Continuing Evolution in Ambulance Design

After EMS Expo last October, I wrote about the new Sprinter chassis designs featuring forward-facing attendant seats, manufactured by Miller Coach and Crestline Coach.

At EMS Today 2011, I saw quite a few more ambulances on display with forward-facing attendant seats. There were also a number of rigs built on the Sprinter chassis, including a couple of Type III conversions.

I’ve said before that I am intrigued by the inherent advantages of the Sprinter chassis design. Given the current economic climate and the inexorable rise of fuel prices, I’m betting a great many more fleet managers are going to give them a serious look.

They’re cheaper to maintain, last far longer, and sip diesel compared to other ambulances on the market. For a light-to-medium duty ambulance fleet, they probably make the most sense of all the available options. If you’re a medic working in a System Status Management system, particularly if you’re on the tall side, you’ll quickly fall in love with the legroom and headroom of a Sprinter.

Still, they have their detractors, and most of the complaints seem to center on the lack of foot room and storage space in the patient module. Our Borg Sprinters are fairly well laid-out, but they still offer less-than-adequate foot room between the bench seat and the cot. Most of our guys working in them have been spoiled by spending their careers in Type I boxes, and they bitch mightily about the lack of room.

Frankly, the argument doesn’t wash. Given half a chance, most of them would give their eye teeth for a flight medic position, wedging themselves into a BK117 every day:

I’m a big boy, and I have no trouble working in a Sprinter. Granted, working in a van is a bit of an adjustment when you’re used to working in a box, but it can be done. Frankly, if declining reimbursement and increasing fleet costs meant a company’s choosing between smaller, more efficient ambulances and pay raises for its employees…

… this employee will choose the cramped ambulance, thank you very much.

The gripe about Sprinters being top-heavy is a legitimate one, but I’ve had the opportunity to drive these things a few times now, and if one drives them within our low-forces driving standards, they’re quite manageable. Most ambulance accidents could be avoided by simply slowing the hell down, anyway.

The folks at Miller Coach Company had at the show a new design based on the Sprinter chassis, a Type II conversion with a stretched wheel base and their reclining, forward facing seats:

Miller Coach’s design demonstrates that the Sprinter chassis affords plenty of room with the right module layout. I can’t quite remember how many more cubic inches of space this new design has, but from looking at it, there is plenty of room to dock my cardiac monitor, multiple IV pumps and transport ventilator, with enough room between the foot of the cot and the rear doors to secure a balloon pump. There’s as much cabinet space as the wide-body Type I boxes that The Borg uses for CCT rigs now.

Of course, there is still the issue of a relatively narrow footprint, being top-heavy. The solution to that would be a Type III conversion based on the Sprinter chassis; wider footprint, plenty of room in the back, while maintaining the ease of maintenance and most of the fuel savings.

Looks like the folks at Medix Specialty Vehicles were already thinking along those lines:

As TOTWTYTR noted in his blog post on the subject, ambulance design hasn’t come very far in thirty years, but ambulance construction has made huge strides. In terms of HVAC, electrical systems, forward-facing attendant seats and structural integrity of the module itself, today’s rigs are a far cry from your daddy’s ambulance, even if they do still sport a similar profile and layout.

While there is still a viable market for the heavy duty chassis behemoths, I think that as more EMS agencies – public or private – start to feel the economic crunch, these Sprinters are going to become much more popular.

Looks like they’ve got the potential to represent a new era in ambulance design.