Slang for Ambulance
Garth Melnick
Kind of a survey question...
What do you call your ambulance(s)?
I've heard "rig" (fairly generic), "bus" (only on TV), "car" (the favorite
here in Portland) .... others? Favorites?
Just curious.
Garth
NREMT-B, WEMT, etc.
Aussie Medic
"Garth Melnick" <gmel...@efn.org> wrote in message
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John Filangeri
>
> Kind of a survey question...
>
> What do you call your ambulance(s)?
>
> I've heard "rig" (fairly generic), "bus" (only on TV), "car" (the favorite
> here in Portland) .... others? Favorites?
>
In NYC it's a "bus" as in "Rush da bus"
John
Jeff McCann
known as the "Limo-lance."
Jeff
=============================
Jeffrey Allen McCann, P.A.
Attorney at Law
200 East Government St, Suite 130
Pensacola, FL 32501
(850) 436-8404
j.mc...@abanet.org
=============================
"Garth Melnick" <gmel...@efn.org> wrote in message
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Scott Aleckson
Devnull
"Garth Melnick" <gmel...@efn.org> wrote in message
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Steve & Susan
'Bamblance
(used in Jersey City, NJ along with "bus")
"Bus" is a New York City expression and has been so for many years.
It's not a TV invention. Say it to any cop, firefighter or EMS worker
in NYC and they'll know exactly what you mean.
In Missouri, ALS ambulances can be referred to as "LSV's" or life
support vehicles.
My old FD (for a brief time as an inside joke) referred to ambulances
as "meat cars." (A firefighter with a speech impediment was really
saying "police car" and the patient heard "meat car.").
Steve
(forever on the bus)
Carey Gregory
>I've heard "rig" (fairly generic), "bus" (only on TV),
"Bus" gets used in this area, particularly by commercial services.
>"car" (the favorite here in Portland) .... others? Favorites?
Officially we're designated "Car XX." I suppose that dates from the
days when we used Caddies. Most common slang is "truck" or "rig." No
one around here uses terms like "ambo."
Aussie Medic
treat us as a taxi service.....
"Aussie Medic" <aussie...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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John Noble
(Pardon if mentioned earlier, but I can't see prior posts)
"Aussie Medic" <aussie...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
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thepurplepumpernickel
"Carey Gregory" <anti...@attbi.com> wrote in message news:e7cc0vk4t5mndvpjo...@4ax.com...
Buff5200
Band-Aid Buggy
Good Humor Wagon (The Psyc hospital ambulance with the men in white coats)
Steve & Susan
>Red Ball Express
Reminded me of a few more...
Tac-Z (sounds like Taxi - for Tactical paramedic unit "10 Zebra" old
NYC*EMS Manhattan Boro Cmd,)
Orange & White Bus Company
Steve
Leigh Darnall
Med unit, unit, truck, rig or box. The last is used in a fairly
desperate plea - "Get me off the box NOW. I can't take it anymore" type
stuff.
"Bus" must be a Yankee thing- I'd never heard it until Third Watch
happened to TV.
Oh, yeah, and "bumbolance." A bit of nonsense that drives my partner crazy.
--
Leigh Darnall
Itinerant Paramedic
Firefighter Wannabe
As wrong as a soup sandwich.
KC8PMX
on them......)
"Garth Melnick" <gmel...@efn.org> wrote in message
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Lt. Tony Scheben
Penalty Box
the Hack
"Garth Melnick" <gmel...@efn.org> wrote in message
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bob...@nospamemt-p.org
<le...@spammersuck.net> wrote:
"Car", "Truck", "Rig" (in MN, metro area), "Orange and White Taxi",
etc.
>"Bus" must be a Yankee thing- I'd never heard it until Third Watch
>happened to TV.
Could be a Yankee thing (though one of our new guys from the Left
Coast uses that term...we strike him soundly each time, so it rarely
happens now). Seriously, a "Life" magazine article about "General
Hospital's" (Minneapolis, MN), "Interenes" from the early '40s pointed
out that the "Internes looked forward to 'bus duty'", referring to
ambulance work (MGH, now HCMC, interns worked as partners on emergency
ambulances for the hospital since the beginning of the 20th
century...they stopped riding emergency calls regularly after we
graduated our first class of paramedics in 1973).
>
Bob
BCarney1123
>happened to TV.
>
More like a NYC area thing. Around here if you say bus everyone knows your're
talking about the ambulance. There are two stories I've heard for this term.
