New Orleans (LA) Emergency Medical Services has deployed the first Horton Emergency Vehicles ambulance for active duty equipped with the Horton Occupant Protection System™ (HOPS) featuring MBrace™.
The rig is one of five Type 1 ambulances Horton delivered to New Orleans EMS earlier this year, all with the MBrace system.
Dave Marshall, Horton’s director of sales, says that MBrace, which is engineered by IMMI, is an advanced air bag safety system designed specifically to protect emergency care providers against head and neck injuries while they are inside the patient compartment during frontal impacts, and ambulance rollovers.
1 New Orleans (LA) EMS received the first Horton Emergency Vehicles ambulance equipped with HOPS featuring the MBrace system. (Photos courtesy of Horton Emergency Vehicles.)
2 The ambulance is a Horton 603 model built on a Ford F-550 four-wheel-drive chassis with a two-person cab and a pass-through to the patient module.
3 The interior of the patient module on the new Horton rig for New Orleans EMS.
“MBrace integrates an air bag into the Per4Max multipoint restraint that protects medics while allowing them the mobility and freedom to work,” Marshall points out. He adds that MBrace is fitted to both the CPR seat and the squad bench seating, while the attendant’s seat is protected with Per4Max restraints. “The attendant seat reclines and swivels, which are technical challenges we are working on to be able to put in MBrace,” he says.
Cedric Palmisano, New Orleans EMS deputy chief, says his organization “fosters a culture of safety for our staff, which are our most important asset. We do everything in our power to make sure they are safe because, without them, we don’t stand a chance. When we were purchasing the Horton ambulances, we were asked if we wanted to be the first to get MBrace, and we jumped at the chance.”
Tim Hutchens, director of business development for Southern Emergency & Rescue Vehicle Sales (SERVS), who sold the rigs to New Orleans, says the Type 1 rigs are Horton’s 603 models built on Ford F-550 four-wheel-drive chassis with two-person cabs and pass-throughs to the patient modules, powered by 6.7-liter diesel engines. Wheelbases on the Type 1s are 193 inches, and the patient modules are 167 inches long with 72 inches of headroom. The rigs have Liquid Spring rear axle suspensions, 100,000-British thermal unit (Btu) CoolTech recessed heating, ventilating and air conditioning condensers, electronic compartment locks, and tinted privacy windows.
department
New Orleans (LA) Emergency Medical Services
Strength: 175 paid emergency medical technicians of varying levels.
Service area: EMS provider for Orleans Parish, an area of 350 square miles, with 169 square miles being land and 181 square miles of water.
Other apparatus: The city of New Orleans has invested $16 million in the purchase, upfit, and equipping of 71 new EMS response and support vehicles. This includes 37 new ambulances, 23 SUV quick-response SPRINT cars, two rescue trucks, four ambulance carts, and five support vehicles.
4 Meg Marino, MD, director and medical director of New Orleans EMS, checks out an activated MBrace in the back of the new unit.
Hutchens says that Horton made a couple of modifications to the body of the delivered unit at the request of New Orleans EMS. “They wanted to add an inside and outside access door to the left rear compartment, which was accomplished,” he notes. “They also created a safer way to store extra C cylinder oxygen bottles, which are the ones that are transported on the cot with the patient. The extra bottles are stored in brackets located under the squad bench and only accessible from inside the patient box.”
Palmisano says that because New Orleans EMS is so busy and runs so many calls, it has used the Stryker PowerLOAD and Stryker Power-Pro XT cot in all its ambulances. “It’s not uncommon for one ambulance crew to do 10 or 11 calls in a 12-hour shift,” Palmisano observes. He adds that New Orleans EMS typically runs 10 ambulances during the day, plus three swing units, and six ambulances at night, at a minimum.
specs
Horton Emergency Vehicles 603 Model Type 1 Ambulance
- Ford F-550 four-wheel-drive chassis and two-person cab
- 167-inch-long patient module with 72 inches of headroom
- Pass-through between cab and patient module
- 193-inch wheelbase
- 6.7-liter diesel engine
- Liquid Spring rear axle suspension
- Horton Occupant Protection System (HOPS) featuring MBrace
- 100,000-Btu CoolTech recessed condenser
“We are running 69,000 calls annually, including transporting 50,000 patients,” he says. “Using the Stryker PowerLOAD and Power-Pro XT cots has reduced the number of back injuries attributed to stretchers. They have been game changers for us and our staff.”
Besides EMS, Palmisano says New Orleans EMS also handles special operations, which staffs the agency’s two rescue trucks. “They are rescue technicians and also hazardous materials technicians who will assist the fire department,” he points out. “Our people also do high-angle rescue, water and dive rescue, confined space work, and some of them are tactical medics.”
Palmisano says that all New Orleans EMS ambulances are outfitted with Samsara Inc. camera systems. “The system shows what’s happening in the cab, in the patient module in the back, and outside of the vehicle,” he says. “It’s an all-in-one system that has GPS, electronic logging, safety cameras, telematics, maintenance, routing, a driver app, and more.” It can also suggest real-time behavior modification where it might tell a driver to reduce speed, put down a cell phone, or put on a seat belt.
He points out that New Orleans EMS also uses Operative IQ for inventory management, narcotics management, and fleet management. “We are currently integrating Samsara telematics into Operative IQ Fleet,” Palmisano says.
ALAN M. PETRILLO is a Tucson, Arizona-based journalist, the author of three novels and five nonfiction books, and a member of the Fire Apparatus & Emergency Equipment Editorial Advisory Board. He served 22 years with the Verdoy (NY) Fire Department, including in the position of chief.
