Carryall ambulance photos

Alamo F.H. (dba San Antonio Ambulance)
San Antonio, TX

"1964 Chevrolet panel (one of five), converted by an off-duty San Antonio firefighter that worked for the funeral home on his days off. San Antonio Ambulance Inc. (Alamo Funeral Home) was the contracted emergency
ambulance service for the city at that time (circa November 1966) and I ran many a call out of the rear of the funeral home in these "panels", 283 V8,
standard shift on the column, NO a/c and NO power anything. Very basic "load and go" back then. I was a junior in high school and worked part time and got hired because I had an advanced Red Cross card. But I
digress, LOTS different 40 years ago. Oh, and you guys will love this...don't know if you can see them but dead center on the hood near the windshield is a small set of electric air horns. The city of San Antonio had an ordinance on the books at that time that PROHIBITED the use of sirens on ambulances and
police cars. SAFD was the only emergency vehicles with sirens back then. I know, I know...but it's true."

(photos and description courtsey John Anderson)

Thanks for this one, Steve. I've seen pix of this one before and wondered if it was from here in TX. Ellis F.H. here in Midland had a '61 Chevy panel that they converted themselves and was more plain-Jane than this one. It had a single red 17 beacon on the roof with twin red single-faced Unity lights and a B&M S8B siren underhood.

You mentioned the use of the small airhorns due to San Antonio's prohibition of sirens. My former government teacher taught at what was then San Antonio College (now UTSA) and had an attack of appendicitis at work. He was transported via ambulance. He said that what scared him was the fast-running ambulance with only the air horns to move traffic. He went on to say that ambulances responding within the city could only use the horns, or electronic sirens with hi-lo; but if you cleared the city limits, going into one of the suburbs such as Alamo Heights, sirens could be used.
 
...from the Dallas area:

Richardson FD
1974 GMC

Mesquite FD
1975 Chevrolet

A show of hands, please...how many in this group have actually worked out of an ambulance with curtains in it?

(Duane Troxel photos)


Oh yeah, curtains. Just about all of the Superior Caddies carried curtains in our area (Orange and L.A. Counties, CA). A few of our "crash trucks," the local term for Suburban based units, had curtains as well.

During the waning days of the Vietnam War (1973) we periodically responded to the Long beach, CA airport to meet MAC (Military Airlift Command) Flights, composed of the C-9 Nightingale Transport ambulance aircraft (DC-9 civilian model) coming from military hospital units in Hawaii. They brought back the war wounded going for continuing care at the Long Beach VA Hospital.

We'd take our cue from the young military nurses as to which patients to load first and carry them down the long aircraft side ramp to the ambulance on the tarmac. I still think back and remember one nurse in particular. She was beautiful, trim and sharp in her uniform, but her face had that thousand yard stare, like she had just about reached her limit of what she could take. Her uniform was soaked in sweat patches from the long hot trip across the Pacific and she never smiled once, her attention concentrated on the list of her patients, making sure they made it to the correct ambulance.

Our unit carried 4 stretcher patients (2 from ceiling hooks, one on the squad bench and one on the gurney. These guys were devastated physically and emotionally, having received emergency treatment in Hawaii, direct from the battlefield, and coming home for convalescence. Most were quads and paraplegics, lower extremity amputations were common. Almost every one of them was fitted with a "rubber duckie" so we had to be very careful not to burst a bag.

Because of the rat fink war protesters picketing the airport whenever these boys came back home (Cal State Long Beach was nearby), I usually closed the curtains so the guys would not have to endure seeing the angry mobs spitting on the ambulance windows, slapping her upside the quarter panels with their signs and screaming foul language at our patients.

These guys had suffered enough and the flimsy curtains offered at least visual protection for them. We're talking amputees as well, sometimes all extremities (extremely difficult to place on a gurney without throwing our balance off while lifting the old Model-30 Fernos). I didn't want to degrade them by plopping them right in the middle of the gurney, as there were many passengers crowding the airport terminal windows to watch the ambulance action below, so my partner and I sat them up with the head of the cot slightly raised, placed a rolled blanket where the legs would be and covered them from the chest down with a light sheet to disguise their quadruple amputee form. This placed all the weight forward, so we had to be extra careful lifting and loading an unbalanced gurney. My back was a small price to pay, considering these boys no longer had limbs...at least we could down an aspirin and be good to keep on keepin' on.

The MAC Flight job was a solemn thing, it usually was very emotionally hard on the crews as we spent the day meeting plane after plane of broken bodies, young guys about our own ages. You could see the aircraft spread across the blue California sky on final, spaced out 5 miles apart as they turned from base to final approach and landing. You could gauge the workload for the day by counting all the stacked military stretchers at the receiving entrance to the VA neuro unit.

