The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-05-30
HUMAN REPAIRS
 ARE MADE QUICKLY Hew New York Handles 50,-
 900 Emergency Calls AID TO THE INJURED One Ambulance Call Every 10 Minutes.
AID TO THE INJURED
One Ambulance Call Every 10 Minutes. Remarkable System by Which Accidents Are Handled-Good
 Place to Get Hurt.

New York, May 2s-In little known office on the third floor of the famous 300 Mulberry street." otherwise police headquarters, the greatest repository of secret news and unknown information in the country. there may be found the man who for years has held a unique title. Officially he is the chief surgeon of the police department; actually he is the Director of Human Repairs for Greater New York. As expert in the distribution of the human fotsam and jetsam injured in the huriy burly of the oity's daily life. his unofficial title is un- paralleled, and sitting in the obscure center of a complicated web, it is his duty to know of and arrange for the care of every person injured in the city. The ra- dial lines of his web are the police wires; his agents, the police and the ambu- lances and the workshops the various hospitals to which at his direction the injured human machines are taken. Un- der his direction is the care of every per son injured in the city who is not cared for at home. How enormous is this task ifs shown by the fact that there were more than 5000 reported injuries in this city last year-53,314, to be exact-an in- crease of 2991 over 1907, or approximate ly equal to the percentage of increase in population. That roughly is equal to 145 calls every day, or one call every ten minutes.
 To the average person the changing of an ambulance gong means that some one who has been injured is being taken somewhere for some reason. But before this has happened an intricate piece of machinery has been called into play. How this machinery works may be illus | trated by an actual example. A man | steps off a car in front of the Grand | Central station, let us Say, puts his heel | on a banana peel, falls and breaks his 1 leg. Unless he is with friends who take | charge of him and thus relieve the city | of this duty, he will very shortly find | himself in the Flower hospital, the insti- 1 tuition founded by former Gov. Roswell l P. Flower. There Is no chance of his | landing anywhere else for the Grand Central is a part of the district appor- tioned to this hospital and although few persons realize 1t, the system which makes possible his speedy relief also dc- | tates as to where that relief shall be | given. There is no haphazard about it.
 The whole system of ambulance service, | which is the chief visible factor so far as the public Is concerned, in the work of repairing 5O000 humans each year,
 is only part of a still larger system, ] in which the hospital-the repair shop. | as 1t were-is the basic factor. There are in Greater New York today more than | 80 hospitals, divided into two groups the city hospitals, commonly known as l Bellevue and allied hospitals, and the
 institutions not under municipal manage
 ment of which the Flower hospital Is
 an equally prominent example. Some
 of these are special hospitals, where
 
 are, however more than 30 hospitals
 which do maintain such a service, and on them falls the work of caring for the great majority of emergency cases.
 | The basis of this service rests on the di- vision of the city into what are known as ambulance districts of which there are now 20. The whole city Is divided up into specifically defined territories each of | which is covered by designated hos l ptal. Every ambulance call in a given ! territory is covered by the institution to which 1t is assigned. These districts being fixed on, the whole work of human l repairs, so far as the city is concerned,
 has it's basis. When John Smith is ! bowled over by a speeding automobile ! the nearest policeman telephones in-
 stantly to his precinct station. or to police l headquarters, using the police wires to expedite the handling of the call. If his 1 phone is to his precinct station, it is except in rare cases, forwarded to "30O Mulberry street" where the Director of ! Human Repairs has his office. Before his minds eye is an ambulance map of ! the city, with physical duplication on the wall, showing all districts and what 1 hospitals cover them. In only fraction of the time that 1t takes to write 1t, the Human Repairer has telephoned to thS l proper hospital that an accident has oc- cured at such and sucn location. Im- mediatelyj the officer of the hospital re- , ceiving the call orders out an ambulance, giving specific directions as to the loca- tion of the accident, much a wrecking ! train on a railroad is dispatched to the point of trouble. As soon as the human | wrecking wagon returns with the in- | Jured person a report Is made out which goes to the Director of Repairs at police headquarters, so that any emergency call handled by any hospital in the city is al- ways traceable from the records on hand Simple as it may seem, the system in- 1 wolves not only much labor but has been subject to much misunderstanding. Aside | from the thousands of hospital workers i engaged in this la bor of human repairs in the workshops, that is, the hospitals. 84 employees of the city itself a part of the system for the administration of the i physical end of the relief work. The de- velopment of the service Is always going , on as Is indicated by the recent signing by the mayor of an ordinance providing for an enlarged board to supervise the l ambulance service. Likewise the director of human repairs is called upon constant | ly to study the accident record and to 1 make recommendation looking to more efficient service. Curiously enough these changes often lead to public misconcep- | tions
 On the first of last March, for example, a change was made in certain districts 1 due to the withdrawal of the ambulance service of the Roosevelt hospital. The territory formerly served by it was ap- | portioned among three other institutions, I the Flower hospital receiving the busiest | section. As a result the ambulance rec | ord of the later institution showed 862 | calls for the months of March and April | as compared to 34S for the same period | a year ago. This hospital Is now hand ling about one-tenth of the ambulance calls of the city, and has just added two power ambulances to its previous equip | ment to meet exactly this contingency. Claf xTaxF