Ralph Tim McCabe may not have donned a lifeguard uniform, driven a ladder truck or issued a speeding ticket.

But in many ways, McCabe, a longtime emergency medical services instructor and public safety coordinator from Kane'ohe, was responsible for saving lives, too.

An as associate professor at Kapi'olani Community College, McCabe taught hundreds of lifeguards, emergency service technicians, firefighters and police officers, explaining complicated concepts and difficult subject matters in a way people could understand.

"He was very intense, very intelligent and very funny," said Ralph Goto, a close friend and the administrator for the city's Ocean Safety and Lifeguard Services. "He had the ability to take those medical theories and concepts and break them down ... He was really effective."

McCabe died Sept. 30 of complications from pneumonia at Castle Medical Center. He was 66.

McCabe was born Feb. 2, 1941, in Kahuku and grew up in Ka'a'awa.

He graduated from Saint Louis School in 1959 and earned a nursing degree from Rio Hondo Community College in Whittier, Calif., in 1972.

For 13 years he worked as a psychiatric nurse in California before moving back to the Islands and earning a bachelor's degree in education from the University of Hawai'i-Manoa.

Teaching, he quickly discovered, was really his calling.

"Everybody enjoyed his classes," said Donnie Gates, the city's assistant chief for emergency medical services who knew McCabe for more than 30 years. "Everybody got a lot out of them. And there was always a lot of humor."

Case in point: Whenever he wanted to get the attention of his students, McCabe, who had lost his eye as a kid, would pull out his glass eye and roll it on the table, Goto said, laughing.

"That would wake them right up," Goto added. "He had a very unique style of teaching and that's what made him very effective."

In March, McCabe's wife, Katharine Totto, died from a heart condition. She had been a librarian at Punahou School for 37 years. She was just 62.

The pair had been inseparable, friends said.

"They were really close," Goto said. "They had no kids, just their dogs. When Katie passed away, it hit him pretty hard."

McCabe is survived by his sisters, Ruth Maunahina Gagne, Madeline Neely and and S. Haunani Dhyne.

Visitation will start at 5:30 p.m. today at Borthwick Mortuary; services start at 6:30 p.m. Private burial is scheduled for a later date. The family requests that people wear aloha attire.

Reach Catherine E. Toth at ctoth@honoluluadvertiser.com.