Bangor Daily News, Maine
BANGOR, Maine — A local man who was one of the first trained paramedics in the state and who helped thousands of people in emergency medical situations over nearly four decades died Sunday from injuries suffered last week when he was hit while driving a scooter.
Retired paramedic Paul Knowlton, 75, died Sunday.
Knowlton was driving a 2006 Vespa scooter outbound on Broadway on Wednesday, heading towards Dysart’s Restaurant to have breakfast with his wife, Davia, when he encountered a 2008 Toyota driven by Barbara Brown, 82, of Kenduskeag.
“She was taking a left onto Grandview,” Bangor police Sgt. Tim Cotton said Monday of Brown, who was inbound. “The car pulled across the roadway and they came together in the intersection.”
Brown was not injured. Knowlton was taken to Eastern Maine Medical Center and died four days later, a hospital spokeswoman said.
Nicknamed “PK,” Knowlton said he took his first emergency medical technician, or EMT, class while he was a student at the University of Maine just to learn about first aid. He went on to be one of the first EMTs in the region to be trained in emergency advanced life support. He retired in 2013 after a 37-year career, the last few years spent with Capital Ambulance.
Kevin Batchelder, who shared an office with Knowlton at Capital before he retired, described him as “the hardest-working person I’ve ever met.”
Knowlton didn’t start out as an EMT. He studied agriculture at the University of Maine and earned his bachelor’s degree in 1963, before he earned a master’s degree in animal sciences in 1966.
After graduation, he worked as a cowhand on a dairy farm in New York for three years before becoming a research assistant at the UMaine Animal Science Research Laboratory on the Orono campus in 1970, a post he held for 18 years. His research involved dairy cattle at UMaine’s Witter Farm that he dubbed “the girls up at the university.”
Knowlton earned his EMT license in 1976 and began working at MEDEC and the Orono Volunteer Rescue Squad. He started at Capital Ambulance in 1991 and between 1998 and 2000 was also a paramedic for LifeFlight of Maine.
“He fell in love with the profession,” Capital Ambulance director Joe Kellner said Monday. “He did a lot. He was one of our first paramedics for LifeFlight and he was the first nationally accredited paramedic in the state of Maine.”
The mood at the Union Street ambulance service was somber on Monday as people remembered the man who was such a staple in the business for so many years.
“He was such a big personality,” Kellner said. “He was phenomenal.”
Knowlton also helped lead others into the profession, including paramedic and friend Ed Moreshead, who works for Capital Ambulance at the Brewer Fire Department. Moreshead and Knowlton met at UMaine, where Knowlton would tell stories of his adventures in the ambulance service.
“I said, ‘Hey, I want to do that,’” Moreshead recalled. “He started out a lot of people in EMS.”
Knowlton was always the first to arrive at work and the last to leave and he always kept every medical certification up to date, even the ones he knew he would never need again.
“He recertified everything he got,” Moreshead said. “His flight certification is up to date, even though he knew he would never fly again.”
Knowlton also was humble, a leader to those new to the field, a calm presence in the most stressful situations and a kind friend who will be missed by many.
“I think he impacted thousands of EMTs and paramedics in the state,” Moreshead said.
His friend of 30 years had catchphrases that somehow centered fellow EMTs.
“He would say, ‘It’s not your emergency,’” Morsehead recalled. “Another one he always said was, ‘In an hour, we’ll be sitting in a cafeteria eating pie and drinking coffee.’”
Those words live on in the memories of the emergency medical technicians and paramedics who worked beside him or were trained by him over the last four decades.
A remembrance service is scheduled for 10 a.m. Friday at Jeff’s Catering.
Knowlton said in a 2013 Bangor Daily News story about his retirement that there were two major reasons why he stuck with the job for so long — the adrenaline rush and that he liked “helping people.”
“It’s so trite, but it’s true,” he said three years ago, while standing in the Capital Ambulance bay on Union Street.
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