toledoblade.com --

BROOKLYN, Mich. - For two weekends each summer, the third-largest city in the state of Michigan sits amongst rolling pastures and tracts of hardwoods in the Irish Hills. Michigan International Speedway is the downtown area of that vast, temporary metropolis of parking lots, campgrounds and grandstands.

Dr. John Maino, the medical director at MIS since 1985, is charged with developing and instituting a plan to meet the first aid and emergency care needs of that population, both on and off the track.

"The speedway is really a transient city in a tight, confined area, and we try and anticipate what can happen in a city of close to 200,000 people, and be ready in case it happens here. We cover the whole spectrum of the event," Dr. Maino said. "We call it show biz medicine, because what goes on here is on television and highly visible."

Dr. Maino, who is employed as the medical director of the emergency department at Foote Hospital in Jackson, also serves as the medical examiner for Jackson County. For the races at MIS, he assembles a team of physicians, nurses, and other medical personnel who work in emergency medicine, or in the critical care wards of area hospitals.

"We set this up just like a regular city, with a dispatch center where all calls are routed, and then the nearest medical units are sent to the site," Maino said. "We go over many different scenarios because the more you can make it - not routine, but familiar - then it becomes your specialty."

Dr. Maino said his staff will deal with everything from injuries due to falls, bee stings, and dehydration outside the track, and a different class of injuries associated with the actual racing. There are ambulances stationed near each of the four turns, two additional ambulances at the infield medical center where there is also a medivac helicopter, and two mini ambulance units in the pit area.

"No matter how prepared you are, auto racing is still a dangerous sport," he said. "They have spectacular crashes, but due to the advances in safety equipment, a lot of times the drivers will walk away from it. If you do something like this long enough, something bad is going to happen, but if someone does die, it does not necessarily mean something was done wrong."

Dr. Maino is credited with saving the life of NASCAR driver Ernie Irvan back in 1994 when a violent crash in a practice session left Irvan near death as he was pulled from the car. Dr. Maino performed an emergency tracheotomy on Irvan on the track before he was transported via helicopter to the hospital.

"I consider myself very fortunate that someone of Dr. Maino's skill and expertise was here at MIS when that happened," Irvan said on a recent visit to the track. "He made all the right decisions in an emergency situation, and that saved my life. I'm eternally grateful for that."

- Matt Markey

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