Key West paramedics are convinced a picture is worth a thousand words.

To prove it, they implemented a $100,000 camera system Friday that allows doctors hundreds of miles away to see patients while they are being treated in the field, ambulances and medical helicopters.

Dr. Antonio Marttos Jr., a University of Miami School of Medicine professor and Ryder Trauma Center surgeon, asked that a $100,000 state grant for the hospital be used to buy the equipment for Key West emergency responders, making the Southernmost City the nation's first community to use the technology.

"We chose Key West based on its distance from Ryder," Marttos said. "It is an hour flight to Miami from Key West and this will allow doctors to see immediately how a patient was injured. Right now if we have a car crash, I don't really know how sick the patient is until they get here. Key West is the perfect area to test this system and show other hospitals what it can do."

The system uses a wireless, high-speed Internet connection, powerful tablet PCs once afforded only by the military and small high-definition cameras to capture wreck or accident footage on scene. Those images, and audio, are then sent directly via TV screen to Ryder's surgeon station, where doctors can view the patient, how they are situated in a car, what objects fell on them or other information vital to saving lives, Marttos said.

Lower Keys Medical Center officials are still implementing the system, but the network was turned on at Ryder and the Key West Rescue headquarters on North Roosevelt Boulevard Friday morning.

Additionally, the Monroe County Sheriff's Office Trauma Star air ambulance and the hospital's LifeNet helicopter will use the technology as part of the grant.

The idea is not new, but it has been prohibitively expensive until just recently, said Key West Rescue Supervisor Steve Simonaitis. He was exposed to a similar system years ago while working in Georgia, but the camera image quality then was not good enough to make the idea feasible.

"The whole idea here is to give the doctor an immediate image that tells him or her exactly what we're dealing with," Simonaitis said. "Before, we were doing this verbally through radio communications. With this, I can let the doctor view the patient, who might be trapped in a car, for instance, and that doctor can make a lot of determinations then and there, before that patient has been removed or is even in the air."

Marttos responded to the Haiti earthquake and used the system there. That experience proved to him the technology is practical. His vision is to have every major hospital in Florida hooked up to the network so surgeons hundreds of miles away can make input, prepare their staffs or take other measures to improve patient care on myriad incidents.

The idea, Marttos said, is to have every paramedic, firefighter, nurse and doctor receiving the same information in real time via the network.

Key West Rescue paramedics supervisor Dave Erwin was sold on the cameras before they came to Key West. He used them while serving as a medic in the Army and knows first-hand they can make an immediate difference, he said.

"I saw a guy in the field deliver babies using this system," Erwin said. "I'm talking about guys not trained on how to deliver a baby getting direction from a doctor miles away.

"I can only go so far out here; I'm not a surgeon," he added, "but it feels great knowing there's a surgeon looking over my shoulder saying, 'Hey, you've got to close that artery or do this or do that.' "

Key West Fire Department Division Chief Marcus Del Valle was elated that the city was the first to get the technology. He cited two incidents last year in which the technology would have been useful -- a construction worker falling into a cistern and a Duval Street store owner being crushed by a refrigerator-sized safe he was moving.

Cameras work in low visibility and can be attached to poles to reach small spaces, Del Valle added. The Internet connection is fueled by a high-speed hub that should function when phone lines are down due to hurricanes or high winds.

The cameras most often will be used in critical cases and will be operated by supervisors on scene.

"I know it works," Erwin said. "Trust me, a picture is worth a thousand words."

alinhardt@keysnews.com