Wanna Take A Tour Of An Ambulance?

[Emthb94-04]

Ever wanted to see inside an ambulance? Gather around y'all, and we will take a closer look!

For starters, I am an Emergency Medical Technician, or an EMT. I work in a profession known as Emergency Medical Services, or EMS. As an EMT, I respond to the needs of the public and its civilians when a possible medical emergency occurs. Anyone who is need of immediate medical help can dial 911, and the caller is immediately connected to the county's emergency communications center. From there, a call taker recieves the call and a dispatcher, often trained as an Emergency Medical Dispatcher (EMD), will coach the caller into taking appropriate steps until help arrives. The dispatcher then calls upon the nearest available ambulance to respond.

In many places in the United States, when you call for an ambulance, you get a fire truck. This is because some firefighters are cross-trained as medical first responders, and some are licensed EMT's or Paramedics. In some jurisdictions, you will get law enforcement officers responding to certain medical calls. First responders will arrive on scene to assess the patient and provide basic treatment until an ambulance arrives on scene. Firefighters and police officers may even radio the responding ambulance to downgrade or even cancel their response.

Then, we get their. First responders provide us with a history they gathered from patient or from family members. We then load the patient onto the cot, sucure the patient with straps, and load him or her onto our ambulance. If the call is bad enough, firefighter or police officers will hop into the back and assist.

Anyways...before I get carried away...here is some pictures of my ambulance:

The outside of the ambulance contains compartments that store backboards, stairchairs, emergency roadside equipment, the unit's main oxygen cylindar, and among other things. And of course, you cannot forget the lights and sirens.

Now let's take a look on the inside where all the neat equipment is.

This is the back of the ambulance where treatment takes place. The cot is latched in the center and surrounded by bench seats. In the rare event where we need to load another patient onto the same ambulance, we can use the bench seat. The net you see near the side door is what we call the "medic catcher." The name pretty much explains it all. It keeps the paramedic or emt from falling off the bench seat onto the adjacent steps. We hang all sorts of easily-accessible equipment on there too, like stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs. We have all sorts of interior compartments that store all sorts of equipment, like airway bags, linens, dressings and bandages, and oxygen delivery devices.

Here is one of our interior compartments. Here, you can see IV supplies, like start kits and IV catheters of various sizes. We will start IV's on most of our patients. This is where we stick a needle ensheathed with a straw-like tube into your vein. We then withdraw the needle (called the stylette) and the straw (called a catheter) remains. We can administer all sorts of lifesaving medications this way and provide fluids.

Next is a picture of our cardiac monitor:

Now this is a neat device. We use a cardiac monitor for multiple purposes. They are capable of taking blood pressures, checking oxygen saturation levels in the blood (called pulse oximetry), and other vital signs. But the main function of this machine is electrocardiograms (better known an EKG's or ECG's). This is where we can take a closer look at the electrical activity going on in your heart. In addition, we can administer shocks to you heart with this machine, either through defibrillation, pacing, or cardioversion.

Now to the front.

Up here we have radio and siren controls. We also keep some boxes of gloves in here for easy reach.

Here is a closer look at our radio equipment and controls. The switches towards the top of the picture we use to control the exterior emergency lights and the interior lights. The control in the middle is our siren controls. This particular one emits dual sirens. And the black box on the bottom is our mobile radio.

Well...that concludes the tour of the ambulance.

If you have any questions, feel free to comment below or contact me.

[Spiorad_Aisce]

Thanks for the insight - You have an important job, well done - Stay safe.