{"id":123,"date":"2011-01-30T14:36:44","date_gmt":"2011-01-30T19:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/?p=123"},"modified":"2011-03-31T20:21:43","modified_gmt":"2011-04-01T00:21:43","slug":"truck-drivin-nurses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/2011\/01\/special-features\/truck-drivin-nurses\/","title":{"rendered":"Truck Drivin’ Nurses"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In this day in age, \u201cPrepare for the worst, but hope for the best\u201d is very good advice.\u00a0 Following those sage words, the Los Angeles County Health Department has taken preparedness to new heights to protect its citizens by purchasing two unique tractor-trailer combinations.\u00a0 Together, along with other emergency vehicles in their fleet, these two rigs make one high-tech mobile medical system.\u00a0 And although this system has never needed to be fully utilized, it is comforting to know that it is there, waiting and ready, if ever necessary.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Emergency Medical Services Agency (EMS) of L.A. County, a division of the Los Angeles County Health Department, oversees and coordinates all of the pre-hospital care in the county.\u00a0 Operating out of an indiscriminate non-marked warehouse in Los Angeles, the EMS crew, which is mostly made up of former nurses and emergency responders that are now licensed to drive big rigs, maintain these two trucks and several other vehicles, keep the medicines and supplies stocked, and continuously train and practice at setting up and using their equipment.\u00a0 They are always ready to \u201canswer the call\u201d and respond quickly and appropriately \u2013 especially since the 911 attacks in 2001.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In the event of a major disaster or emergency, whether natural or otherwise, it is the EMS agency\u2019s responsibility to coordinate various resources, keep communications efficient, bring necessary supplies and services where needed, and oversee all operations, in regards to emergency medical treatments.\u00a0 To help do this, the county purchased what they call MoMS (Mobile Medical System), which is a combination of a mobile emergency treatment center (the big rigs) and a portable field hospital.\u00a0 These systems, when combined, can create a state-of-the-art mobile medical facility for over 200+ people wherever necessary.<\/p>\n

The big rigs are a pair of 2007 Volvo VN780 tractors pulling 53\u2019 Featherlite trailers.\u00a0 Both of the tractors were built on a heavy duty chassis and feature Volvo D16 engines, 13-speed transmissions, and 100k watt generators.\u00a0 The main trailer features a 12-bed emergency exam and treatment center which, with its three large slideouts, allows for about 1,000 square feet of working space.\u00a0 Featherlite made the huge six-foot slideouts strong enough not to need additional supports on the outside of the unit.\u00a0 Inside this totally custom trailer, doctors can perform medical services like surgery, X-ray, lab work, ultrasounds and EKGs.\u00a0 There is also a 2-bed procedure area at the front of the trailer.\u00a0 An additional awning structure can be set up around the treatment trailer to expand patient capacity an additional 100 beds.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The second trailer, known as the support unit, is a fairly standard Featherlite race trailer, complete with two levels and a lounge in the front.\u00a0 This trailer holds all of the necessary equipment for the treatment trailer which includes the beds, chairs, machines, medical supplies, medicine, crash carts, IV pumps and poles, and everything else needed to operate the mobile exam and treatment (hospital) trailer.\u00a0 In transit, the hospital trailer is empty (everything is put into the support trailer), so once on-scene, all of the equipment and supplies need to be moved into place.\u00a0 With four people working, it takes about two hours to set everything up.\u00a0 To set up the additional 100-bed awning structure around the treatment trailer, it takes about ten people eight hours to complete.<\/p>\n

In addition to the pair of mobile hospital rigs, the EMS \u201cdisaster warehouse\u201d also has a mobile decontamination trailer, which can provide emergency showers for large amounts of people who have been exposed to hazardous chemicals, and a mobile communications trailer, to keep emergency responders connected in the event of a system failure.\u00a0 Both of these trailers are pulled with Ford F650 Super Duty trucks.\u00a0 There is also about 50 mobile generators, several mobile oxygen concentrators (they turn regular air into purified medical oxygen), and a small fleet of extra-large ambulances in the warehouse.\u00a0 They also have four complete climately-controlled 25-bed \u201ctent\u201d setups that can connect together, via tunnels, to create a portable 100-bed field hospital.\u00a0 Each of these four setups is transported in 30-foot trailers pulled by four nicely-equipped Ford F350 pickups.\u00a0 All of the vehicles are painted white with a reflective red stripe, just like the pair of tractor-trailer combinations.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As you can see, there are several vehicles to maintain, which keeps the fleet manager, Dave Lee, very busy.\u00a0 Dave is the only guy in the warehouse with a trucking background, and because of this, he has taught several of the EMS staff how to drive a truck (many of them now have their CDL).\u00a0 Jerry Crow (seen in photo) has been with the Health Department for 12 years and a Registered Nurse (RN) for 29 years.\u00a0 Jerry, who earned his CDL a year ago, is the Mobile Hospital Program Manager, and John Ospital, also an RN, is the Team Deputy Commander (he is currently studying to get his CDL).\u00a0 Robert Smock is the guy that keeps the warehouse clean, fully-stocked and organized.\u00a0 Jim Eads, Chief of the Disaster Response Section, stressed that this operation is a true team effort saying, \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for the dedication of this group of folks the MoMS would never get out the door.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>L.A. County has the largest EMS system in the country, and there is only one other agency in the United States (in North Carolina) that has a mobile hospital similar to this one.\u00a0 And at a cost of about $3.5 million just for the pair of big rigs, it is no wonder.\u00a0 The trucks are three years old now, and still only have about 6,000 miles on them.\u00a0 They may just sit and wait, but if and when they are ever needed, they will be ready to go at a moments notice.\u00a0 Although the MoMS is a Los Angeles County asset, the county does have agreements with other local counties, as well as other states, for mutual aid.\u00a0 The MoMS units can travel outside L.A. County to other areas to help, if ever needed.<\/p>\n

Jim Eads said it best when he stated, \u201cThis is a resource we hope we never have to use for its intended purpose, because if we do, a whole bunch of people are having a real bad day.\u00a0 We plan, train and exercise the MoMS so that if we are called we can be as efficient as possible in its deployment and operation.\u201d\u00a0 So if you ever see these \u201cCode 3\u201d rigs out on the road with their lights flashing and sirens blaring, we suggest that you get out of the way and let this elite group of truck drivin\u2019 nurses get to where they need to go \u2013 stat!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this day in age, \u201cPrepare for the worst, but hope for the best\u201d is very good advice.\u00a0 Following those sage words, the Los Angeles County Health Department has taken preparedness to new heights to protect its citizens by purchasing two unique tractor-trailer combinations.\u00a0 Together, along with other emergency vehicles in their fleet, these two<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-special-features"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":505,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123\/revisions\/505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tenfourmagazine.com\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}