nswparamedic

:thumbsup:Firstly, thank you everyone for your replies.... Vehicles - 3 x Hino with tail lifters, 2 x Mercedes Sprinters (long) We are having a conference over here in Aus with all the states and NZ attending, to catch up with everyone and have a chat and see what we can come up with re gear and manual handling. Some of the gear we have makes it really easy to manouvre some really big patients. My Senior is okay with me putting these pics up, hope it gives you some more ideas. 1. Back of Mercedes 2. An ECMO loaded ready to go (if you want to look it up, google ECMO, it will explain) 1st paediatric ECMO transport for Aust (This is one of the mercedes 3. Stretcher out of one of the Hino's on a tail lifter 4. Hoverjack - starts flat like a sheet and has 4 stages of lifting, pumps up hard enough for CPR, lifts to chest height or average window height 5. Pump for Hoverjack and Hovermat 6. Hovermat - 2 people can easily on a flat sealed surface move many hundreds of pounds 7. This is our hydraulic/electric stretcher in the Mercedes - up to 500kgs - 1102lb safe working load, tested up to 600kgs - 1323lb Please ask questions if you are interested.... or you can just tell me to :shutup:if you don't want to hear any more!! I will take some more pics if people would like to see them, let me know what sort of things you are interested in....

I am a Paramedic in New South Wales, Australia. We currently have a "unit" that specifically deals with the transportation of Bariatric Patients, we have two day shift crews (2 people per truck) and we have on call facilities out of hours. We currently have 5 specialised vehicles in NSW alone, with multiple in other states. The largest patient in NSW we have come across so far is around 430kgs. (950lbs) Moving forward with our ideas to make things easier, we have an electric/hydraulic stretcher that takes up to 500kgs (1100lbs)our 2 newest vehicles have these. We have hovermats for manouvering in their houses on flat surfaces and hoverjacks that will lift them up to chest height ( I'm 5"9'), we are looking into portable lifters as well, but over here, I am battling to find anything over 270kgs (595lbs). Our vehicles are something a little different to our standard ambulances. Obviously, they are trucks, but we also do intensive care transfers ie when people are on ECMO (lung bypass), balloon pumps etc, because we have the extra room in our vehicle it makes life so much easier! I am interested in seeing what everyone else does to manage these types of patients....we are now doing up to 8 jobs a day, that is just in New South Wales, and as people are learning what we have available, we are getting alot busier. They are even looking for the rural transfers at upgrading their fixed wing aircraft to take 260kgs (573lbs). I will add some pics of our equipment as time goes on..