Gwinnett Fire’s medical ambulance bus a mini-hospital on wheels

They call it Rehab 7. Or sometimes Medical Ambulance Bus 2.

#The 1-year-old addition to the Gwinnett County Fire Department fleet gives local first responders a mini-hospital on wheels, allowing for response at mass casualty incidents.

#A 31,000-pound beast — closer in size to a ladder truck than the typical ambulance — the new tool helps paramedics monitor a dozen patients at once or help their fellow firefighters recover from the intense heat and smoke while battling a blaze.

#Paid for by a more than $337,000 grant from the Urban Area Security Initiative of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the medical ambulance bus is the second in the metro Atlanta area designed to handle regional responses. With the first stationed near the airport in Atlanta, either could help out neighboring counties in major incidents.

#“It’s very useful,” said Lt. Jerrod Barrett, giving a tour of the MAB at its home base, Station 7 in Duluth.

#The versatile apparatus has everything from a wireless monitoring system to a 3,000-pound wench to help paramedics load morbidly obese patients into the ambulance.

#With slots for stacked cots and the ability to lock wheelchairs in place, the bus has room for 12 patients on stretchers or nine wheelchaired patients.

#“It can give them a good safe ride,” Barrett said, adding that the equipment allows for up to 16 firefighters to be monitored while they recover from fighting a fire.

#The medical ambulance bus isn’t always the proper equipment for a scene. For example, last week’s fatal crash along Ga. Highway 316, where medics quickly loaded three critical patients into ambulances and whisked them to nearby Gwinnett Medical Center.

#With the need for one-on-one care, critical patients will always be transported in a regular ambulance.

#“This is designed more for the walking wounded,” Barrett said, pointing out the wireless vital sign meters, used by Navy Seals during operations, which can allow medics to keep an eye on many patients at once.

#Instead of the crash, he described a scene from last year, where a strange odor was detected at a nearby business, and several people began to feel sick.

#“We had 16 patients,” he recalls. “We were able to have all of them in the truck, treated them, and released them.”

#While other responders worked to trace the source of the odor inside, the medics were working in the 34-foot-long bus — three times the size of an ambulance — working to ensure that all of the business’s employees were in the clear before they went back to their jobs.

#Most of the time — 86 out of its first 90 incidents — the bus is called to fire scenes, allowing medical staff to monitor firefighters on breaks from a fire to see if their blood pressure and heart vital signs are OK and they haven’t inhaled too much carbon dioxide before they go back in.

#“Once they are clear and healthy, we can send them on their way,” he said, adding that a porta-john and a canopy outside also adds to the convenience for the first responders.

#“Anything we can do to help make the scene better for our firefighters, and more healthy, is good,” Barrett said.

#For Lt. John Poe, the fire department’s safety officer, the blessing of the bus is the ability to be on standby at a fire, where enough oxygen is available for an entire crew if needed.

#“It has been a big help,” Poe said. “On a hot day during the summer in August, we’ve got a nice, cool place to get them in and get them back in service quicker,” all the way monitoring vital signs for any distress or low oxygen levels. “I think we’re seeing better production, and their turnaround is better.”

#Barrett says the oxygen system is one of the top features of the bus. The system allows the bus to plug into a hospital and use its oxygen if people have to be evacuated from the emergency room or if they need an overflow area.

#“Luckily we haven’t had to do that, but we are ready to provide as much as we can,” he said.

#In trade, a hospital can use the bus’s generator if it needs power.

#“We have a good working relationship with the hospital,” the lieutenant said. “We help them out, whatever we need to do.”

#All of the firefighters at Station 7 in Duluth have been trained on the special equipment on the bus. Each day, one is assigned specifically to the unit. If it is called to a firefighter rehab assignment, that assigned staffer drives. If a mass casualty incident occurs, then the entire crew — which includes a ladder truck, engine and a regular ambulance — go out to the scene to help.

#“If it’s needed anywhere, we’ll go where it’s needed,” Poe said, noting that as a part of the Atlanta regional response area the bus could be a critical asset in an incident miles outside of Gwinnett, so the communication system has been programmed to allow interaction with other nearby agencies.

#For the past year, the medical ambulance bus has spent quite a bit of time in the shop, while its manufacturer works out the kinks. “This is literally the prototype,” Poe said, adding that the response unit is now being replicated across the country.

#“Just like at a hospital, we can watch the monitors and (help) every patient on the scene,” Poe said. “It’s pretty neat.”