By Rich Harbert
Wicked Local Plymouth
PLYMOUTH, Mass. — After a medic had to abandon her ambulance and run nearly a mile along Plymouth Beach to a cardiac victim this summer, public safety officials knew they had to find a better way.
Turns out they’d been sitting on the solution all along.
Mechanics from American Medical response recently removed the back seats from an a sport utility vehicle used for transporting equipment and installed a platform that can now accommodate backboards and emergency stretchers.
The result is All Terrain 1 (AT-1), the town’s first all-terrain ambulance.
The vehicle went into service over Labor Day weekend but has not yet been called into service.
With a few weeks of summer remaining and hunting season on the horizon, officials believe it will not be long before the new ambulance makes a difference on the beach or in the forest.
Mary Ellen Shea, operations manager for AMR, devised the plan for the new ambulance over the summer in cooperation with Fire Chief Ed Bradley and Police Chief Michael Botieri. By agreement, the ambulance will be housed at fire headquarters on Sandwich Street and police, firefighters and harbormaster personnel are authorized to get behind the wheel.
The ambulance will not carry equipment. Medics will carry their own equipment. Rather, the ambulance is meant to get in and out of remote areas like power lines, bike trails and beaches, with relative speed and comfort.
Until now, the town has relied on its heavy-duty brushbreaker trucks to reach remote accident scenes. The trucks, designed to fight forest fires, have little trouble getting to remote sites, but the ride is not especially comfortable.
Patients are typically treated and transported atop the trucks, exposed to the elements.
The new vehicle is certified for use as an ambulance and can transport patients directly to Jordan Hospital. Patients requiring transportation to trauma centers would be transferred to another ambulance to complete the trip.
“This is just a rapid extrication vehicle for all terrain. It was put in service not just for the beach but also for power lines, the forest, all those hard to reach places,” Shea said. “The hunting season is coming up soon and people get injured all the time off the trails. This is the perfect smaller vehicle to get in there.”
Mechanics retrofitting the Ford Expedition left one real seat for a medic to tend to a patient en route.
“It’s going to be great for snow storms, for those long driveways in Plymouth,” Shea said.
“This obviously raises our level of care way up,” Fire Chief Ed Bradley said. “It’s just a safer, better way.”
Republished with permission from Wicked Local Plymouth