I love that the ambulance driver doesn't use his seatbelt having just attended a car crash where one of the patients broke the windscreen with their head😂
Also lets make the gear shifter a metal rod that points directly at the drivers kneecap. I mean it could lead to a nasty accident but surely the driver would be wearing their seatbelt, right? Right? :)
3:55 the guy just casually looking backwards while driving at speed with no seatbelt - and on a real road with a whole BBC Team standing in the back too 😂
I bet UK paramedics will laugh at the ambulance staff playing snooker while waiting for a call to come in. Now they barely get chance for a meal break.
That’s because we’re run off our feet dealing with junkies, alcoholics, and the thousands of other people who abuse the emergency ambulance service with non emergency calls.
In those days the ambulance crews’ job was to scoop up the injured and rush to hospital with fingers crossed I guess, unlike today with the highly trained crews that many times save life. Hat to them all.
Absolutely, although by '69 things were changing - but no one really thought about it until the '66 Millar Report; prior to that the most crews got was a basic first aid certificate! (although training varied by County & some had better training). Incredible how things have changed.
So true. And I remember people being very resistant to the idea of non doctors being able to treat patients. Now you can't imagine a world without paramedics.
It was the Dennis FD4 and had a Jaguar englne. I suppose Bedford adopted some of the better ideas for their next generation of ambulances which dominated the scene during the 70s
The Ambulance Service I worked for, (I won’t name names), bought a few of the Bedfords from Durham Ambulance Service. The wheels kept coming loose! They were relegated to Patient Transport vehicles. As a newly qualified EMT, my partner at the time, (an ex Police Woman), said that “something doesn’t feel right “. We radioed our base and the mechanic said “are you driving one of the Bedfords”? He came out and said “you’ll get used to it, this happens a lot “. He tightened the wheel nuts and off we went. Happy Days!
It's a longer wait for true but even when I've been at deaths door from pnumonia I cannot tell you how awesome the sound and feel of the V6 diesels in these modern sprinters has brought me back to reality and life a bit. They haul ass for sure. I got a Fiat Ducato ambulance once, I wanted to slip away 🤣🤣
It's amazing to see the evolution that has come from this to the modern day. When Ambulance drivers because paramedics. Gone the days of the old Bedfords too. We've come a long way. These men are probably no longer with us. Back then, they wouldn't have know what they were part of. They are the pride of Britain. Often forgotten.
@@dan9283 Ah the old 'wait 4 hours for an ambulance' cliche. They prioritise. Things like cardiac arrest, breathing problems & trauma are dealt with first. That means people with broken ankles and sprains have to wait. If someone has a heart attack while you are next in line with your twisted ankle, you slip down the queue. That's always been the case.
My step dad was a LAS paramedic and when I was a boy he let me sit on his lap and "drive" the Bedford CF a few times. This was around the time when the uniform went from blue to green. Good times!
Bizarre the see all the manual lifting of the stretcher, the way they just pick up the patient and carry them to the stretcher, and then the position they place the patient in on the stretcher. I hadn't realised just how relatively recently we had come to have an understanding of manual handling and protecting the neck and spine. I can't believe this was unknown to us only some 50 odd years ago.
And the beauty of television programmes and broadcasts on film. Is that high definition HD of 720p, 1080 and 1080i and ultra HD scans can be produced and a high quality digitised preserved copy in the BBC Archives.
Basically a van with a bed in the back lol. Simpler times. How they saved anybody back then was a miracle. Medical science has clearly vastly improved, whilst the NHS is in rapid decline.
Ideally. The great thing is that paramedics today are qualified to do so much that only the critical patients would be waited on, the paramedics can hold on for a long time.
Considering that the NHS has grown massively since this documentary came about and the hospital scape has changed significantly as well, id be supprised if the doctor and stuff could still do this anywhere in the UK. I run EMS in rural Kansas and it's still this way but every time we go to a major hospital it's hectic.
These days when you reach the hospital and you can't even get out the ambulance because A&E is full. (That's assuming you can even get an ambulance) Got a feeling your chances were better back then.
