Thread: new Charlotte, NC MEDIC units

Don't know the specs on these puppies. One of them just showed up on a medical run we had. I'm not much for the look of the quad-cab internationals set up like this.



The ALS units have been on GMC Kodiac chassis.


I have to wonder if MEDIC will be upgrading all of their ALS units to Internationals?

Yea, I hate quad cabs on Ambulances, unless it's a FD Engine Company manning the bus. I definitely hate the look of the new International Cabs

Ugly, and they look like remounts. Why?

The box screams "lowest bidder" to me but it looks like you would have a lot of foot room.

One justified use for quad cabs is when the service is a training agency for paramedics and allows EMT student ride-a-longs. This also justifies a light bar, when many modulars can have larger light fixtures on the module.

Why would an ambo need a quad cab?

We have one quad door medic unit; the justification was due to students precepting.

1087072248_QsUVG-X2-1.jpg

I can shed some light on some of the comments and questions on the new units. I work for MEDIC and was somewhat involved in the new body/remount process.

General Motors has quit making the 4500 chassis thus we had to look for a new body style. The new Terrastar chassis was chosen for a few reasons; mainly because International is paying an EPA fine for not using urea in the new emissions standards. With 62 ambulances in the fleet at the moment the cost of refilling the urea tanks wouldn't be cost effective until we could get a urea filling process set up in house. The ride quality on the Terrastar was superior to that of the Ford F700 and only slightly less than the Freightliner. We have a fleet department and a lot of the decision making process was up to them. Another plus was the amount of cab room. We operate system status management and have "posts" instead of permanent stations. That truck is your home for 12-14 hours. The more room the better.

The boxes on the particular unit in the picture is a remount. Our ambulance manufacturer is Excellance and has been for many many years. I can say their boxes are very very well made and safe. We have rolled a few and the boxes although technically totaled were completely intact. I don't think the boxes sit exactly right on the new chassis, but they look better than in the picture. As far as a bare bones box - yea pretty much. Again with 62 ALS ambulances in the fleet and at least 40 on the road during peak time - the less bells and whistles -the less that can break. I will say they get the job done. One thing I do not like is the steps getting out of the cab. Our 4500's have a good 12" of step and the new chassis has 8" with 2" being unusable due to the curvature of the bottom of the cab. I have seen aftermarket steps made by other manufactures that allow for more step room but we haven't addressed that problem yet.

All of our ALS fleet , minus 3 trucks, are quad cabs. On any given day at least 1/3 of our trucks have either a paramedic,emt trainee or a ride-along (emt student from a community college,nursing student, doctor, etc.) Having a quad cab allows the third person to be involved and interact with the crew when not involved in patient care. Also having a quad cab allows us to recline the 2 front seats to catch some sleep while we are at post - which sometimes can be a parking lot. I will say they are a bitch to maneuver - turning radius sucks, but for the added benefit I can't really complain.

I was sad to see they left the GEN1 LED lights on the cab and box. The new trucks come with what I think is a Code 3 LED bar. This is a change from our MX7000 rotator/led/strobe combo bars. I don't really know which I like best. I will say the MX7000 bars made for a much larger footprint. The new bar just looks so little and out of place up there.

MEDIC has at total of 8 of the new rigs ordered with 3 already delivered and 2 of those 3 in service. The first one ordered has been in the shop more than on the road. I am not quite sure why though. It will be interesting to see how the new chassis plays out.

If anyone has any further questions let me know and I will try to answer them best as possible.

Thanks for chiming in Josh! That reminds me, I need to send you another PM about the MCI bus.

Personally, I like the GEN I LEDs! I've always liked the light head placement and flash patterns on your units.

I understand the logic behind the cab, but that remount just looks silly.

I'm really shocked that such a large, well known and very well respected agency has posts instead of stations.

-Jared

Originally Posted by swatmedic719

I can shed some light on some of the comments and questions on the new units. I work for MEDIC and was somewhat involved in the new body/remount process.

General Motors has quit making the 4500 chassis thus we had to look for a new body style. The new Terrastar chassis was chosen for a few reasons; mainly because International is paying an EPA fine for not using urea in the new emissions standards. With 62 ambulances in the fleet at the moment the cost of refilling the urea tanks wouldn't be cost effective until we could get a urea filling process set up in house. The ride quality on the Terrastar was superior to that of the Ford F700 and only slightly less than the Freightliner. We have a fleet department and a lot of the decision making process was up to them. Another plus was the amount of cab room. We operate system status management and have "posts" instead of permanent stations. That truck is your home for 12-14 hours. The more room the better.