For ambulance buffs, seeing all those 1970s era ambulances at one place on a sunny day was an awesome thing. There'd be a line of ambulances all around the perimeter of the airport, you'd see Schaefer's, Goodhew, Seal's, Wind, Southland and just about the whole of Southern California ambulance services fielding units to handle the incoming wounded. It was a solemn thing, but the sight of the colorful pro cars all lined up in one place was certainly something to behold.

The Caddies and crash trucks benefited most from curtains, and although I seldom used them, they came in real handy on these calls.
 
Oh yeah, curtains. Just about all of the Superior Caddies carried curtains in our area (Orange and L.A. Counties, CA). A few of our "crash trucks," the local term for Suburban based units, had curtains as well.
Victor, I've heard the similar term "crash wagon" used many times in reference to my '71 Stoner Suburban. Do you know the origin or reason for this moniker and was it used exclusively for the Suburban based ambulances or for all truck based units?
 
Victor, I've heard the similar term "crash wagon" used many times in reference to my '71 Stoner Suburban. Do you know the origin or reason for this moniker and was it used exclusively for the Suburban based ambulances or for all truck based units?

Hi Michael:

I never heard the term "Crash Wagon," as all of the guys I worked with called them "Crash Trucks" and that term referred only to Suburban type vehicles. In Orange County during the 70s you could just about work with anyone who instantly knew what you were referring to when you mentioned the term "Crash Truck."

No one I ever ran into mistook the local term for anything other than a Suburban based ambulance, usually of the raised roof version, as fielded by Stoner (easily the most ubiquitious), Cascade etc.

Vans were called either High or Low tops and they were never given a style name other than that. Modular truck based ambulances (either Type I or III) were called just that, "Modulars." Even though the terms Type I, II and III were in use during that time (KKK-A specs), you seldom if ever heard guys call their units by "type" nomenclature, it was always by body style (van, Cadillac etc) or by manufacturer, ("I'm taking the Superior today.")

I think that what strikes me most about ambulance evolution in modern times is the lack of real design evolution in the past 40 years. Certainly, there have been advances in tech, like LED lighting (which to me is sometimes too bright and glaring) and computerized systems akin to what is fielded in the Sprinter vehicles. But if you transported an ambulance crew member from 1973 to today, he or she would find the modern ambulance in the here and now to be quite familiar. The only thing they might ask is, "What the heck happened to the Cadillac? They were good units..." That was my experience when I re-entered the field in 2004. After so many years away from it, ambulance work was still the same and I fit right in, happily I might add.

But, even in those old days, the limousine ambulance was falling out of favor as anything other than as transport rigs. In 1975, Schaefer Ambulance in Los Angeles had a few brand new Superiors in the new burnt orange color scheme that they outfitted as transports having Federal 184s on the roof, but eschewing the red lens cover in favor of an amber one. These vehicles were manned (not meant as sexist, there were few women in EMS in those days) by older guys who had been worn out in service and transitioned to the transport cars.

In Southern California, the crash truck was a popular vehicle, even though it was about the smallest emergency ambulance rolling on the streets. The Suburban was handy, nimble and easy on the gas. One unit that I particularly liked was fielded by Wind Ambulance of Tustin, CA, Unit 606. It was a '72 Chevy built by, I believe, Cascade and drove like a Cadillac; smooth, powerful and could carry four stretcher patients. This baby had twin Federal 184s forward on the raised roof, red and amber, the usual Unity tunnel lights and a Federal Interceptor paired with a Unitrol electronic siren running out of twin CP style Federal chrome speaker units paired above the driver's compartment, just below and forward of the raised roof. I have a picture of it rolling Code where, because of the misty night, the unit looks like its roof is on fire with all those gorgeous lights doing their job.

I'm thinking the term "crash truck" relates to the fact that they were handy in responding to traffic accidents because you could maneuver around wreckage and debris on the street while positioning your unit on arrival.

But where the term crash truck originated is beyond me. It is interesting that the ambulance using the name was the smallest emergency unit available, but also took on a name used to refer to the mightiest of all fire engines, the huge airport rigs that also carry the name "Crash Truck."
 
Interesting. Steve, do you know if that was Stoner's official product name? I've never seen it written anywhere but then I've seen darn little in the way of product brochures or literature from Stoner or their distributors/dealers.

I'm fairly sure it was their official name for the product, but can't prove it without digging out some old literature. I'll see what I can find.
 
Cal Farley's Boys Ranch (in the middle of nowhere near Amarillo, TX)
1970 GKA/Chevrolet
(SL photos, 2019)

Bought new, this is kept as a parade rig along with two old fire trucks. The CFBR now contracts with a private service for 24/7 paramedic EMS coverage.

More information about this organization:
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