Hi guys, my first 'proper' post here, I notice the discussion about the 'airline seat' vs the bench seat, especially the post about the bench seats being so dangerous. I take it most of the ambulances over there have a bench seat then?
Isn't this something that the manufacturers have a responsibility for? If bench seats are dangerous why are they even on the trucks?
Over here all new ambos conform to european standards, they are voluntary standards but in the UK they wouldn't shift an ambo that doesn't conform to them. The main things that the standards cover are; space around the seating for patients, attendants or escorts, space between the side walls of the ambo and the stretcher, that all seats have the capability to face forwards or backwards. Other items of interest is that all equipment is either stowed in lockers or if on display such as monitoring equipment that the mountings can stand an force of 10G, they are tilt tested and most ambulances over here have either a tail lift or a ramp.
Believe it or not there is a performance standard which, I could be wrong but I dont fancy shelling out £118 to read the standards, states that the thing should be able to hit sixty miles an hour within about 40 seconds.
Also our service has the fixed bulkhead option that means that you can't slip through to the cab for a sip of coffee. Once you start rolling you are stuck with the patient, no matter how bad they smell
Ah, it appears that by knowing this I may be a whacker :wink:
As for the original topic, the media do have the incredible knack of jumping on a controversial subject and making it seem worse, as has been said there are only two people who know what happened on that journey.