The boxes on the particular unit in the picture is a remount. Our ambulance manufacturer is Excellance and has been for many many years. I can say their boxes are very very well made and safe. We have rolled a few and the boxes although technically totaled were completely intact. I don't think the boxes sit exactly right on the new chassis, but they look better than in the picture. As far as a bare bones box - yea pretty much. Again with 62 ALS ambulances in the fleet and at least 40 on the road during peak time - the less bells and whistles -the less that can break. I will say they get the job done. One thing I do not like is the steps getting out of the cab. Our 4500's have a good 12" of step and the new chassis has 8" with 2" being unusable due to the curvature of the bottom of the cab. I have seen aftermarket steps made by other manufactures that allow for more step room but we haven't addressed that problem yet.

All of our ALS fleet , minus 3 trucks, are quad cabs. On any given day at least 1/3 of our trucks have either a paramedic,emt trainee or a ride-along (emt student from a community college,nursing student, doctor, etc.) Having a quad cab allows the third person to be involved and interact with the crew when not involved in patient care. Also having a quad cab allows us to recline the 2 front seats to catch some sleep while we are at post - which sometimes can be a parking lot. I will say they are a bitch to maneuver - turning radius sucks, but for the added benefit I can't really complain.

I was sad to see they left the GEN1 LED lights on the cab and box. The new trucks come with what I think is a Code 3 LED bar. This is a change from our MX7000 rotator/led/strobe combo bars. I don't really know which I like best. I will say the MX7000 bars made for a much larger footprint. The new bar just looks so little and out of place up there.

MEDIC has at total of 8 of the new rigs ordered with 3 already delivered and 2 of those 3 in service. The first one ordered has been in the shop more than on the road. I am not quite sure why though. It will be interesting to see how the new chassis plays out.

If anyone has any further questions let me know and I will try to answer them best as possible.

Originally Posted by lafd55

Yea, I hate quad cabs on Ambulances, unless it's a FD Engine Company manning the bus. I definitely hate the look of the new International Cabs

Odessa (TX) Fire/EMS just got the quad-cab units like the one pictured here and they love them. They no longer run the traditional two-man unit, but four-man "squads". This eliminates running a truck or engine co. with the medic. They've been doing this about two years and it's gone over quite well. But OFD likes to pioneer new things in firefighting and EMS. For almost 10 years they were the only EMS service to do onboard sonograms. Now they're into therapeutic hypothermia. No telling what's next.

International is using acquired credits from being 2010 compliant with emissions in 2007. That lets them bank credits and not go to a fluid based regeneration system. It's not a fine.

Just watched this agency on an old episode of "Paramedics" and I liked their Chevy 3500HD trucks with the 2 Mini XL5000 on the front of the box.

Originally Posted by Doug

We have one quad door medic unit; the justification was due to students precepting.

1087072248_QsUVG-X2-1.jpg

That one looks good, I don't know about the MEDIC ones though..

So why after so many decades of students just riding in the back do we feel the need to have em riding in the back seat like they are our children? It is ridiculous enough we feel the need to have something larger than a Type-1 or Type-3 now they need to be even bigger with crew cabs. Seems like a waste of money as far as vehicle cost, fuel cost, parts and repair costs.

[QUOTE=Squad-6;280930]Just watched this agency on an old episode of "Paramedics" and I liked their Chevy 3500HD trucks with the 2 Mini XL5000 on the front of the box.[/QUOT

I have a few of those bars as well as a full sized one they threw away in the dumpster. I m in the process of restoring at least one mini and the full size so if anyone knows of any red lenses let me know.

Originally Posted by Squad-6

So why after so many decades of students just riding in the back do we feel the need to have em riding in the back seat like they are our children? It is ridiculous enough we feel the need to have something larger than a Type-1 or Type-3 now they need to be even bigger with crew cabs. Seems like a waste of money as far as vehicle cost, fuel cost, parts and repair costs.

I think out admin was more concerned about our employee trainees and not local community college students, etc. But like I said earlier with spending 12-14 hours in the truck a day it is very very nice to be able to full recline the front seats. I guess our admin takes in account our comfort in exchange for the whoe system status thing.....

Originally Posted by Jared @ 911Lights

I understand the logic behind the cab, but that remount just looks silly.

I'm really shocked that such a large, well known and very well respected agency has posts instead of stations.

-Jared

System status managment is much more effecive than stations in many cases...... i'm surpised so many people in public safety are unaware of it. Depending on the area it can shave minutes off responce times and is a progressive evdence based way to cover an area. It's not just a way to avoid buying buildings. Emsa, sunstar, hva and other large forward thinking high volume services have perfected the approch to the point that they save time, money and equipment.

Originally Posted by swatmedic719

But like I said earlier with spending 12-14 hours in the truck a day it is very very nice to be able to full recline the front seats.