The most obvious one is the reference to picking up multiple people. Back in
the days before the letters E-M-S meant anything it was not unheard of to be so
busy that the "buses" would respond incident to incident picking up people on
the way to the hospital.
Another reference is to the contract NYC had several years ago with the Grumann
Corporation. Grumann was awarded a large contract to provide the City with
Transit buses. Grumann also used to make ambulances and NYC EMS also used
Grumann ambulances. Hence the "Bus" reference. We had two here in New Brunswick
and they wouldn't die.
I'm sure some of our collegues from NYC could set the record straight if I'm
mistaken.
Brian
New Brunswick, NJ
Ga...@iluvspam.com
>
> Another reference is to the contract NYC had several years ago with the Grumann
> Corporation. Grumann was awarded a large contract to provide the City with
> Transit buses. Grumann also used to make ambulances and NYC EMS also used
> Grumann ambulances. Hence the "Bus" reference. We had two here in New Brunswick
> and they wouldn't die.
That's the story that I've heard a number of times from people from NYC, so there might be some truth to it. However, Bob's story would seem to contradict that since it predates NYC's purchase of the
Grumman ambulances by several years.
As for the durability, during WW II Navy pilots referred to the company as the "Grumman Iron Works" because the planes were so rugged and would keep flying with incredible damage.
Gary
charles krin
<le...@spammersuck.net> wrote:
>Tennessee slang:
>
>Med unit, unit, truck, rig or box. The last is used in a fairly
>desperate plea - "Get me off the box NOW. I can't take it anymore" type
>stuff.
>
>"Bus" must be a Yankee thing- I'd never heard it until Third Watch
>happened to TV.
>
>Oh, yeah, and "bumbolance." A bit of nonsense that drives my partner crazy.
Ah, but Leigh, your starring role on "Paramedics" was proof that your
partner had to be crazy *before* they got on the bumbolance with
you...
and I've known some others (of all four sexual persuasions) where the
rig should have been called a 'bimbolance'...
ck
country doc in louisiana
(no fancy sayings right now)
Tom Ladd
I think that this comes from the old days of hearse/ambulance
vehicles.
They were also called "combination cars", which may reinforce the use
of "car"
I started running in one of these - wow - the ride was great, the
power on the highway was a delight, and as long as you didn't want to
actualy work on the patient, it was fine!!
Tom in NH
---
27 years in EMS;
I now qualify for insanity
Garth Melnick <gmel...@efn.org> wrote in message news:<Pine.GSU.4.21.02122...@garcia.efn.org>...
Leigh Darnall
charles krin wrote:
>
> Ah, but Leigh, your starring role on "Paramedics" was proof that your
> partner had to be crazy *before* they got on the bumbolance with
You ARE out to get me! I could have gone years without mention on that
show on this ng, y'know....
Merry Christmas, Boudreaux.
--
Leigh Darnall
charles krin
<le...@spammersuck.net> wrote:
>
>
>charles krin wrote:
>
>>
>> Ah, but Leigh, your starring role on "Paramedics" was proof that your
>> partner had to be crazy *before* they got on the bumbolance with
>
>
>You ARE out to get me! I could have gone years without mention on that
>show on this ng, y'know....
>
>Merry Christmas, Boudreaux.
Jeaux Noel....
John Filangeri
<Ga...@ILUVspam.com> wrote in message
news:1103_10...@netnews.attbi.com...
> On 24 Dec 2002 04:20:49 GMT, bcarn...@aol.com (BCarney1123) wrote:
> >
> > Another reference is to the contract NYC had several years ago with the
Grumann
> > Corporation. Grumann was awarded a large contract to provide the City
with
> > Transit buses. Grumann also used to make ambulances and NYC EMS also
used
> > Grumann ambulances. Hence the "Bus" reference. We had two here in New
Brunswick
> > and they wouldn't die.
>
> That's the story that I've heard a number of times from people from NYC,
so there might be some truth to it. However, Bob's story would seem to
contradict that since it predates NYC's purchase of the
> Grumman ambulances by several years.
It's not from the Grummans. The term predates them by several decades at
least. And, the Grummans were truck chassis modulars (type I). Nothing like
a bus. I would imagine it came from the old "bread truck" (similar to
trucks used to deliver fresh bread every morning to local groceries)
ambulances. They looked quite a bit like a sawed-off bus.
John
danny burstein
>It's not from the Grummans. The term predates them by several decades at
>least. And, the Grummans were truck chassis modulars (type I). Nothing like
>a bus. I would imagine it came from the old "bread truck" (similar to
>trucks used to deliver fresh bread every morning to local groceries)
>ambulances. They looked quite a bit like a sawed-off bus.
