Talk:Ambulance

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Contents 1 Ambulance Manufacturers 2 "AMBULANCE" in mirror writing - why? 3 First civilian ambulance 4 NPOV (Israeli, private companies 5 Re: bus as a term for ambulance 6 Skills once reserved for 'medics... 7 Car-based ambulances? 8 Structure 9 Merkava MK III ambulance 10 Bambulance 11 Photos 12 Color of Ambulance 13 More on History of Ambulance 14 Ambulances in the US 15 Ambulance/EMS 16 Deletion of Pictures 17 Article Splitting 18 UK/US English

[edit] Ambulance Manufacturers

On the bottom of the Ambulance page we have external links to Ambulance Manufacturers. I think that this is more so using Wikipedia as a source of advertising and should be taken off. Anyone else have thoughts or ideas about this? Thanks Eric 03:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

You may be right; I don't know. We do have a list of automobile manufacturers, though. What may be more important is does the list add to the article? There may also be the problem of the length of an exhaustive list. --Badger151 22:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree - WP:NOT a link/web directory or a directory of manufacturers. Endorse deleting the external links. Leuko 01:36, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Okay so from what I gather the consensus is that we delete the external links to Ambulance Manufacturers. I think we will give people the rest of today to bring up arguments that support the external links or else the external links to the Manufacturers will be deleted. Eric 17:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "AMBULANCE" in mirror writing - why?

Anyone that can write something about why the text "Ambulance" is mirroredreversed on front of ambulance vehicles?

So when viewed in a rear-view mirror, it will appear as it does normally.

While reading "Ambulance" in the rear-view mirror may not provide any useful information to the public (as the lights and sirens should be enough to get them to pull over), the label is useful to commanders of large scale incidents. While sitting in a command vehicle attempting to coordinate incoming units, being able to quickly identify the ambulance is useful to quickly direct it to the patient.

I don't know; I have to go with the first answer here because officers will not necessarily be sitting in a command vehicle. For smaller scenes, command officers will be fulfilling multiple duties (somtimes including patient care) and will frequently not have the luxury of waiting in a vehicle. Further, there is no gaurantee the the ambulance will approach the scene from behind the command vehicle. At larger scenes, the liklihood of a staging officer spending a lot of time in a vehicle and using her mirrors to identify incoming units is pretty remote. She's going to be out on her feet, directing traffic, collecting and coordinating information, etc. Apart from everything else, working with all of the organizational paperwork of a large scene is difficult to do in the front seat of a vehicle (and again, her vehicle is not gauranteed to be facing the same direction as any incoming units). Finally, the staging officer will likely want to know whether the incoming ambulance is ALS or BLS (where both service levels exist, which admittedly is not everywhere); merely knowing that a unit is an ambulance doesn't provide her with enough information.

But, given your point about the lights and sirens being enough to make people pull over, why do ambulances wear a backwards label on their front ends? Many drivers are not very observant, and fail to notice an emergency vehicle until it is close behind them. Once an ambulance is close behind another vehicle, the driver of that leading vehicle may not be able to see the ambulance's flashing lights (or hear the siren, if the leading vehicle is well insulated, the radio is on, the heater is blowing at full blast, etc). Seeing "ambulance" in the rear-view mirror - written forward, when everything in the mirror is expected to be backward, can make an impression on that driver, prompting him to let the ambulance by. Or then again, maybe not; some people pull over, others simply refuse to do so. <sigh>

A question I don't have the answer to is why do ambulances have a backwards label on their front ends, but other emergency vehicles don't?

And, I think it should be pointed out that while I know that the USA places this label on thier ambulances, not everyone does.

Badger151 14:22, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I've seen a fire engine with "fire" mirrored on TV once, but more common on ambulances here in Denmark too. Maybe it's concidered the most important vehicle?