Do your posts allow your units to crash on the couch or anything (like at the city stations)? Or do they make you stay in the parking lot?

Originally Posted by JohnMarcson

System status managment is much more effecive than stations in many cases...... i'm surpised so many people in public safety are unaware of it. Depending on the area it can shave minutes off responce times and is a progressive evdence based way to cover an area. It's not just a way to avoid buying buildings. Emsa, sunstar, hva and other large forward thinking high volume services have perfected the approch to the point that they save time, money and equipment.

John,

Most of the studies several years ago were praising it, but all but one article I have read in the past couple years have decried predictive staging as being effective in reducing response times (which is another can of worms).

Also, the must be terrible morale issues with living in truck for 12-24 hours, not to mention wear on the interior of the truck. It is one thing to be in a car for an 8 for PD, but pulling a 12 or 24 in a truck doesn't seem like a good work environment.

There's always co-locating with FD, PD, a Hospital, etc.

-Jared

Originally Posted by Jared @ 911Lights

John,

Most of the studies several years ago were praising it, but all but one article I have read in the past couple years have decried predictive staging as being effective in reducing response times (which is another can of worms).

Also, the must be terrible morale issues with living in truck for 12-24 hours, not to mention wear on the interior of the truck. It is one thing to be in a car for an 8 for PD, but pulling a 12 or 24 in a truck doesn't seem like a good work environment.

There's always co-locating with FD, PD, a Hospital, etc.

-Jared

I'm pretty sure those studies found it was not the beat all end all, and didn't work in moderate volume systems.... but was the only viable option in some high volume cases. They did note that places that used small trailers, hospital rooms, hotels, parks and even restaurants as staging points had less negative effects on employees, but were only found in the lower 3rd (I think) of the services run volume wise. I agree it was a fad, but it is still a very viable option for high volume agencies. From my personal experience and my wife's, if you spend more than 3/4 of your time on runs it's more trouble to get settled into a station and get pulled every hour vs camping in the squad. I think offering a truck that has the ability to serve as a mini camper has it's place in a system where you would be in and out of "safe houses" so much it would be a pain. I think the real answer would be more units, and I have never seen any cost analysis of expensive trucks vs mini stations. That said right now I work 24/48s in a moderate volume area and my wife works 12s and 8s in a high volume system status managed system.... based on personal preference. She rarely gets out of the truck even though they can go into restaurants etc. It becomes just a lot of trouble to lug your crap back out vs. making a little nest in the squad with a tablet/ipod/smart phone/kindle and a cooler. I question the sanitary nature of eating in a squad, but we all do it. Some company needs to patent the system status camper truck with a sealed front area to eat and chill in. The interesting thing about EMS systems is how much service areas vary. I thought you were ignorant of the practice all together based on your first post. I didn't mean to say it was the best thing ever... it's just one of many established viable EMS delivery models...


As far as the trucks... the GEN I LEDs on MEDIC trucks always bugged me. The box looks short compared to the cab, and the chassis is ugly. So there is my required parade pissing.

Originally Posted by JohnMarcson

I'm pretty sure those studies found it was not the beat all end all, and didn't work in moderate volume systems.... but was the only viable option in some high volume cases. They did note that places that used small trailers, hospital rooms, hotels, parks and even restaurants as staging points had less negative effects on employees, but were only found in the lower 3rd (I think) of the services run volume wise. I agree it was a fad, but it is still a very viable option for high volume agencies. From my personal experience and my wife's, if you spend more than 3/4 of your time on runs it's more trouble to get settled into a station and get pulled every hour vs camping in the squad. I think offering a truck that has the ability to serve as a mini camper has it's place in a system where you would be in and out of "safe houses" so much it would be a pain. I think the real answer would be more units, and I have never seen any cost analysis of expensive trucks vs mini stations. That said right now I work 24/48s in a moderate volume area and my wife works 12s and 8s in a high volume system status managed system.... based on personal preference. She rarely gets out of the truck even though they can go into restaurants etc. It becomes just a lot of trouble to lug your crap back out vs. making a little nest in the squad with a tablet/ipod/smart phone/kindle and a cooler. I question the sanitary nature of eating in a squad, but we all do it. Some company needs to patent the system status camper truck with a sealed front area to eat and chill in. The interesting thing about EMS systems is how much service areas vary. I thought you were ignorant of the practice all together based on your first post. I didn't mean to say it was the best thing ever... it's just one of many established viable EMS delivery models...

