New Delhi, July 11 -- VENTURA, Calif. - The last call came Thursday. Randolph Mantooth, the actor whose portrayal of firefighter-paramedic Johnny Gage on NBC's Emergency! helped build the modern American emergency medical system from the ground up, died at a hospice facility here. He was 80.

For eight seasons beginning in 1972, Mantooth and co-star Kevin Tighe played partners at Los Angeles County Fire Department Station 51, answering medical calls at a moment when the very concept of treating patients before they reached a hospital was still contested, still largely illegal, and largely invisible to most Americans. The show depicted what paramedics actually did - trauma care, cardiac response, pediatric emergencies - at a time when the ...