When the term ambulance first came into use, it did not refer to a vehicle. To meet the urgent needs of the wounded during war, the French about 200 years ago set up temporary movable hospitals close to the battlefields. They called such a hospital hôpital ambulant, meaning literally "walking hospital." The French adjective ambulant can be traced back to the Latin verb ambulare, meaning "to walk." In time the French dropped the word hôpital from the phrase and changed the adjective to the noun ambulance. This word was also later applied to the wagon used for transporting the wounded to the field hospital. Before long, the word ambulance came to be used for civilian temporary hospitals set up during emergencies and also for the vehicles used to take the sick and injured to the hospital. English borrowed the word from French to refer to such vehicles.
"as normal the hospital staff have been altered to the arrival of the ambulance and are waiting to receive the patient". Oh how the UK has changed. Last time I went to A&E I counted 8 ambulances waiting outside with patients. Inside them. A&E was like a war zone complete with stabbing victims and people in tears as they had been left abandoned for 8 hours. I left in the end as one nurse said there would be an additional 10 hours delay. And no I'm not making this up ...
@@focusmicro I had striped the skin off my thumb and as I have blood thinners I was bleeding profusely. Id visited a minor injury unit that day who had applied a seaweed bandage and they gave me specific instructions to go to main A&E if I was bleeding through the bandage. At midnight my wife insisted I go as I was bloody all over my hand.so all I asked for were some fresh seaweed bandages and I'd happily apply them myself and be in my way. 8 hours later they still said no despite asking politely several times and pointing out I was simply following minor injuries unit instructions. As I had a follow up appointment with minor injuries that same day (the Morin after I arrived 5 hours later) I calculated that it would be easier to go to the minor injuries unit again as already arranged (I had a follow up appointment so that they could assess the injury hoping I had stopped or slowed down my bleeding, they could not assess me with my thin blood yet to clot) as it would be quicker than the 10 hours additional estimate just announced in A&E When I went to the minor injuries unit at the pre agreed time they were shocked that A&E were in effect letting me bleed out. I explained what it was like there and I was one of the less unfortunate ones. Other people were in a worse state. When I told the nurses I was leaving I interrupted them having a tea break all set together chatting. So many thanks for you thoughts and for sharing them. But I'm afraid that as a 55yo I don't need lectures on if I should follow minor injuries unit instructions or not. When I went home I was still bleeding profusely into a towel though the seaweed bandages. More relevant is the fact that A&E is not on its knees, it's actually flat on its face in a coma. As I said. It looked and felt like a warzone and the nurses had given up. Hence them in effect hiding away having tea. A nurse told me they had in effect given up.
Interesting how the bed and chair design were still in use 25 years later - albeit modified into York 4 bed and rumbold chair. Scary black rubber masks for the laughing gas were still in use in ‘95 too - to be washed after each use!
It’s amazing how things have moved on. It’s seems so strange now that the sickest patient would have to wait whilst the walking wounded were off loaded.
Love these archive films. Tomorrows World - Great programme. I remember them introducing the CD disc, they had a car drive over it. Now CD are out of date, also a small scratch would interfere with the disc playing.
@@markiliff that is what surprised me. Didn't think they had the technology to have sirens like that back then (but I suppose they landed on the Moon during this year.....LOL)
Germany had been using electric horn sirens since the late 40s. UK was extremely far behind technology-wise, especially with the firefighter's lack of adequate protection up til the 90s. @@swaneknoctic9555
Back before spinal immobilization was ever a thought. The ambulance might've been revolutionary for it's time but the attendants could've still killed or caused more serious permanent injuries to the patients. I guess it's still better than a hearse coming to take you to the hospital.
How interesting to see how the role has evolved in only 54 years! Not only that, but the advances in medical services generally.... God bless the NHS!!
One of the regulars on a Friday evening in my local pub is old enough to remember the county hospital system in the Republic of Ireland and he doesn’t miss it here, he is is in his early 80’s.
Started working on the ambulance here in Ireland in 2000, and we had a collared shirt and tie. You were sent to a tailor for your uniform. Different times 🚑. Nowadays we're just happy if the uniform is the right size and your pants don't rip when you bend (not joking). 😬
And a peaked cap that fell off every time you bent down to do something - like pick up a patient! Still, in those days you weren’t really dressed without a hat, and certainly couldn’t have an emergency service uniform without one.