It definitely was a fad for a while there, the service I was with would have done it (very cutting edge) if it wasn't for safety issues. We did do staging move-ups, we covered two non-contiguous areas out of two stations, one known for gang violence and poverty, the other for middle-class families separated by about 6 miles. Night shifts had two rigs in the bad area and one in the good, if one area lost coverage (both rigs in the bad area or the one in the good got a call that was going to be a transport to downtown) we would stage a rig in the middle of the two areas in a parking lot, ironically this was outside of our service area entirely. Not fun to spend 60-90 minutes in a parking lot, I can't imagine spending several hours there.

I understand not wanting to get out of a rig to get back in 30 minutes later, but for us it seemed like it was either back-to-back calls or long periods of quiet.

-Jared

Originally Posted by Jared @ 911Lights

I understand not wanting to get out of a rig to get back in 30 minutes later, but for us it seemed like it was either back-to-back calls or long periods of quiet.

-Jared

I think they found that if you had several periods of downtime of several hours it made sense to have a safehouse. The places where it works rarely sit someone for more than an hour.

Originally Posted by vonirkinshtine

Do your posts allow your units to crash on the couch or anything (like at the city stations)? Or do they make you stay in the parking lot?

We have keys to all the city fire stations we post at. Some crews go inside..some do not. It all depends on what station/crew/call volume etc. As far as crashing on the couches....we are allowed to but only if the station crew is doing so. Its not cool to go in there on a Saturday afternoon (stations cleanup) and sit and watch tv. Personally unless its night time and the guys are alseep I would rather just stay in the truck and not "invade" their house. Although there are some really cool crews there are also ones that act like you don't belong....I have posted at Cooks Station a few times just because i didn't want to go to 33 and I can say the guys there would always come out to the truck and invite us in etc. Ya'll need to go ahead to 24 hour coverage so that can be our post instead of 33...lol

Originally Posted by swatmedic719

I have posted at Cooks Station a few times just because i didn't want to go to 33 and I can say the guys there would always come out to the truck and invite us in etc. Ya'll need to go ahead to 24 hour coverage so that can be our post instead of 33...lol

We are 24hr coverage...we just sleep in our own beds and we get up when the pager goes off, lol. You can park in our carport out back. We'll run ya a shore line out there, lol.

Originally Posted by Squad-6

Just watched this agency on an old episode of "Paramedics" and I liked their Chevy 3500HD trucks with the 2 Mini XL5000 on the front of the box.

Wow! I didn't know that show was still on. As I mentioned above, Odessa has been doing onboard sonograms for several years now. On one of Paramedics episodes they were riding with the medics in Denver. And on this particular segment the medic was running code 3 to the hospital. The reporter asked the young female medic why they were running "hot" and she replied that they suspected possible internal injuries, and since onboard diagnostics were not yet available, they had to run hot to get the patient to the E.R. quickly. I chuckled and said to myself,"They haven't been to Odessa, have they?"

But it also reminds me of an incident that occured 'way back in 1973. We had just gotten our first ECA (Emergency Care Attendant) certification in Lubbock. But we had been doing things like vitals and proper immobilization, etc., since 1969 with Advanced Red Cross certification. We did a lot of standby service for sporting events, and on this particular occasion had gone from Lubbock to Abilene to work an indoor motorcycle race event that was put on by the people we worked for in Lubbock. A young crashed during practice and sustained a suspected tib-fib fracture. We had just gotten our first set of inflattable splints and applied the full leg splint to the injury and transported. We had a radio on which we could talk to the Abilene Sheriff's Office, so through them we relayed initial vitals. When we went into the ER we were greated by an elderly nurse. I handed her the vitals and told her about the fracture we suspected. She turned to me and almost shouted, "Don't tell me anything about this patient, you're no damned doctor." And looking at the new splint with her scissors in hand said, "And what is this s**t"? A nursing supervisor happened to her the elevated voices and stopped to see what was going on. We explained to her what we had done and that we were following regular protocol. Her response was, "But you're just ambulance attendants; saying that like it was a dirty word. We explained to her how we had been doing a lot of patient car for a number of years in Lubbock and she excalimed, "Well, I never!" I told her that she'd better get used to it, and that we'd be doing a lot more in the future.

Those new Internationals are really horrible. They look like a Chinese knockoff of an International.

Originally Posted by NoVAFed

Those new Internationals are really horrible. They look like a Chinese knockoff of an International.

Everyone and their grandmother seem to be using the big-rig Internationals. Odessa plopped down $200 grand a piece for six new Horton HD Type III ambulances on Chevy chassis about three years. Then they bought three of the big Braun Internationals. They're quad cabs to house the four men who now respond. Haven't seen one of them up close, but they have to be enormous inside.

Lexington, KY uses a mix of Crew-Cab and Extended Cab ambulances. The guys I know from down there love them and are glad to have the extra room in the cab for riders and students.

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Next instead of a crew cab, they will have sleeper compartments like semi trucks!