September 4th, 1998

SAN JOSE, CA -- A date has been set for the premiere of Street Medics, a documentary illustrating the lives of ambulance paramedics created by San Jose’s Tam Communications. The one-hour program will first air on the Discovery Channel at 10 p.m. on Thursday, October 8; it will be broadcast twice more that week.

The program is not only a coup for the San Jose production company but also for AMR, the company that provided paramedic care for the City of San Jose when the program was shot. Ride-alongs with four teams of AMR paramedics over a six-month period allowed the Tam crews to capture the necessary emergency footage for the documentary. As a result, the compelling on-scene footage, which covers calls from auto accidents to CPR cases to drug overdoses to street fights, creates the impression that viewers are part of the action. Street Medics also includes interviews with the paramedics describing first-hand their own process of determining what treatment to administer in each situation, which provides insight into the quick decision-making that's part of the job.

As a former Emergency Medical Technician, Tam Communications’ Chairman Tam Fraser shot, directed and edited the original show with a slant on the personal lives of these San Jose paramedics. Since they routinely face life-and-death situations, paramedics have a unique perspective; and through their interviews and their hands-on experience, their commitment to their work is revealed, as is its effect on their personal lives.

Street Medics is the second agreement signed between Discovery Communications and Tam Communications in recent months. The paramedic documentary was finished immediately following completion of Coast Guard Rescue Swimmer, a co-production between the two firms, which will air at 9 p.m. on November 22. Tam Fraser and Susan O’Connor Fraser are co-executive producers for both programs; Catherine Sarto and Susan O’Connor Fraser wrote the script for Street Medics.

Tam Communications is a leading digital media company, servicing corporate and entertainment clients by combining technical, creative, and communications expertise in the realms of video, interactive multimedia, and web. The company's expanding spectrum of original entertainment programming—developed for broadcast, cable, syndication, and other venues—airs worldwide. Tam Communications is a privately held company located in Scotts Valley, CA. Please visit our web site at www.tamcom.com.