Also many "civil" vans use the trick - i.e. craftsmen and other company vehicles high enough to be seen thru a rear view mirror G®iffen 19:39, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] First civilian ambulance

The first civilian ambulance is said to have been set up in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, in September 1892... Do references back this up? On a quick search I've found at least two claims that appear to predate this:

• The first ambulance service in the United States was created in Cincinnati in 1865 at Cincinnati General Hospital. [1]
• Bellevue Hospital in New York City is credited with establishing the first hospital-based civilian ambulance service in the United States. The horse-and-buggy teams were organized by Dr. Edward L. Dalton in 1869. [2]

Zoganes 15:07, 2004 Nov 29 (UTC)

Since I can't see any supporting evidence to the claim for Queensland (who don't seem to be making the claim themselves[3]), I've deleted it. Zoganes 11:40, 2005 Jan 14 (UTC)

Ditto for the University of Louisville --Badger151 23:32, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV (Israeli, private companies

I came across this article while doing an NPOV-check. An anon IP had blanked the graf about the Israeli armoured ambulance. Since that is likely the cause of the NPOV tag, I restored that graf. I also corrected the NPOV tag... since the dispute is likely related only to that section, I changed the tag to {{SectNPOV}}, which is the correct tag in this case. Feco 19:35, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I am highjacking this item to say that I found an NPOV section tag on the "private ambulance company" section. I think it should have been an accuracy tag, and perhaps a last-person-to-edit-doesn't-speak-English-very-well tag. As ambulance services are something that I happen to know a fair bit about (in the U.S., at least), I have slightly corrected and noticeably expanded the content, fixing the minor grammar bits as I went. If anyone thinks it still deserves the NPOV tag that I removed, then please post WHY in this space.

[edit] Re: bus as a term for ambulance

Some 'medics may consider this term to be derrogatory, but I haven't met any who do. Personally, I'm not a fan of "vanbulance," but there it is. I've changed the comment so that it continues to reflect the dislike that some folks have for the term, but also indicates that this feeling is not universal. --Badger151 23:19, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

The term 'bus' is actually commonplace in the metropolitan New York City area. I revised this comment to add this information, because Fire, Police, and EMS workers in the NYC area use this term frequently with no derragatory connotations (e.g., if you listen to the NYPD radio, you may hear "We need a bus over here...", which is their radio lingo for "Send me an ambulance..."). --FireRescueLieut 06:15, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Skills once reserved for 'medics...

Defibrillation may be the best example of a skill once reserved for medics that is now a BLS skill (actually, if you go all the way back, doctors thought that not even 'medics could be successfully taught to defibrillate.) A large part of this is due to the development of the AED, but at least as far back as 1999 the state of Rhode Island licensed me, and many others, as Basic EMTs, to manually defibrillate adult patients and to intubate adult patients as well - see their protocols; I expect that Rhode Island still does this. Practicing these skills required the successful completion of optional classes beyond the standard EMT-Basic curriculum, but we were still Basics; becoming an Intermediate required even more schooling, and granted additional skills. Many Basic EMTs can also give medications - epinephrine (adrenaline) for anaphylaxis is a common example (see the protocols for New York State or Rhode Island, or I expect for many other states, too.) Nebulised albuterol is another example. --Badger151 04:38, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

I some countries, even non-professional volunteers can be trained to perform with semi-automatic defibrillators (I am, for instance). Rama 09:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Car-based ambulances?

Shouldn't this article have stuff about car-based ambulances, like the Cadillac conversions?

Nova SS 02:43, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

That's a good point. Probably there should be a mention of air ambulances, too, though perhaps they deserve (or have?) their own page. --Badger151 19:00, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Structure

The structure of this article is somewhat haphazard - e.g. private and voluntary-run ambulances in the UK are dealt with in the section on ambulances in the UK, not in the separate private ambulances section, while that section reads very much as if it was written solely from the US perspective with a little info on France tacked on later.

