BRING IT ON!

[wolf]

The back of an ambulance is actually a very well organized space. There are bunches of little (labelled) cabinets and cubbies containing everything you might need in the course of treating victims of a variety of accidents, but not a lot of spares (you pretty much have to restock each time you use stuff). Our amblances are certified for BLS (basic life support) which means that the two crew members are EMTs. an ALS (advanced life support) ambulance has Paramedics (think Roy and Johnny), and as a consequence more stuff, including IV setup, drugs, etc.

We do mainly psychiatric pickups, but from time to time these turn into a medical emergency, or we have a medical emergency on our unit that we have to send to a local ER, so all the regular ambulance stuff is in there.

Yes, Doing a restraint in an ambulance is not the easiest thing in the world, but doing it in a relatively narrow hallway, which is my usual point of contact ain't so great either. The real tough part about an ambulance restraint is that you have only two people ... cops will sometimes help hold the patient down at the scene to get him into the leathers, but not always. It's rare that the out-of-controlness starts in the back of the ambulance, so it's not usually moving during the struggle. (This has happened. It's not supposed to. The judgment of our crews is actually pretty good about this, but sometimes people fool you.)

Unlike most squads, ours carries handcuffs, and have handcuffed people to the rails of the cot rather than taking the time to do a full restraint.