50 years later and we're still using adapted mainstream manufacturers vehicles...I guess producing a bespoke ambulance like this would have proved far too costly..
These modern adaptations are much bigger, have all the features and the large space recommended back then, and have much more equipment because rescuers are now paramedics, not just attendants. Common rail injection and other engineering leaps makes modern diesel engines very powerful, and infinitely more reliable than any Jaguar-made engine. Back then, it was desirable because common ambulance types were converted estate cars and stuff like that, those were even more cramped than modern estate cars. Vans had more space, but engines and handling (suspensions) were weak, and the ride quality was spine-shattering, which is bad for patients, just how it was before the Transits became dominant on the market. You were more likely to create another accident in those conditions.
@@charlesc.9012 I reckon commonality of parts with regular vehicles will have been a factor as well - it makes vehicle maintenance a lot easier if the various components can just be got from off a shelf, and there's far fewer thing that require individual vehicle specific knowledge to fix!
@@RedHillian It is definitely cheaper and more reliable to send it to a mainstream logistics chain than specialists and strange parts. Industrial technology and economy of scale are also huge factors. It is much cheaper to order vehicles from volume production, then send it to conversion than to spend the same amount of research funding on a low volume specialist vehicle. The economic utility and attractiveness for a Jaguar-engined commercial vehicle is suspect too, I bet it would need weekly repairs, and a 5L bottle of oil as standard cabin equipment With the ballooning costs of automotive development, production and the advances in reliability, ride quality, performance and ergonomics, mainstream vans make perfect sense now.
I miss the days the paramedics wore black leather gloves. I think the removal of black leather gloves from paramedics was the start of the decline of the NHS😂😂
In our strange topsy turvy world where things seem to be moving backwards with each passing day, this standard of healthcare will soon be cutting edge again. I bet you didn't have to wait several hours for an ambulance to arrive 55 years ago either.
When I had a heart attack 2 years ago, a first responder paramedic was with me in under 10 minutes and the main ambulance 5 minutes after that. Off to the hospital with the driver aiming for every speed bump and pothole he could find, I'm sure I almost hit the roof at one point 🤣
@@TestGearJunkie.Slightly off topic but seeing your Fluke meter avatar reminds me that I acquired a Fluke 77 as part of my job in 1989. I still have it, and it still works perfectly 😮
@@tasercs It's a Fluke 179 multimeter, lovely piece of kit. Is your 77 currently calibrated..? If it's not, you should get it done, I'd be willing to bet that it's still within spec.
It's interesting to watch this now and see how the presenter suggests things like the bed, the oxygen pump running from the battery, the wheelchair, the automatic FWD etc as if they are futuristic things - even basic ambulances in the UK have all those things now and the latest ones have so much more. It shows how much less they expected an ambulance crew to do or even be able to do as well - and they were probably better paid then, in real terms.
Potential head injuries, no cervical collar, no spine board just man handled out of the car. Guess that was the 60’s. I expect modern paramedics will cringe at this piece of history.
Imagine the shock if modern paramedics saw the way those people were moved lol. I wonder how many ended up as campervans at the end of their working life.
Was that Ambulance designed by a kid with some Lego? It looks appalling, chunky, zero styling. It was supposed to be the Swinging 60s etc. Where is the love for that Ambulance?😢 Mark from Melbourne Australia 🇦🇺
Did the designer of postman pats van design this also,if i was near death at the roadside i would think it was an ice-cream van coming to my rescue 😮😂🍺
According to the British Ambulance Preservation Society, only 3 were made, the first one was used as a normal van and was painted purple. Number 2 was used in Leicestershire but only lasted 3 weeks before a bus smashed into it, and the third is the one in the video which was in Surrey. Number 1 survives and was donated to the St. John's Ambulance.
@@simonjones7727 it was a prototype, everything shown here is now the norm and then some, it took a while but this was just a stepping stone to the Ambulances we have today
@@andreww2098 As long as there are British manufacturers making those ambulances I would not object. If the manufacturer is Mercedes then perhaps not so good.
2:26 "The designers of the ambulance produced a new rubber sprung suspension for the chasis. Already they are trying to improve it." O dear, what was wrong with it????
I’m liking the emergency tool box is just a crowbar.