I have been told by some of the fossilized dinosaurs in NYC's EMS group
(you know, the folk who were around back when "DIT" was a checkoff box on
the ambulance call reports) that the term (which predated my arrival in
the system) comes from the old Dep't of Hospital days.
Way back then a significant amount of patient transport was done by
multi-passenger vehicles, kind of like the access-a-ride units now in use
for the handicapped. So yes, patients would wait for the (medical) "bus"
as it made its rounds.
danny " however, these same people have told me about the snipe hunts and
treating injuries from cow tipping and recovering bodies after seregators
got to them, so I'm not sure how much to trust them " burstein
--
_____________________________________________________
Knowledge may be power, but communications is the key
dan...@panix.com
[to foil spammers, my address has been double rot-13 encoded]
John Filangeri
"danny burstein" <dan...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:aud0i8$bqi$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> In <HtnO9.78591$hK4.6...@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net> "John
Filangeri" <JohnFi...@worldnet.att.net> writes:
>
> >It's not from the Grummans. The term predates them by several decades at
> >least. And, the Grummans were truck chassis modulars (type I). Nothing
like
> >a bus. I would imagine it came from the old "bread truck" (similar to
> >trucks used to deliver fresh bread every morning to local groceries)
> >ambulances. They looked quite a bit like a sawed-off bus.
>
> I have been told by some of the fossilized dinosaurs in NYC's EMS group
> (you know, the folk who were around back when "DIT" was a checkoff box on
> the ambulance call reports) that the term (which predated my arrival in
> the system) comes from the old Dep't of Hospital days.
>
> Way back then a significant amount of patient transport was done by
> multi-passenger vehicles, kind of like the access-a-ride units now in use
> for the handicapped. So yes, patients would wait for the (medical) "bus"
> as it made its rounds.
>
That sounds like the old "bread trucks" There were no ambulance cots in
them, just 2 benches. If you had a stretcher patient, you used a pole
stretcher to lie them on one of the benches. They were used for
non-emergency as well as emergency transport. You could easily seat 8-10
ambulatory patients. Or, the backrests of the benches would swing up and
could be suspended from the ceiling by chains. You then fit 4 stretcher
patients in "bunk bed" style arrangement. Not much space for patient care
(which was pretty limited in those days anyway), but good if you had to move
a lot of minor injuries.
We certainly could have used them on 9/11. Modern ambulances proved to be
totally worthless for a large disaster. We have progressed to huge honkin
trucks that effectively have space for one patient. Even the bench has been
rendered unusable on many units by the big cabinet in the right rear corner.
Units were transporting patients lying on the floor, and some crews
commandeered civilian delivery vans and pickup trucks because they had more
transport space. Well, that's what happens when most decision making in EMS
is left to fat boys with phony badges.
John
John
bob...@nospamemt-p.org
<JohnFi...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>We certainly could have used them on 9/11. Modern ambulances proved to be
>totally worthless for a large disaster. We have progressed to huge honkin
>trucks that effectively have space for one patient. Even the bench has been
>rendered unusable on many units by the big cabinet in the right rear corner.
That's been something our medics have continued to push for (and
succeed). Our trucks have 2 full bences, plus the cot. Road Rescue's
standard floor plan does include a backboard cabinet at the
right-rear, but the bench is still long enough...just a little harder
to load (so we load driver's side bench first, and save the right side
for attendants or ambulatory patients.
With one medic riding in back, we can handle 3 stretcher, 2 stretcher
and 3 ambulatory, or 1 stretcher and 6 ambulatory.
Personally, I'll be just as happy if I never have to put it to a 9/11
scale disaster, but it's worked well for the more common MCI type
things...multiple vehicle crashes, CO poisoning in a house, etc. Nice
when you can take 6 fairly ill people and only use 2 trucks.
Bob
Martin Herker
>
> That sounds like the old "bread trucks" There were no ambulance cots in
> them, just 2 benches. If you had a stretcher patient, you used a pole
> stretcher to lie them on one of the benches. They were used for
> non-emergency as well as emergency transport. You could easily seat 8-10
> ambulatory patients. Or, the backrests of the benches would swing up and
> could be suspended from the ceiling by chains. You then fit 4 stretcher
> patients in "bunk bed" style arrangement. Not much space for patient care
> (which was pretty limited in those days anyway), but good if you had to move
> a lot of minor injuries.
>
> John
>
>
I remember starting in a 1974 Cadillac with provision for 4 patients. 1
on the cot, 1 on an unfolded half bench, and 2 from overhead hangers.
