Ailing Medic One chief skips 911

When Dr. Michael Copass started having chest pains for the first time in his life, he didn't call 911.

Instead, the 63-year-old physician, who helped found Medic One, the King County emergency-medical-response system he now directs, called the people he knew best for emergencies: Seattle's fire dispatch.

"You tell citizens to hit 911," said his wife, Lucy Copass. But "no matter how many times he may have said that to other people, that's not necessarily his mode of thinking — it's call home."

For Michael Copass, home is Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he is the trauma-room chief.

But when he suffered a heart attack Sunday at his Mercer Island home, a Seattle Medic 10 ambulance took him to the University of Washington Medical Center, according to authorities. Paramedics made the decision to take Copass to the UW because the hospital was better equipped to handle Copass' heart condition, his wife said.

He was released yesterday morning in good condition and returned home. Lucy Copass said he is expected to recover fully and return to work in about a week.

If Michael Copass had made a 911 call, it would have gone directly to Mercer Island's police and fire dispatch, but Copass, who also is a professor of neurology at UW, called the people he listens to day and night on a Seattle Fire Department radio.

"That's just his home base, his people," his wife said.

Seattle dispatchers received a call about 4:20 p.m. from Copass, who was complaining of chest discomfort. They sent two medic units to Mercer Island at 4:22 p.m., according to dispatch reports. The Mercer Island Fire Department was notified that the Medic One units were rolling and that a Fire Department aid crew wasn't needed.

Typically, the Bellevue Fire Department would be the first to send Medic One paramedics to Mercer Island — the island's fire department has no Medic One paramedics on staff. The department has only emergency medical technicians, who can start initial first aid, such as CPR, but can't administer drugs or other advanced life-support that heart-attack patients need.

"It all went through the 911 system, and everyone was A-OK with it," said Seattle Fire Department spokeswoman Lt. Sue Stengl.

On Sunday, Copass used a system he helped establish more than 30 years ago and to which he has continued to dedicate time.

While a resident at the UW Medical Center in the late 1960s, Copass assisted Dr. Leonard Cobb, a professor emeritus, who was creating a system to bring hospital-type care to emergency vehicles.

Cobb established the emergency-response system in 1968, which rushed aid to people suffering heart attacks, but Copass was key in developing a training program for select firefighters to provide medical assistance and be the "long arms" of doctors.

"Dr. Copass is basically responsible for the development of probably the premier training of its kind anywhere," Cobb said.

To this day, Copass still trains every paramedic in the Medic One system, Cobb said.

"He puts heart and soul into the emergency room and into Medic One to make sure they're running smoothly and people are doing what he expects."

Nicole Tsong can be reached at 206- 464-2793 or at ntsong@ seattletimes.com. Ian Ith can be reached at 206-464-2109 or iith@ seattletimes.com.