I think the whole page needs a good tidy up to more carefully distinguish US and non-US information and to make it easier for people to (i) find info relevant to their location and (ii) add info for countries not already covered without having to worry about whether the info should all go in a country-specific section or be split between various headings.

Sadly I don't have the time or knowledge to do this re-write myself.

--Casper Gutman 11:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merkava MK III ambulance

Hi. I see that there is an armoured and armed Merkava ambulance in service with the Israeli army. But is it marked with a Red Star of David or other Red Cross emblem? --GunnarRene 13:58, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Museum item

Here's an image of a museum model of an earlier Israeli medevac vehichle. It sports a Red Star of David (althogh faded) and a machine gun, though the main turret has been removed. The red star of David is not actually recognized as an Emblem of the Red Cross, so its use on an armed vehichle might not be technically illegal, but I certainly see a huge potential for confusion here, and I don't like it. --GunnarRene 15:04, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Let's face it. Does any of Israel's enemies care if any vehicle is an ambulance or not? In the recent 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, tanks were frequently used as ambulances and no one bothered to paint any emblem on them. Otherwise, FWIW, the red star of David is now a recognized emblem while included in the humiliating Red Crystal.--Shuki 21:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Right. I've read up on the Red Crystal before asking the above. So in essence, the exterior of a medevac Merkava is mostly the same as other Merkava variants? But how do Israeli soldiers know the difference? Is there a tactical marking on it, or do they just know which tank numbers in their units are medevac?

It's hard to prove a negative; I've looked through lots of Merkava images, and found none with the MDA marking on them. But untill there is authorative information that the armed Merkava are not marked with the MDA or Red Crystal, I think the article still can't categorically state that they ARE NOT marked. The earlier version seemed to imply that Israel was doing something wrong by medevac'ing in an armed vehichle, but that happens all the time when there's no regular ambulance around. (If somebody in the platoon gets injured they'd be taken back in a normal tank, M113, Hummer or other armed vehichle and transfered into a proper ambulance.) There's no law against using an armed vehichle for medevac, what's illegal is to mark it with the protected symbols. --GunnarRene 21:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the issue is. If the plain red star of david is not a 'protected emblem' then what is the difference of painting this on a tank or painting a red smiley :-). What would be illegal about this? I would understand the illegal painting of a red cross on a combattant vehicle, and I can assure you that there are NO merkavas with red crosses painted on them. As for identifying them, I cannot vouch for the reported turret-less tankbulance outfiited with medical equipment, but rather the regular tanks that have much of their ammo removed to make space internally for medical personnel and casulaties. These are regular tanks for all intents and purposes. --Shuki 22:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, this is turning into me expressing myself instead of improving the article. If there was some source who categorically said that they did not mark the armed medevac vehichles, then that would be good. But what the article says now is fine in either case.

I've only seen model shots of the medevac Merkava. Those converted for medevac remain fighting vehichles too.

The issue is that Israel wants to use the red star as an official symbol, and although it is not an official Red Cross emblem, the red star is still recognized as the common emblem of the Israeli national society. So if Israel continued to use the red star on armed vehichles it would create confusion about the nature of the vehichles.--GunnarRene 22:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Example: The French ambulance on the right. This ambulance has a large Red Cross on its back door (barely visible because it's open), but observe the tactical marking to the right of the door. That is the standard unit marking of a medical vehichle (though it would look slightly different if it followed NATO standard APP-6a). So the Israeli medevac Merkavas could have those kinds of markings without carrying a red crystal, Star of David, or whatever. --GunnarRene 22:27, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bambulance

I'm not an editor, and I'm not sure if this is encyclopedia-worthy, but should there be a section on the term bambulance? A quick google search should reveal the meaning and origin. Maybe it requies an article of its own? Maybe nothing. Just wondering. I came here for info after hearing the word in a conversation, and found nothing.

