Technology, time, and a new semi-sized ambulance are giving the tiniest of babies a better chance of survival.

Packed inside a semi-tractor trailer sized emergency vehicle is lifesaving equipment.

"Having an ambulance this big allows us to have all of the equipment we need all the way up from a newborn all the way up to someone who's 21-year-old," E.M.T. Trevor Miller-Evans says. "It gives us the ability to bring a fully mobile ICU with us to these other outlying facilities.”

Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital got the custom designed Lifeline-5 five unit in January 2016.

The unit has enough seating for parents with special 5-point seat belts to improve safety. 

The truck body is a Ford F550 and the “box” is a 2017 Lifeline Ambulance. Corps president John Miscioscia said there are a number of new features compared to the 2009 model this ambulance replaces.

“It has a liquid spring suspension that is much smoother than the air ride,” he said. It should also be more reliable.

There are three-point seat belts on the bench inside, rails painted yellow for visibility, and room for five people. One of the seats has a built-in car seat for children. If needed, in addition to one person on the stretcher, another person may be taken to the hospital lying down on the bench.

Dallas police said a 19-year-old man hopped into a running Allegiance Ambulance parked outside the hospital at about 11:55 a.m. and drove away. 

Not long after the theft Dallas police were called and located the ambulance. 

Officers followed the driver to NorthPark Center, a little more than five miles from the hospital, where a "high-risk traffic stop" was conducted near a parking garage on the northeast side of the shopping center. 

The department is looking at trucks that would have ladders of 100 to 110 feet, about 25 to 35 feet longer than any of the three it has right now, he said.

The desire for a bigger truck is at least in part driven by the building boom in Quincy. In the next few months, work is planned to begin in Quincy Center on the 15-story Chestnut Place, which will be the tallest building in Quincy. The building will only be a couple of stories taller than several the other buildings, so it won’t be a drastic change, but the city hopes to use this truck for the next couple of decades, so it should be able to handle whatever pops up during that time, Barron said.

“We use these trucks for many years,” he said.

The chief said the department is considering the big new ladder truck being what’s called a tiller truck, which is a bit more maneuverable. That’s a long dual-chassis apparatus that needs a second driver steering at the back of the rig, controlling the back half that can swing independently of the front as the truck drives.