Joel Johnson

By CAROL FETTIN
Hub Staff Writer

KEARNEY - A mentor once told a young Joel Johnson that wherever he goes, he should leave it better than when he found it.

Johnson, 66, took the advice to heart, and after years of service to Kearney and Nebraska, he is one of this year's recipients of the Freedom Award in the Medical/Health Category. He will receive the award during the Freedom Awards banquet April 3.

Whether on a hospital ship in the Vietnam War or in Kearney, Johnson strives to meet his mentor's challenge.

Johnson, semiretired, has been an advocate for health care and emergency care, and he continues to assist surgeons at Good Samaritan Hospital.

In July 2002 he was appointed to fill state Sen. Doug Kristensen's seat in the Nebraska Legislature when Kristensen became the chancellor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney.

In 1968, he served as a surgeon serving in the Vietnam War. He was there during two medical disasters, he said.

The first disaster was an explosion on the USS Forestall. A rocket accidentally went off and hit a plane on the ship's deck, he said.

"It was fully loaded with fuel and bombs," he said. "It set the whole carrier on fire."

The other emergency was during the Tet Offensive, one of the most intensive periods of the Vietnam War, he said.

Johnson's ship was intended to hold 200 patients, but had to accommodate as many as 700 battle casualties.

"We had them (soldiers) on the deck or anyplace where we could find a place for them to lie down," he said.

Johnson said that the medical ship received soldiers directly from medical helicopters coming straight from the battlefield.

"It was the practice of medicine," he said. "I practiced on those guys so I could do better on the next guy."

It was on that hospital ship that Johnson became interested in how emergency medical care is delivered.

Once in Kearney, he became an advocate for emergency care.

Johnson was involved inthe birth of the Good Samaritan Hospital's emergency medical helicopter service, AirCare. He also took part in the first emergency medical training for volunteers who respond to accidents and other emergencies.

Johnson credits Ron Rodgers, former owner of Rodger's Helicopter Service, for the inception of AirCare.

"He had the helicopter and made it possible," Johnson said. "I can think of the idea, but it's a whole bunch of people working together to make good things happen.

"He made a proposal that made it possible for GSH to establish a helicopter system," Johnson said about Rodgers. "He only charged for each individual flight. What made it succeed was that pediatricians used it to pick up newborns and bring them to the hospital."

Johnson, along with Kearney surgeon Ken Kimball, helped teach an emergency medical technician course for the Kearney rescue squad. "The Kearney volunteer rescue squad actually took the first national EMT course in 1972," he said.

As the state chairman for the Trauma Committee for the American College of Surgeons from 1976 to 1984, Johnson recognized the need to offer formal emergency training to physicians. The training was designed to prepare doctors to better respond to a patient during the first hour after arriving in the emergency room.

"The course that was started in Nebraska is now taught worldwide and has been taught to 300,000 physicians," he said.

Together, Johnson and Dr. Frank Mitchell from the University of Missouri started a trauma course for physicians in Kansas City in about 1980. It's now one of three courses recognized by the National College of Surgeons, Johnson said.

"About 600 surgeons go through the training each year," he said.

Johnson has touched more than emergency care. He has also been involved in the Spillway Park project on the University of Nebraska at Kearney campus.

"I recognized that here is not only a very important historical site, but something that could be turned into a beautiful waterfall that no other campus in the state of Nebraska has access to or could develop," he said. "We are concentrating our efforts around the spillway falls to start with."

As a state senator, he said his main concern is in higher education and health care.

"I'm looking down the road," he said. "What I'm looking for is to examine higher education in general to make it more efficient and more responsive to today's situations or the changing of the times."

He said through the years he has received a lot of satisfaction from the residents and medical students he has been able to mentor.

"It's nice knowing that I took part in their education and was a mentor to about 100 medical students and resident physicians," he said.

Johnson said he believes he met the challenge offered by his mentor many years ago.

"I feel a sense of satisfaction," he said.

"I really am honored to be included in this group," he said about the Freedom Awards.

e-mail to:
carol.fettin@kearneyhub.com