Standing in a pizza restaurant 30 years ago, holding a SWAT operator upside-down and shaking the living daylights out of him, Brian Taylor wasn’t just hazing one of Northern Nevada’s elite law enforcement officers – he was trying to break down a wall that he and his tactical emergency medics had run up against.
“Everybody’s going, ‘What are you doing?’ I’m like, ‘I’m trying to find some lunch money,’” he said in an interview with 2 News Nevada, smiling. “And after that point, that’s the kind of situation that gets you endeared to the team.”
REMSA Health credits Taylor with trailblazing the Tactical Emergency Medical Services Program. Today, TEMS paramedics are embedded in Washoe County’s regional SWAT team, working side-by-side with law enforcement officers during critical emergencies.
“When we started, people on the SWAT teams were very alpha-level individuals, and in order to break into that group, which is very elite, much like special forces, it took a huge amount of effort,” Taylor explained.
One operator in particular – the victim of Taylor’s shakedown – had been especially resistant to allowing medics on the team. Taylor says it was that experience that softened the group, and suddenly had the SWAT team on-board with the transition.
Taylor recalled the story while explaining what’s motivated him throughout his 42-year-long career in emergency services in Northern Nevada. He’s retiring from his current role as REMSA Health’s Emergency Manager on June 3, and says he hopes he leaves behind a legacy of improved regional safety.
“I want to make a difference in the community,” he said. “I want this community to be better and more prepared, because of things that I helped to organize.”
Alongside jumpstarting TEMS, he’s had a hand in responding to some of the region’s most dire emergencies.
In 2011, Taylor was the medical branch director who led the team of first responders when a plane crashed into the grandstands during the Reno Air Races, killing 11 people.
“We transported 54 patients in 62 minutes from the time the incident happened, until we had everyone transported to the hospital,” he recalled.
Following the crash, he gave over 25 presentations across the country, sharing how first responders managed the incident so well, and what plans they put into place to better handle future crises.
After decades of emergency calls, special assignments protecting dignitaries, prestigious first-responder awards, and late-nights talking friends and colleagues through medical emergencies, Taylor says he hopes his retirement brings him more time with family.
