VDCavey

Some of the ER's here in Belgium are already working with this device called "LUCAS" over here, I know at least one ambulance in the area that carries the device on board.

The speed and pressure are adjustable so if you split somebody open I think they need to read the manual again, biggest downpoint in pre hospital use is the high amount of compressed air the device uses (around 30litres a minute)

I witnessed one (sucsesfull) reanimation with this device and it is indeed not a pretty sight, on the other side, I rarely perform CPR without cracking ribs myself.

I Believe in it, and after pumping for 40 minutes last night I wished I had one in the car :twisted:

All the info and video of the device in use: http://www.lucas-cpr.com/start.php?sid=1

I didn't know AEDs had manual paddles, waveform screens, and came in LP10 carrying cases, but ok. I'll stop asking about it.

My bad indeed, like I said, the pics were taken a few days before, they temporarely used an other monitor, now we have the lifepack 12 wallmounted and a Laerdall lifestart semi AED next to the door.

Waiting on or not scene depends, time to time we call for a rendes vous point, usually in city areas we wait for them to arrive. If the call is already clearly life threathening they will send them right away with the ambulance.

The lifepack you see on the pictures is an AED, the monitor itself still needed to be wallmounted (lifepack 12)

It's because of guys like this that somme Europeans think al Americans are loonies

+10 for the stretcher-lifting mechanism. What model Stryker is that?

-15 for the LP-10.

-5 for lack of padding in head-strike zones.

First stryker we have so I didn't even knew there were different types, with this pic you should be able to figure it out I suppose

What is an LP-10?

you hardly ever see padding in Ambulances, I guess we are smart enough not to bounce our heads The ambulance were I drive most off my shifts (Borgerhout) has padding above the side door but thats it.

We have those bigshears mounted in the vehicle, only use them for leather motorcycle suits since they are to big and clumsy to use on regular clothing.

:sign3:

2.50€ (3 bucks) a piece, usually have three to four swarming around my pocket from different pants and jackets.

The pis are taken a few days ago, luckily someone decided to stock those collars where they belong (next tot the door aside you bag) otherwise I would have done it

Some of our (older) colleagues don't take the whole collar thing to serious and tend with minor indications to put the collar on when the patient is on the stretcher inside the bus (yes I know :roll: ) When i respond to anything where the word "fall" or "accident" is inside i have the collar in my hand when is get out, It's just one of my priorities, anyone who boozed or pilled himself up can crawl for my part in the car, an addiction is not even close to a disease but I use a load of collars...just or my own conscience

These are some of the MUG's we work with in our sector, each one is hospital based.

Delta 1: Antwerp university hospital

Delta 3: Stuivenberg hospital

Delta 4: Sint Vincentius hospital

Delta 21: Middelheim hospital

Delta 21: St Augustinus hospital (21 swithes from week to week to another hospital)

Delta 29 Middelares Deurne

inside the high drawers are plastic boxes with medication and perfusion materials, in the wide lower drawers is spare O2 materials, bandages etc.

To European standards the car is pretty big inside, you have to take consideration that the average US rig cant pas 25% of the streets in the old center of Antwerp, even with a van this size we lose a mirror time to time

We also have less equipment with us, when we receive a life threathening call or if EMT's on scene decide we need it we get assistance from a medical urgency unit (MUG) with a doctor and a nurse inside.

Since last thursday the volunteer service i drive got their new ambulance, first call on the new vehicle was a GSW, nice way to find your way around in it

All signalisation is LED based and a 2x200 watts threetone horn, cars are jumping aside even just from the lights, did a 24 hr service this weekend with it and it is a dream to drive

This is the forst vehicle in our service with a stryker stretcher, I am still figuring out if the strenght and the adjustability is in favour of the lower weight and the smaller size of our old stretchers.

I am no veteran myself but in the beginning I had the idea that every thing I did would kill the patient instantly, my third or fourth shift I had a huge multi trauma (fall from 4th story window) from arriving thrue arriving and assistance to the trauma team, the scooping, the attaching to the spinal board, everything went on auto pilot and I had no time to worry or to make myself nervous, got a great Docter and medic on the scene who were very helpfull. we brought the patient perfectly stabilized to the hospital.

Although he died in the OR I made kind of a switch in my head and feel pretty relax since then

Maybe overthinking but could it be related to the shock wave from the weapon?

What about Litican?

Very frequently used with us.

We wear enamel green cargo pants withe refelctive striping, green t's or polo and a enamel/yellow jacket of fluoriscent yellow fleece sweater...during the summer somme of us wear overalls so can you sit in Tshirt and shorts till a call commes in.

Arriving at a call finding 8 police officers before a bar, immediateley saying "we go in first" :shock: