SCIfTECH
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
THE BATTALION
A&M students design high-tech ambulances
By Robert Stackhouse
THE BATTALION
Thirteen Texas A&M architecture students
showed off high-tech designs for next-generation
ambulances in the Langford Architecture Center
Friday, displaying full-size replicas of the units that
illustrated their theoretical response capabilities to
biological or chemical weapons attacks, as well as
improvements in day-to-day operation.
Professor George Mann, the Ronald L. Skaggs
Endowed Professor of Health Facilities Design,
challenged his students to design an improved
ambulance which would have a greater range of
capabilities than present ambulances.
The idea for this project originated from an uncom
fortable ride in an ambulance that Mann experienced,
said Chris Terry, a junior environmental design major
and one of Mann's design studio students.
“He had a rough ride in an ambulance once, and
he wanted to see how people who have no precon
ceived notion of how an ambulance should be
would redesign one.”
Dr. Jim Wall, a researcher with the Texas
Engineering Experiment Station, worked with Mann
to bring this project to life. TEES is currently working
on a project in conjuction with the UT Health
Sciences center to develop next-generation ambu
lances.
“(The students) did a great job; bottom line is,
we’re looking at their projects for what to add to
ours,” Wall said. “The students are unfettered by
preconceived notions (about how to design an
emergency vehicle), so they think outside the box.
Photo courtesy Thomas Neild
Senior environmental design major Thomas Neild designed this 1:24
scale model of the Life Star Rapid Response Unit, which would sit on a
Ford F-650 chassis and pull a bio-terror unit the size of a U-haul trailer.
They don’t know what’s customary, they just come
up with good ideas.”
The students consulted local paramedics, rode on
ambulances and researched certain vehicle specifi
cations to formulate their designs.
“I've known that if 1 expose the students to peo
ple who are passionate about something, the stu
dents will catch hold of it and take off - the passion
is contagious,” Mann said.
Some of the vehicles designed by the students
were aimed at expediting the treatment of people
who have been affected by biological and chemical
agents. Current means of treatment for exposure to
such agents call for the decontamination of the
affected person or persons at a
specific decontamination site
near the blast area.
In senior environmental
design major Gabriel
Guzman's design, a patient
could be decontaminated from
biological agents and given
emergency medical attention
en route to a hospital.
“It has a decontamination
unit attached that would decon
taminate a patient who was
exposed to a biochemical
explosion and would treat them
(for exposure) as they are being
treated,” he said.
Other designs were aimed
at the speed at which
patients could be driven to
the hospital and the number
of patients who could be held aboard an emer
gency vehicle.
“If you look at a current ambulance, they can
only work on one patient at a time,” said Paul Greg,
a junior environmental design major and one of
Mann's students.
Senior environmental design major Shane
Shupak's design takes patients to the air.
“I took a Chinook helicopter and basically
redesigned the fuselage for life flight,'' he said. “It
holds a total of 12 patients.”
Shane's modified Ch-47 design would allow'
more patients to be evacuated from a disaster
site than the current 2-4 of conventional med-
evac flights, and at a much greater speed
conventional ambulances, traveling at about
miles per hour.
Greg found a different way to accommodatt
more patients in a single vehicle than conventional
ambulances.
“It has room for four stretchers in there," he said.
“They (the casualties) can be double stacked to
make room for eight, but you lose the ability to wort
on patients.”
Greg's design incorporates gull-wing, or side
entry, doors to make it easier for paramedics to load
and unload passengers.
“If you are carrying that many patients, loading
them in the back of the vehicle is difficult. Loading
them in the side is easier,” he said.
Adding advanced emergency medical technolo
gy to the ambulances was also a goal of someoftle
students. A function called tele-medicine enables
EMTs to access patients medical histories by swip
ing patient’s driver’s license through a card reader
attached to the key board of the onboard EMScotn
puter.
“(There is) the technology in some oftheambn-
lances now where they can swipe the driver's license
through and get all of the patient’s medical history,"
Greg said. “They are working on the technology
where they can insert a camera into the ambulance,
and a doctor (at the hospital) can observe whattk
EMTs are doing.”
After being acquainted with the condition*
aboard a conventional ambulance, some ofthestn
dents perceived the real need for ergonomic designs
in updated ambulances.
“It made me more aware of what was going on
It made me realize there was a need for somethin'
like this,” Guzman said.
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