This video is no longer available.
He’s responded to crashes and emergency calls in Bethesda, Maryland, over the past decade. At 76 years old, Ed Levien was one of the oldest emergency medical technicians in Maryland, spending more than a decade during his retirement to save lives.
“I think that it’s fine for anyone to retire from their career. It’s another thing to retire from life,” Levien told WTOP, while sitting in the training room of the Bethesda-Chevy Chase Rescue Squad.
Levien retired from his successful career as an advertising creative at 64.
“My wife got tired of me being home,” Levien said. “And we drove by the rescue squad, and there was a sign out front said, ‘Need volunteers.’”
He thought he would be a dispatcher but found there were no age restrictions for EMTs as long as he passed the physical.
He studied for six months and then spent the next 12 years rushing at high speeds in an ambulance saving the lives of others.
While the exact number is not known, he was sent on between 3,300 and 4,000 calls.
“At the beginning, every call was extremely anxiety-driving because you don’t know, you haven’t been on enough,” he said.
But over that career, he has brought countless people back from the brink of death.
“That is an experience that we in the fire service have, sometimes several times a day, each day, it’s what we do,” Levien said.
He said it takes a tremendous amount of teamwork to keep someone who is in bad condition alive until they get to the hospital.
“We do something called high-performance CPR, and it’s a lot of teamwork,” he said. “If someone is in cardiac arrest, it may begin with two people. The first two that arrive on scene, but pretty soon you might have six people working to bring somebody back.”
He has also helped deliver a baby.
“I worked with some young people, and if they don’t have younger siblings, they aren’t that good at holding babies,” Levien said. “So I said, ‘All right, give her to grandpa,’ and I was able to confidently hold the baby.”
He said they would also see many people who probably didn’t need emergency medical attention, getting a bad diagnosis from “Dr. Google.”
“If someone stubs their toe, they go to Google and find out what’s going on, and then they call 911,” he said.
And while that may seem harmless to get checked out by EMTs, it often presents danger as they speed through traffic blaring sirens.
“It’s not what you see on television,” Levien said. “Sometimes it’s very scary, but it’s dangerous for anyone who’s going lights and sirens.”
While some might have seen his age as a disadvantage, Levien said it brought wisdom as well as a unique connection to many of his patients.
Actress “Bette Davis said ‘Growing old isn’t for sissies,'” Levien said. “And they go, you got that, right? But being able to identify with them is very important.”
Levien no longer goes out on calls, but he still is a constant presence at the station, helping train the next generation of EMTs.
“Beyond just teaching them the skills they need is to give them the benefit of my experience of reality versus classroom,” he said.
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
© 2025 WTOP. All Rights Reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.
