While the primary focus of the Fire Apparatus Manufacturers’ Association (FAMA) involves fire suppression and rescue products, several of our FAMA member companies also support the industry with emergency medical service (EMS) vehicles.
FAMA members continue to be involved in ambulance standards committee work, and we all are interested in those safety technologies that can be shared for the mutual benefit of firefighters and emergency medical technicians.
The Problem
In 2001, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), the nation’s leading research arm aimed at improving worker safety, began investigating EMS worker safety issues when in the patient compartment of a moving ambulance. Very early in its work, it found something many of us already knew: Our vehicles were large, and most of our lifesaving equipment was located out of reach of our primary seating position. This caused most EMS professionals to work unrestrained in the back of an ambulance—especially when a patient was onboard. NIOSH also found that because of their size, ambulances fell outside most automotive crash testing requirements.
Industry Partners
Armed with this knowledge, the NIOSH research team began its search for solutions by conducting internally funded crash testing of ambulances, worker seating, and the patient cot. As its knowledge and understanding grew, NIOSH expanded its research focus by forming partnerships with industry leaders and other federal agencies. The goal was to solve some of the design and testing issues it found. Key industry partnerships were formed with the Ambulance Manufacturers Division of the National Truck Equipment Association (AMD-NTEA); cot manufacturers Ferno and Stryker; and seating manufacturers EVS, Serenity, and Wise. The Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate, First Responders Group also provided funding support and expertise to expand the research being conducted by NIOSH. Similarly, the National Institute of Standards and Technology provided Human Factors engineering expertise.
The Research
For EMS workers, wearing a seat belt can be at odds with doing their jobs properly. They need the mobility to reach the patient at all times, collect needed supplies, adjust lighting and temperature, and communicate with their driver and the hospital. This is a significant safety concern. A 10-year review of serious ambulance crashes conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that 84 percent of EMS workers in the patient compartment were not wearing their seat belts at the time of the crash. From 1992 to 2011, there was an estimated annual average of 1,500 injury crashes involving an ambulance and 2,600 injured persons—including both occupants and pedestrians of all vehicles involved in the crash.
“Given the evolution of ambulance design, our research sought to make improvements in seating, patient cots, equipment mounts, storage cabinets, and the overall patient compartment body, leading to the development of newly published SAE test methods,” says James Green, NIOSH lead project officer