No room to see much beyond the head of the patient.
A nearby service just took delivery of a freightliner unit that has room
for 1 patient! No, they don't carry heavy rescue on the truck. That's
in a specialized rescue unit. The freightliner just transports.
Now, to bring it back on topic, we sometimes call our rigs by the year
of purchase and manufacturer. So we have talked about
74 caddy
78 collins
85 wheeled coach
88 lifeline
98 Emerg a star (rebuild of 85)
01 arrow (rebuild of 88)
MAH
Steve
> Hi all,
>
> Kind of a survey question...
>
> What do you call your ambulance(s)?
Well, *I* call it a "cabulance."
-LT Steve Hillson
Boston (MA) EMS
Martyn Hodson
news:b31a3685.02122...@posting.google.com...
> Garth Melnick <gmel...@efn.org> wrote in message
news:<Pine.GSU.4.21.02122...@garcia.efn.org>...
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Kind of a survey question...
> >
> > What do you call your ambulance(s)?
>
> Well, *I* call it a "cabulance."
big white taxi
uncle tony's big white taxi
ambi
seem to be in common use in britain
martyn
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Steve & Susan
<JohnFi...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>We have progressed to huge honkin
>trucks that effectively have space for one patient. <snip>
I saw the most impractical thing the other day in one of the fire
magazines - it was an engine with an extended crew cab and a PATIENT
COMPARTMENT that looked like taking the box of a Type I, turning it 90
degrees and loading the patient into the side of a fire truck (my
imagination leads me to a four man crew that loads up the patient and
then climbs up front leaving the patient alone because none of them
seem to have wanted ambulance duty. Guess I ought to stop eating
mushrooms with dinner).
I guess Freightliners weren't good enough ("Damnit! Make me an
ambulance that looks like a fire truck!"), now they need a complete
engine! Geez, either you're on one, or on another. Don't be on one
then pretend you're not! I can only imagine the maintenance budget to
keep a fleet of those on the road.
>Units were transporting patients lying on the floor, and some crews
>commandeered civilian delivery vans and pickup trucks because they had more
>transport space.
Seen reference to this at several MCIs. The idea has some merit. Had
this been "back in the day" the PETS busses would have been good
choices for transporting walking wounded. Maybe a couple of straight
trucks with stretcher mounts and a row down the middle could be good
for MCI transport? Must be a bitch trying to justify getting a
specialized piece of equipment in the Bloomberg administration.
>Well, that's what happens when most decision making in EMS
>is left to fat boys with phony badges.
Freddy's still around?
Steve
P.J. Geraghty
Garth Melnick <gmel...@efn.org> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Kind of a survey question...
>
> What do you call your ambulance(s)?
>
> I've heard "rig" (fairly generic), "bus" (only on TV), "car" (the favorite
> here in Portland) .... others? Favorites?
>
> Just curious.
>
> Garth
> NREMT-B, WEMT, etc.
>
>
Nobody else seems to have mentioned it, but one cantankerous bastard
from my department would refer to a BLS unit as a "fag wagon" and an ALS
unit as a "fag wagon supreme." He was also fond of the term "shitbox."
He was an asshole, but he was a funny asshole.
Here in Richmond the members of non-fire EMS agencies (public or
private) refer to them as trucks, but get pissed when I ask them where
the ladder is.
I myself am partial to the "bus" reference. "Bo-lance" is another I've
heard. And of course gutbucket.
--
P.J. Geraghty
Transplant coordinator, paramedic, firefighter, husband and father
p...@geraghtys.net
http://www.geraghtys.net
charles krin
<JohnFi...@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
One trick that we used to do with the old wooden backboards was to
notch the longitudinal runners to fit the spacing of the seats in the
local school buses...
depending on the size of the patient and the width of the seats on the
bus, for short transports, you could fit two to four stretchers on
the seats, and usually at least three rows of stretchers along the
length of the bus.
Buff5200
as a mass casualty ambulance.
I think the "bus" could hold 16 stretchers with lights, O2, suction, and IV hangers for each
patient. Not crowded either, enough room for crews to move around inside. But I never got
to see it rolling down the street code III.
They always used to have it standing by at games and events.
bob...@nospamemt-p.org
wrote:
>heard. And of course gutbucket.
>
Now at least in Minneapolis, "bucket" (not gutbucket which just sounds
icky), refers to the cot (or the canvas stretcher sitting on the cot
in the case of tight squeezes).
Bob
RLDean
dispatch knows it's a medical call. Some call them buses and trucks.