Methodist Hospital. His paramedic certification came in 1976.

He was among the first paramedics to be certified in Indiana.

According to Uran, when he gave out the city’s January 2012 employee of the month award, Pyle may be the oldest, longest serving currently certified paramedic still in active duty in the State of Indiana.

In 1978 Pyle was hired by Mayor Collins to organize and put together the city program. In 1979 the people that worked for Crown Rescue got to choose which department that they went to work for.

Mark Baumgardner, Sr. went to Merrillville and the rest of the staff of Crown Rescue stayed with the Crown Point Fire-Rescue Department. At that time only the rescue were full time, the fire side was all volunteers.

In 1979 it was Chief George Pyle and he held that post for 20 years. Under Pyle the department grew from the initial six paramedics to a combined Fire-Rescue Department with 28 full-time members.

Five of the original six are still active members of the Crown Point department. Until the city united the fire and rescue under one department head, there had been a volunteer fire chief and the chief of EMS. Pyle handled the first call in 1979 and the last in 2011.

This is a man that has saved hundreds of lives in the city, and earned the respect of his fellow members of the Crown Point Fire-Rescue Department.