Boston Debuts Ambulance for Obese Patients
Boston’s emergency medical services department unveiled a new ambulance designed to help transport obese patients without injuring EMTs:It holds up to 850 pounds and - here's the best part - "The ambulance is likely to be needed two to four times a week". Apparently in addition to hating freedom, MAholes hate treadmills and anything marked "Lite"...Boston emergency services debuted a specialized ambulance designed to carry obese patients on Tuesday, and the retrofitted vehicle was promptly needed on two calls, authorities said.
I just hope this helps out TOTWTYTR a bit when dealing with the more, um, rotund members if the community...
That is all.
6 comments:
Hey! I hate "Lite" anything and loathe treadmills. Yet, I'm 6'2" and weigh 200 pounds (and that is not fat). It takes more than just not eating "lite" items and avoiding exercise machines/hamster wheels.
Generally speaking, to get large enough to need a specialty ambulance, you need to either have a medical condition or be extremely lazy and eat obscene amounts of food.
What the EMS world euphemistically calls a "bariatric rig" is becoming more and more common. A trade show I went to several years ago had an ambulance manufacturer displaying a fat truck as their floor model.
Boston is using a lift... I've seen ramps (similar to lawnmower ramps) combined with an ATV winch. Stretchers now have a Dewalt battery pack to power them up and down. Low-load-height ambulances (U-haul has done it for years, what took Wheeled Coach so long??), upgraded shocks/springs, airbag suspensions, wider patient bays, elimination of the side bench, you name it.
Tim is right. It is some kind of underlying condition - physical or psychological - in order to get that big. I'm not svelte by any means, but when I look at someone who shops for pants from Eureka! instead of Wrangler ... I wonder how they can let themself go that far.
I've been called to help many a time as a medical student for raw muscle moving around lard-o patients for nurses.
A lot of them also refuse to shower. I had to wear a mask to go into a memorable bariatric patient's room. She hadn't showered in 2 weeks.
My daughter is a paramedic in Sacramento, and they have a bariatric rig she sometimes gets assigned to. She is 5'2" 110lb soaking wet, so when they get a big un, they have to call for a lift assist... The last shift she worked that rig, the LIGHTEST person they transported out of 7 calls was 405lbs. So it's not just Mass that has the problem.
I had that career once in suburban fire/EMS and found that a patient's weight was directly proportional to the number of floor up they lived...especially in buildings without elevators.
It's pretty bad when your department breaks the 400# stretcher due to an overweight patient and has to buy a 700-pound-capacity unit just for you. And not only call an engine to go with the ambulance to your house, but a mutual aid engine company as well.
Working at a feed mill in high school I weighed a guy just under 800 once. Never forget that. Maybe had something to do with my choice of career that requires me to pass an arduous PT test every year.
Perhaps the need for specialty EMS equipment & vehicles is related not only to our ballooning waistlines, but for the fact that folks with over-36 BMI have an exponentially higher need for EMS due to their co-morbibities.
For an eye-opener, volunteer as a co-sponsor for a friend undergoing bariatric surgery counseling. It's rough, but will certainly change your view of some (not all) of the bigger folks walking around.
The Teddy Kennedy Memorial Ambulance!
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