Surface Ambulances

Surface ambulances make special CVs.

- Sukhpreet Singh

With its siren blazing, a surface ambulance rushes towards the Max Hospital at Saket, Delhi. In it is a patient that collapsed unexpected. The doctor on board the ambulance has hooked him to an advanced life support system the vehicle has been fitted out with. As a special CV, the ambulance — of Force Motors make — has been heavily customised to be a life saving medium. It is termed as a surface ambulance and governed by an ambulance code. A preferred choice of hospitals big and small, it is available in an Advanced Life Support (ALS) and Basic Life Support (BLS) guise. Based on the Force Traveller platform, the ambulance, standing out because of its sheer versatility, in the ALS guise has a paramedic and an emergency medical technician on board. In the BLS guise, it is sans the equipment as well as the manpower to use needles or make cuts in the skin. It is instead laced with capabilities that provide initial assessment, provide airway maintenance and breathing, and facilitate Cardio Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR).