Folding stretcher and stairchair

Brendan Martin

PCS Member
Hello, I recently acquired a Ferno Stairchair Model D-87442 and a matching folding stretcher. I was wondering if they would have been used in my 1963 Cadillac Rescuer. The folding stretcher has white sting lacing on the back, and the stairchair is older than any one I've used in the last 16 years working on ambulances. I'm sorry I don't have pictures right now but will try to take some and then post them. Thanks
 
Hey, Brendan. The info Jean-Marc has is invaluable - but don't get too caught by it. Many Ferno products remained unchanged for quite a few years. So the fact that it was manufactured in '75, it may still be appropriate for your ambulance. If the product was unchanged from '63 to '75 - it looks the same - then the only ones who would know the actual date of the stretcher would be.....you...

...and Jean-Marc! :D
 
besides if you rig is in service it would be up graded. so if the equipment is made as long as ten years after your cars was it would still be period correct. as will as ten years older. unless it was replace with different things entirely. as say glass IV versus plastic bag. equipment was often removed from the old rig and placed on the new. such things like stair chairs, back boards. anything that did not wear out would be reused. it would also be replaced as things were improved. no different then your doing today. keep the numbers in mind that way you can swap for things closer to your cars age. if Ds are mid 70's then look for Cs say. but equipment is just that. a example of a tool used yesterday.
 
According to the information I have both my 67 and 69 were in service from for close to 20 years each which gives it a good range for various versions of the same equipment.

Assuming that ambulance operators from your area were the same as here, then period correct for for equipment can safely start 10 years prior to the year of the car until it was put out of service, so for both my cars, we are looking at almost 30 years.
 
Hey Steve and John thanks for the insight. My Lieutenant had this stuff in the basement of the Volunteer Fire Department he belongs to. He told me it came off a very old Rescue, ( That's what we call ambulances in Rhode Island, I know it's strange) that they put in his station as a reserve rig long ago. The folding stretcher in my car presently is black and resembles the ones we are still using today. There are no visible numbers on the one that I was recently given, but I suspect it is older than the one in my car. As for the stair chair, did they even use use stair chairs in 63? Also when I first became a paramedic, I was working for a municipal service in a city in Massachusetts, we were still using the canvas stretchers with the wooden poles, would that be more accurate for my car?
 
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