On April 1, 1980, Richard Lamie was hired by Frisbie Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.H., as the first employee and supervisor of its newly formed Frisbie Memorial Hospital Ambulance Service. April 2020 was the service’s 40th anniversary and Richard’s 40th year with it.
Lamie graduated from St. Francis College at the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, with a degree in psychology and minor in sociology. While there he worked in the school infirmary doing cleaning and handing out bandages and cough syrup to students who didn’t feel well. In the evening, when the nurse was off duty, students would come in complaining of cough and cold symptoms. Lamie would treat them with a mixture he’d concoct in the infirmary using codeine and Sudafed.