I love that the ambulance driver doesn't use his seatbelt having just attended a car crash where one of the patients broke the windscreen with their head😂
Sadly even in the 1980s when it was law, many ambulance crew failed to wear seat belts.
Also lets make the gear shifter a metal rod that points directly at the drivers kneecap. I mean it could lead to a nasty accident but surely the driver would be wearing their seatbelt, right? Right? :)
3:55 the guy just casually looking backwards while driving at speed with no seatbelt - and on a real road with a whole BBC Team standing in the back too 😂
😅easy to look back and point todays obvious '
He will need an ambulance.
I bet UK paramedics will laugh at the ambulance staff playing snooker while waiting for a call to come in. Now they barely get chance for a meal break.
They play tetris nowadays on their smartphones
@@fidelcatsro6948 I can assure you not at the trust my wife works at…
However, they had time to make TikTok videos during the thing you cannot mention without becoming invisible.
@@Rasle500twerking ethnics taking up tax payer money
That’s because we’re run off our feet dealing with junkies, alcoholics, and the thousands of other people who abuse the emergency ambulance service with non emergency calls.
In those days the ambulance crews’ job was to scoop up the injured and rush to hospital with fingers crossed I guess, unlike today with the highly trained crews that many times save life. Hat to them all.
Absolutely, although by '69 things were changing - but no one really thought about it until the '66 Millar Report; prior to that the most crews got was a basic first aid certificate! (although training varied by County & some had better training). Incredible how things have changed.
they definitely tried to help keep them alive but i don’t think we exactly had the technology to at that point to help them properly
Defib / stop bleeding / tri-ox compound (oxygen gas in lipid spheres, oxygenates blood)
So true. And I remember people being very resistant to the idea of non doctors being able to treat patients. Now you can't imagine a world without paramedics.
I was 3 in 1969 and it is amazing and yet kind of sad to see how we have advanced so much over the years, yet regressed so much in other areas.
Yeah, stuff like the wealth gap and climate change has gotten out of hand, it's a shame.
13 Tory scum years poverty stricken UK now Afrikaan country
me too!
Ye, I was 5. Strange watching it now, All these people are no doubt not here with us anymore.
@@DrBagPhD along with the use of Americanised language over here...
It was the Dennis FD4 and had a Jaguar englne. I suppose Bedford adopted some of the better ideas for their next generation of ambulances which dominated the scene during the 70s
Thanks for the info
thanks
The Ambulance Service I worked for, (I won’t name names), bought a few of the Bedfords from Durham Ambulance Service. The wheels kept coming loose! They were relegated to Patient Transport vehicles. As a newly qualified EMT, my partner at the time, (an ex Police Woman), said that “something doesn’t feel right “. We radioed our base and the mechanic said “are you driving one of the Bedfords”? He came out and said “you’ll get used to it, this happens a lot “. He tightened the wheel nuts and off we went.
Happy Days!
Mmm, like the Bedford Mountain with the v6 cosworth engine?
Awwww I remember the days
When ambulances used to turn up the same day
It's a longer wait for true but even when I've been at deaths door from pnumonia I cannot tell you how awesome the sound and feel of the V6 diesels in these modern sprinters has brought me back to reality and life a bit. They haul ass for sure. I got a Fiat Ducato ambulance once, I wanted to slip away 🤣🤣
It's amazing to see the evolution that has come from this to the modern day. When Ambulance drivers because paramedics. Gone the days of the old Bedfords too. We've come a long way. These men are probably no longer with us. Back then, they wouldn't have know what they were part of. They are the pride of Britain. Often forgotten.
It's amazing to see the evolution that has come from this to the modern day. ???? Like waiting 4 hours now for a ambulance !
@@dan9283 Ah the old 'wait 4 hours for an ambulance' cliche. They prioritise. Things like cardiac arrest, breathing problems & trauma are dealt with first. That means people with broken ankles and sprains have to wait. If someone has a heart attack while you are next in line with your twisted ankle, you slip down the queue. That's always been the case.
@@johntate5050 Resources have not kept up with population.
@@dan9283 How is that the fault of the ambulance?
My step dad was a LAS paramedic and when I was a boy he let me sit on his lap and "drive" the Bedford CF a few times. This was around the time when the uniform went from blue to green. Good times!
