Kenneth Edward McCullough, a retired City of Miami Department of Fire Rescue chief who, in the 1960s, helped develop the contemporary emergency medical services system, died Saturday -- two weeks after his 75th birthday, July 26.

The orchid fancier and history buff suffered a heart attack on July 4 then succumbed to cancer at a Bradenton hospice.

``He was very instrumental about how we developed the emergency medical system in Miami,'' said McCullough's predecessor, Herman Brice, who is retiring Friday as Palm Beach County Fire Rescue chief. ``He guided it to where it became the paramount of service we provide.''

In the 1950s, firefighters couldn't do much for injured victims beyond administering first aid at the scene then rushing them to the hospital.

McCullough helped change that in 1963, after his rescue truck responded to reports of a man in cardiac arrest.

McCullough was among those who tried to revive him. Dr. Eugene Nagel, an anesthesiologist who lived in the building, pronounced the man dead.

McCullough and Nagel -- who taught at the University of Miami Medical School and is credited with coining the term ``paramedic'' -- got to talking about the high mortality rate in such situations.

EMS PROTOCOLS

Their conversation launched a decades-long collaboration between the fire department and Nagel and Dr. Jim Hirschman, a UM cardiologist and short-wave radio enthusiast, which shaped nationally accepted EMS protocols.

McCullough arranged for Nagel to visit Fire Station 1, where he taught the firefighters how to start IVs, insert breathing tubes and administer ``closed chest cardiac massage:'' CPR.

According to Assistant Fire Chief Allen Joyce, the city manager at the time ``was very reluctant to have these gentlemen do that,'' so McCullough ``started an IV on Nagel right there in the commission chambers, and they allowed that group to continue training.''

They experimented on cadavers, dogs and each other, according to a fire department history.

``The guys in the department. . .used to call us the Band-Aid squad,'' retired paramedic George Billberry -- Big Mac's lifelong friend, who resides at the hospice where McCullough died -- once told The Miami Herald.

Meanwhile, Hirschman worked on the telemetry: radio transmission of vital signs from the street to doctors at the hospital.

The history says that in 1965 ``the Miami Fire Department became the first in the nation to make radio contact between hospitals and firemen in the field.''

In 1969, Miami firefighters became the nation's first to successfully use a defibrillator on a call.

McCullough grew up in Miami, attending Ada Merritt Elementary School, Citrus Grove Junior High and Miami Senior. He joined the fire department in 1952, at Billberry's urging.

FAST TRACK

McCullough ``took the test and they put him at a fire station that night,'' recalled his wife, Rayleen Hillis McCullough. ``They told him, `If there's an alarm, just get on the truck and somebody will tell you what to do.' ''

He and Rayleen were high school sweethearts -- he played the trumpet in the band; she was the majorette. They married in 1953 and he spent four years in the Coast Guard before returning to the job he loved.

Her husband delivered babies in cars, taught paramedic courses at Miami Dade College, and tested battlefield medical equipment for the military.

``He was always giving somebody money if they were stranded,'' Rayleen said, and once coaxed a sick woman out of a laundromat and into the rescue truck by promising to bring her laundry so no one would steal it.''

McCullough initially worked at Station 2 in Overtown, built in 1915. After it closed in 1973, and as chief in the '80s, he sought, unsuccessfully, to turn it into a museum.

``Big Mac'' McCullough retired in 1987. After Hurricane Andrew destroyed the family home in Homestead five years later, they moved to Palmetto, near Bradenton, and a second home at Scaly Mountain, N.C.

In addition to his wife, McCullough is survived by his mother, Florence, and daughter, Joy, of Miami; daughter Jennie of Georgia and brother George -- also a retired Miami firefighter -- of Westminster, S.C.