What is it? A Boston ambulance? The story about the guy with a deer in his car calling 911? The Bambulance League (Baseball)? I'd say not worthy for inclusion unless we the commedian that made it allready has an article. --GunnarRene 02:54, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Photos

As the photo of the 1964 police cruiser illustrates, ambulances have changed over the years. Does anyone have either the date that any of the article's photos were taken, or the in-service date of the apparatus pictured? A retirement date might also be useful. --Badger151 23:38, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Color of Ambulance

Can any one tell me why the ambulance is commonly [[white in color]].

This is only a guess, but I think it's simply cheaper. --Badger151 01:44, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me the layman the color of the medical professional. Think hospitals (I'm sure some of them are trying warmer, fuzzier-feeling colors now), docs, nurses. Xiner 03:27, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] More on History of Ambulance

This page seems well developed so I'm just wondering if anyone has suggested adding more on the history of ambulances? My understanding is that often undertaker vehicles were first used for ambulances...didn't take much of a google search to back that up Found the following on this page http://www.toronto.ca/ems/overview/history.htm The first use of ambulances for civilian purposes did not occur until after the American Civil War, when returning veterans began to provide this service to their communities on a voluntary basis. In Ontario, communities often relied on the local undertaker for this type of service; the undertaker often having the only transportation in town in which one could lay down. --Mazzmn 13:43, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm working on that - it's coming. --Badger151 03:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, there's some there, though more needs to be done, and I'm getting to it as I have time. Is anyone familiar with the research/legislation/events that are significant in the history of ambulances outside of the US? Finding good sources has proven difficult. --Badger151 23:28, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ambulances in the US

Scoop and Screw (Scoop and Carry, if you prefer) doesn't apply to all ambulance calls; in some cases we Stay and Play. The belief that all calls involve scooping the patient up and speeding off to the hospital is a common misconception, but hasn't been true for many years due to advances in the level of medicine that can be provided in the field. I also consolidated and removed some information that really pertained more to the EMT article than to ambulances --Badger151 03:13, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Ambulance/EMS

This article is including a lot of information that pertains to EMS, not to ambulances per se'. I've also noticed this tendency in some of the other EMS related articles. What do people think about creating country-specific EMS pages that discuss the details of each system, and removing this type of information from the Ambulance, EMT, etc pages? Doing so would allow for discussions of the tools of the trade without creating articles of extreme length. --Badger151 21:13, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Page started:Emergency Medical Services in the United States. It's not yet integrated with other pages. --Badger151 21:43, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion of Pictures

We really need to get the Ambulance page cleaned up. Unless anyone has any objections I am going to be deleting 3 pictures off the Ambulance page. I will be deleting 2 of the pictures of an Air Ambulance and the other picture is a crest of an Ambulance Service. I will leave the pictures online for 1 more day to see if anyone has arguments against this and if there are none then the pictures will be delted because they are not appropriate to this article.

Eric 23:47, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I would just as soon drop all the crests and air ambulances. It's a little crowded with all the crests there, but I want to see a variety of ambulances. Air ambulance pics should be in [[Air 's Ambulance --ArmadilloFromHellGateBridge 01:42, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I object. Whats your reasons for doing so?

As there is only 2 pictures of Air Ambulances on the page I assume you are trying to delete them both. What makes you think they're not appropriate for an article on Ambulances? These aircraft are an integral and much used part of the ambulance services in many parts of Europe and they are, by definition, ambulances in their own right! Scancoaches 01:38 7 January 2007 (UTC)

These are the reasons why we are suggesting that the Air Ambulances & crest be removed. 1) The Ambulance page is 48 kilobytes long and according to the Wikipedia:Article Size guidelines we need to try to keep the articles under 40 kilobytes. 2) Pictures of Air Ambulances belong on the Air Ambulance article. That is like putting a picture of a Ford vehicle on the Chevy article just because it's a vehicle.

