Re-Purposed ambulance photos

D

Darren Bedford

PCS Member
This is a box type ambulance that was parked down the street from me.

It is used as a mobile unit command post during fund raiser events
regarding organ and tissue donations.

At least it isn't a car based ambulance.


I AM ALL FOR ORGAN DONATION !!!

If you haven't signed up for organ donation... PLEASE DO !!!


I love that in Ohio you can even get a organ donor logo on your license plate !


THANKS !
Darren
 

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There's a guy here that uses a late 80's early 90's type III for mobile detailing. I wanna say his company is called "Auto-medic". Have to see if i can snag a pic next time i see him out and about.
 
Ive seen lots of box ambulances in Iowa. Everything from plumbers to painters and more. There was a watersoftener place that their whole fleet was ambulances. I dont blame them though, they make great work trucks with lots of storage and they are cheap to pick up.
 
Darren Bedford said:
This is a box type ambulance that was parked down the street from me.

It is used as a mobile unit command post during fund raiser events
regarding organ and tissue donations.

At least it isn't a car based ambulance.


I AM ALL FOR ORGAN DONATION !!!

If you haven't signed up for organ donation... PLEASE DO !!!


I love that in Ohio you can even get a organ donor logo on your license plate !


THANKS !
Darren
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Decent graphics on the truck. But I don't like seeing ambulances being u sed for other purposes such as this. If they remain in emergency services some way: fine, but not like this.

I got beat out of a nice older Yankee Type III a few years ago. It went to a painter!
 
I'm in agreement with Skip. I really don't like seeing truck based Ambulances used for anything other then emergency services either. This is not too bad ( It does have a medical theme) but Its the same as using a Funeral Coach or a Pro-car Ambulance for somthing else, like plumbing or painting or even a school mascot

True I'll be taking my 78 Chevy Horton Type lll to car shows and such but as an Ambulance. Its more to educate people then anything else
 
Mike Boyer said:
I'm in agreement with Skip. I really don't like seeing truck based Ambulances used for anything other then emergency services either. This is not too bad ( It does have a medical theme) but Its the same as using a Funeral Coach or a Pro-car Ambulance for somthing else, like plumbing or painting or even a school mascot

True I'll be taking my 78 Chevy Horton Type lll to car shows and such but as an Ambulance. Its more to educate people then anything else
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Thanks for that, Mike. The one exception that I don't mind is when a Type I or III ambulance is converted for a mobile communications unit. It still remains in emergency service.

BTW, I goofed and you brought this to my attention. The ambulance I missed out on was a '76 Horton short Type III ambulance, not a Yankee as I said earlier. Any pix of your rig, Mike?
 
A month or two back, I had a lengthy email exchange with a gentleman from the Packard Club regarding my 1942 Henney ambulance. He is specifically into 1942 model Packards, and shared this photo he had of one of the rare Civilian Defense units in Cincinnati. As shown, the unit was no longer an ambulance, and was being used as a fancy box truck by the Cincinnati Salvage Corps, whose duty it was to salvage usable property from fire scenes. While it is easy today to look at that photo and think how terrible it is that such a rare vehicle got ruined, at the time the conversion was done, it was just a valueless used truck. And yes, I did ask him if he had more photos of it...he did not.
 

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You'll note, on the Cincinnati Salvage truck, that they added non-Henney side doors with new windows as well. But yes, that is the difference between what we consider an antique/classic and what others consider to be just an old car or truck.
 
Patrick and all, here's another shot of the Cincinnati Salvage Corps Henney.
 

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Mike Boyer said:
I'm in agreement with Skip. I really don't like seeing truck based Ambulances used for anything other then emergency services either. This is not too bad ( It does have a medical theme) but Its the same as using a Funeral Coach or a Pro-car Ambulance for somthing else, like plumbing or painting or even a school mascot

True I'll be taking my 78 Chevy Horton Type lll to car shows and such but as an Ambulance. Its more to educate people then anything else
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You guys are kidding, right? Do you realize how many of these old van and truck-based ambulances there are out there and how little interest there is right now in collecting/preserving them? At least someone is getting some use out of them and they are not going directly to the shredder.
 
To this end many of the older out of service units in Ontario are going for non-emergent patient transfer services,while several are reputable there are some that are well in-it-for-a-buck types,there are no regulations or government rules for them to follow YET!.I was told by one of the crews that their boss explained to them that,they are one step below welfare bums,and if anything happens to the patient they are to pull over and call 911 and let the real medics handle it.and their maintenance and cleaning and sterilization protocols are non existant,I will not let family/friends go this way unless it's with one of the reputable ones.
 
