PICTURES FOR THE PROJECT ARE HERE!!!
Project update (01/2008): As of January 2008 the car has been in the shop (for phase 1) for almost 4 months! The guys at the shop told me they are “almost ready” now I have to come up with the bucks to pay them!!! :~ see the updated pictures from the shop here .
Last year I embarked in a very neat project, to turn an old ‘94 Grand Jeep Cherokee into some sort of ff road ambulance or emergency assistance vehicle. As soon as the idea entered my mind it started racing off with all the possibilities! I ended up with a very clear goal of what I wanted, from the white painting to the lights/sirens to the raised chassis for increased off roading. This post is about the plan, the project and some ideas I have on creating an off road rescue vehicle capable of transporting at least one patient under care! THE GOAL is very simple…
To have a reliable off road vehicle that can be used in search and rescue operations, to transport at least one patient, under conditions like those present in the “Mitch” Hurricane disaster that struck Central America.
The scenario during Mitch was pretty bad, ambulances and first responders could not get to where people needed help, mostly because their vehicles where not ready to deal with conditions like 3 feet of water, mud and basically off road terrain. People lost their lives, because help could not get to them as fast as they where needed.
The projects phases: The Project has five phases:
1. Paint, Fix and Repair, Graphics, Design and Cosmetics
2. Light, Sirens, Bumpers and Carry Racks
3. Inside Conditioning and Equipment
4. Lifting and Extreme Off Roading
5. Communications and Electronic Equipment
Paint, Fix and Repair, Graphics, Design and Cosmetics
This part of the project deals with many repairs that have to be performed on the trustworthy but veteran vehicle. it only has 90k miles (Consider it is a ‘94 model) and many little details have gone south! The age of the vehicle plus the fact that I tried to sell it on consignment and basically they just destroyed the car (you can see the awful things they did to my poor car in the inserted picture) Part of the goal is to have a RELIABLE vehicle, so we must get down to the bottom of all issues and get them fixed. Next, I am not fond of (is anyone?) BLACK rescue vehicles! Black is for mortuaries, so I decided to paint my car WHITE, to reflect the nature of the business: saving lives, light and hope. Then there is the fact that I will place magnetic decals and a general graphic design that makes the car look cool. Also as you can see in one of the “sample vehicles” picture, there are things like fenders and other things that I would like to add to the car to make it look cool.
Light, Sirens, Bumper and Carry Racks:
After the painting and repairs are done and I have some cool design on the way, its time to start thinking about the one thing that defines an emergency vehicle: LIGHTS AND SIRENS! The unit will be equipped with some air-horn sirens, electronic siren/PA and led bars (RED) also the floodlights: Bumper, Roof and Rear will be incorporated. A directional high intensity floodlight will be standard. There are several models of the above items that I am currently deciding on. You can see some samples in the inserted graphic.
Next comes the heavy duty off road bumpers. ARB makes some special bumpers to replace the ones that come stock with the ZJ series Cherokee (ZJ, that is this Cherokee’s two letter class) I will use these bumpers for front and rear. The front bumper has the space needed for a high power winch, which will be installed. In the sample pictures you can see the ones that Bombers Municipales (a.k.a. My fire fighter corps) use on their vehicles. The next things that will be added are a rear wheel carrier and a carry rack for tools etch on the roof and possibly on the back as well. Take a look at some of the sample pictures to get a clearer idea.
Inside Conditioning and Equipment:
So by now, hopefully I got a cool looking white car with some off roading features and emergency lights and sirens. But it still cannot transport a patient and lacks the equipment and tools necessary to perform first-responder duties, once it gets to where it’s needed! So immediately after getting the car is fitted with lights, sirens, etch., work will begin on fitting the car with the equipment necessary to deal with a personal emergency and transport one patient.
Inside Conditioning: First we will make some room for all the equipment and of course, the patient. Which basically means that we must remove all the seats, except the drivers seat. Replace the carpet with with either rubberized or aluminum cover and create the space or the marine boards/stretcher for patient transport. We also will craft a second seat for the person looking over the patient. See the attached drawing, it will save us a thousand words.
Equipment and Equipment Modules: The whole idea behind the vesicle is to be able to be able to get somewhere where no ordinary vehicle can get to, and be able to transport a patient back safely. However there are going to be times when the call can be strictly to do Search and Rescue missions, or perhaps do fire support or extrication, in each case, the idea I had is to be able to load the car with “modules” containing the different tools of the trade for each mission. This tools/equipment modules can me ready and loaded at a moments notice when they need to be deployed. take a look at the drawing for a better idea: The initially thought of kit of modules are: Advanced Life Support, Search and Rescue, Fire Support, Food and Logistics, Patient Transport, Tactical Robotics (CRASAR), HazMat and Incident Command Center. Ideally we would be able to load all the equipment onto the vehicle and be ready for anything, but the fact that we have it in a module-ready form, allows us to better configure the vehicle to task and make the best use of the VERY limited space available. there is a link to a “Modules” post at the end.
Before we can get to the budget for having ALL the modules, there is some basic equipment that can make the vehicle very useful:
BLS Equipment and Basic patient Transport: Stretcher, marine board, All needed EMT supplies and equipment, basic extrication tools, Oxygen. Fire extinguishers (DCP, CO2) and basic ventilation tools.
Basic Communications:
Radio communications in vehicle, GPS.
Lifting and Extreme Off Roading:
If we are going to have the CAPABILITIES that you see in the picture, where these off roadsters are doing almost incredible feats… we shall have to do some more work on our car! Particularly, there is the issue of lifting the vehicle chassis and allowing for wider turns and the necessary modifications so that he vehicle can handle extreme off roading. Some of these improvements are: Lifting the vehicle some 7″, Fitting it with extra wide turning accessories, Truly of road rims and wheels, Under armoring, heavy duty motor mounts, Roll bars for cases when the vehicle does go belly up, and possibly an exoskeleton to make it almost un-breakable.
Advanced Communications and Electronic Equipment:
How about havin internet access and a rugged computer terminal right there and then, in the middle of the worst possible conditions. how about a satellite phone and a GPS. All these are part of the “Advanced Communications Equipment” module. But initially fitting a car with a basi computer terminal (think of all the information that you could store/query from there) a Car Radio with scanner might be nice as well. And it is not to hard to make the car a WiFi Hotspot to get access to the internet. All these are the things we will do in this stage. 
Finally: HELP ME OUT!
This project is a work in progress but I think it’s goals are lofty and worthy of an extra effort on my part. If you want to help out in this project, you can donate anything that you think can be useful to the vehicle and you can also help if you can get me a good deal on car-body-painting-and-repairing shop! (paypal donations coming soon!)
Some usefull links:
Here are some links I came across on my search for “Off road ambulance” in Google.
The Off Road ‘Challenger’ Ambulance
LocationMedical.com Off Road Ambulances
Toyota Vehicle for First Responders
P.S. When the vehicle is off road ready I do plan to take defensive/emergency vehicle driving course and join my local OFF ROADING clubs here in Guate.
Take a look at these pictures, and the pictures in the gallery (it is growing with lots more examples of off road vehicles)
Phase 1 Work in progress Before and After:
Vehicle Capabilities:
Snorkel for Jeep Cherokee:
Vehicle Samples:
Cosmetics (Fenders, etch):
Rear wheel and carry rack:
Bumpers and winch:
Lights and Sirens:
Popularity: 28%
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
You must log in to post a comment.