Eric 02:03, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The page is headed Ambulance, not Ambulance (Vehicle). The Aircraft are Ambulances in their own right. Yes, I agree, Air Ambulance is the place for more descriptive pictures of ambulance aircraft, BUT with the main Ambulance page, there should be shown some examples of each type of Ambulance , NOT just the road vehicles. Lets see what other people think.Scancoaches 02:14 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is an Ambulance page, not an Ambulance (automobile) page - all ambulance vehicles: planes, trains, automobiles, motorcycles, ships, and helicopters are covered by this page's title. I believe that the reason that this page is so long is because it contains so much EMS info that does not directly pertain to ambulances: the differences between the skill set of a paramedic and that of an EMT are irrelevant for this page, for instance. Much of the country-specific information could be moved to country-specific pages, and probably should be. I've made similar observations on the EMT and EMS talk pages, as they are similalry overloaded.

As for deleting a helicopter picture, which one? Each helicopter picture is present not as an example of an air ambulance, but of an air ambulance belonging to a specific service. The same goes for the crests, though in this case, I suppose I could see removing both, rather than one, as being appropriate. I would also nominate the following images for removal, starting at the top of the article:

• The Star of Life - I like having it there, but it doesn't add to the reader's understanding of the subject, and a link is provided. If we're removing images simply to free up space, then, I'd cut it.
• The "Modern Day Advanced Life Support Ambulance" - The Mexican ambulance is, for our intents and purposes, modern and up to date, making this "Modern Day" image redundant. Also, the "Modern Day" image was the most recent to be added, and, in chosing between the two images, I'd rather go with the Mexican ambulance to represent more of the world.
• If there's only going to be one image under Private Ambulance Companies, then it should be a modern ambulance that is shown, not one from 1967.
• The "typical "squad truck" design for a fly car" depicts a fly car, not an ambulance. Agina, a link is provided, and the image is unneccessary.
• The "Medium duty type ambulance" needs to be better tied into the text of the article. Compare its caption to those of the Type I, II, and III ambulances above it. --Badger151 02:21, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with what you've said Badger151 and made a start. I've moved one of the Helicopter pictures and made it an example picture and not specific to a particular service. Of the 5 pictures you pointed out as unnecessary, I agree 4 should go but the Star of Life should stay as its rather a nice page header. As for the crests, I agree that, if one must go, then both should.Scancoaches 12:48 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I will go ahead and delete the two crests then as they are really a form of advertising for the company anyways.

Eric 23:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

I would like to thank Badger151 for all the edits you are doing to help make the Ambulance article more useful! Eric 05:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Thank you - you're very kind. --Badger151 03:50, 18 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Article Splitting

I've tried to make the article as universal as possible, and removed duplication that appeared in the country specific sections. Because of that i propose to create separate articles on each of the ambulance services by country, to try and keep the main article length down. Anyone got any objections? I think it will make this a much more readable article. --Owain.davies 18:56, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Nobody objected when I made the same proposal in early December (see#Ambulance/EMS), so I think you can go ahead. There is already a page for the US: Emergency Medical Services in the United States. Once a few pages have been put together, it may become useful to put together a clearing house page or a category that enables users to quickly move form one country to the next.--Badger151 22:02, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] UK/US English

There appears to be some confusion regarding which style of English should be used on this page. When I first found the article, it appeared to be mostly written in US English; this also appears to be true for most of the article's history - though I admit that my sense of what falls into US and what falls into UK English is not the best. My intent has been to keep the article consistent. Recently, another user believed that the article was written in UK English, and perhaps saw my edits as an attempt to change the article into a US-English article, and so reverted the changes I had made. I expect that he did so in good faith, and would have let things lie, except that he accidentally also reverted User:GunnarRene's edits at the same time. Rather than manually recreate GunnarRene's edits, I simply reverted the article back to what it had been after his (GunnarRene's) edits (the only other intervening edits were vandalism, and the reversion of that vandalism). --Badger151 05:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)