Kurt Arends said:
You guys are kidding, right? Do you realize how many of these old van and truck-based ambulances there are out there and how little interest there is right now in collecting/preserving them? At least someone is getting some use out of them and they are not going directly to the shredder.
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Thats what everyone said about Pro-Car Ambulances and Hearses way back in the day. now look where we are ! we would kill to find an older pro- car Ambulance.

All I'm saying is that if we don't start saving the older truck based Ambulances now we won't have them to enjoy and look back on in the furture like we do now with the car based stuff.
 
Mike Boyer said:
Thats what everyone said about Pro-Car Ambulances and Hearses way back in the day. now look where we are ! we would kill to find an older pro- car Ambulance.

All I'm saying is that if we don't start saving the older truck based Ambulances now we won't have them to enjoy and look back on in the furture like we do now with the car based stuff.
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Maybe a collector club for these type of truck based vehicles should then should
be formed so they do don't confuse/interfere with professional CARS. People with interest in these vehicles can begin to preserve the history/restoration of such trucks.
 
There is a big difference in that passenger car based coach styling was tweaked annually and they usually had significant styling changes every couple of years. The passenger car based coaches were also(usually) based on high-style luxury cars. A box style ambulance built in 1978 doesn't look any different to "the average Joe" than a box style ambulance built in 2014. It seems like Ford and GM only make significant design changes to their vans about every 20 years anymore. In my part of the world, many of the box style ambulances skip the plumbers and go directly to the salvage yards as there is so little demand for them.
 
Steve Lichtman said:
Patrick and all, here's another shot of the Cincinnati Salvage Corps Henney.
Click to expand...

Wayne Krakowski said:
To this end many of the older out of service units in Ontario are going for non-emergent patient transfer services,while several are reputable there are some that are well in-it-for-a-buck types,there are no regulations or government rules for them to follow YET!.I was told by one of the crews that their boss explained to them that,they are one step below welfare bums,and if anything happens to the patient they are to pull over and call 911 and let the real medics handle it.and their maintenance and cleaning and sterilization protocols are non existant,I will not let family/friends go this way unless it's with one of the reputable ones.
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That's almost as bad as the way things got here in the late 60s and early 70s. The one private ambulance company shut down c.1968 and moved to Sweetwater, TX, leaving one funeral home ambulance service to cover a city of then just over 70,000 (now 110,000) with two Pontiac Consort ambulances. They ran one-man units with one-man cots, and little to no patient care was rendered. They used C.B. radios for their own communications, and for some reason thought they were on a "private channel" that no one else could hear. And to that end, you wouldn't believe some of the things that came over the radio, like one night they picked up a breathing difficulty patient. The crew was instructed not to turn on the oxygen until the family signed a check because they hadn't collected the last time the had transported this same patient. They actually upgraded to a couple of nice Superior/Chevy Type II vans, but by 1975 Midland Fire Dept. ended up with EMS and the funeral home was out of the ambulance business.

Hope it's not all that bad in Ontario!
 
Kurt Arends said:
You guys are kidding, right? Do you realize how many of these old van and truck-based ambulances there are out there and how little interest there is right now in collecting/preserving them? At least someone is getting some use out of them and they are not going directly to the shredder.
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I would agree with you Kurt about the number of old ambulances out there. I see a lot on Ebay and on the Govdeals website. Fortunately, from what I've seen, a large number of these ambulances are going to some small towns and communities that wouldn't have an ambulance at all if they weren't able to get some good deals on the units that are being retired.

I think that Mike and I are in agreement: there's no excuse in seeing a decent ambulance regardless of age being used by plumber or painter: no excuse whatsoever!
 
Most re-purposed ambulances (fire apparatus too) make me chringe but some make me smile. This is one I spied that's OK with me:

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This rig looked fully code-3 capable still and interestingly the amber on the lightbar is on the left!
 
Well I really don't care anymore what people think about me wanting to save a truck based Ambulance, I know they all look the same from the 1970's to 2014 and to the "average Joe" why would anyone want to save a truck based Ambulance ? I'm saving this one because It was the FIRST truck based Ambulance bought by The Myerstown First Aid Unit in Penn. to replace thier 1971 S&S Cadillac Medic Mark l. and because my Friend Evan Butchers owned it. Its the same reason I bought my 1987 Eureka Cadillac concours landaulet fwd Funeral Coach.......... few people like these cars. To some...they are ..............I don't know not a real Pro-car ? because they are fwd and built in the 1980's ???? I don't know its strange how some people react when I tell them is a 1980's car. I bought the Eureka because it was built in Canada and served in Canada and I'm proud that I saved it and can show it The Same reason I'm proud of my 78 Horton type lll
I'm done my rant .......thank you
 
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