Bizarre the see all the manual lifting of the stretcher, the way they just pick up the patient and carry them to the stretcher, and then the position they place the patient in on the stretcher.
I hadn't realised just how relatively recently we had come to have an understanding of manual handling and protecting the neck and spine. I can't believe this was unknown to us only some 50 odd years ago.
Yep, all patients had to be carried, was that way up until the late 90s, no wonder we all have bad backs to some degree.
And the beauty of television programmes and broadcasts on film. Is that high definition HD of 720p, 1080 and 1080i and ultra HD scans can be produced and a high quality digitised preserved copy in the BBC Archives.
(3:56) Keep your eyes on the road, please. We've already had one accident today.
You can see why they brought in those seatbelt laws.
And yet after seeing the carnage, neither is the driver of the ambulance !
In 1983:a mere 14 years after this was broadcast!
with the 4 hour wait for an ambulance these days they come in handy
0:15 look who's never played snooker before. The cue ball is over there, mate!
The innovation and optimism is such a delight to see. Pity about the UK in 2024....
They were using pole and canvas stretchers until 1969‽ Wow.
Basically a van with a bed in the back lol. Simpler times. How they saved anybody back then was a miracle. Medical science has clearly vastly improved, whilst the NHS is in rapid decline.
1967: "When the ambulance arrives at the hospital a doctor and nurses are already waiting...". 2023: LOL!
Ideally. The great thing is that paramedics today are qualified to do so much that only the critical patients would be waited on, the paramedics can hold on for a long time.
Considering that the NHS has grown massively since this documentary came about and the hospital scape has changed significantly as well, id be supprised if the doctor and stuff could still do this anywhere in the UK. I run EMS in rural Kansas and it's still this way but every time we go to a major hospital it's hectic.
"...a road accident" *cut to two lads playing snooker* "you gonna answer that?" "yeah in a sec, let me just take this shot first..."
(0:18) Oh, the frustration.
That manual handling!
These days when you reach the hospital and you can't even get out the ambulance because A&E is full. (That's assuming you can even get an ambulance) Got a feeling your chances were better back then.
When the term ambulance first came into use, it did not refer to a vehicle. To meet the urgent needs of the wounded during war, the French about 200 years ago set up temporary movable hospitals close to the battlefields. They called such a hospital hôpital ambulant, meaning literally "walking hospital." The French adjective ambulant can be traced back to the Latin verb ambulare, meaning "to walk." In time the French dropped the word hôpital from the phrase and changed the adjective to the noun ambulance. This word was also later applied to the wagon used for transporting the wounded to the field hospital. Before long, the word ambulance came to be used for civilian temporary hospitals set up during emergencies and also for the vehicles used to take the sick and injured to the hospital. English borrowed the word from French to refer to such vehicles.
Those were the days, an ambulance is called and one turns up
"as normal the hospital staff have been altered to the arrival of the ambulance and are waiting to receive the patient". Oh how the UK has changed. Last time I went to A&E I counted 8 ambulances waiting outside with patients. Inside them. A&E was like a war zone complete with stabbing victims and people in tears as they had been left abandoned for 8 hours. I left in the end as one nurse said there would be an additional 10 hours delay. And no I'm not making this up ...
Would seem you didn't need to be there to start with. That is half the issue (people being at hospital, when they dont NEED to be).
@@focusmicro I had striped the skin off my thumb and as I have blood thinners I was bleeding profusely. Id visited a minor injury unit that day who had applied a seaweed bandage and they gave me specific instructions to go to main A&E if I was bleeding through the bandage. At midnight my wife insisted I go as I was bloody all over my hand.so all I asked for were some fresh seaweed bandages and I'd happily apply them myself and be in my way. 8 hours later they still said no despite asking politely several times and pointing out I was simply following minor injuries unit instructions. As I had a follow up appointment with minor injuries that same day (the Morin after I arrived 5 hours later) I calculated that it would be easier to go to the minor injuries unit again as already arranged (I had a follow up appointment so that they could assess the injury hoping I had stopped or slowed down my bleeding, they could not assess me with my thin blood yet to clot) as it would be quicker than the 10 hours additional estimate just announced in A&E When I went to the minor injuries unit at the pre agreed time they were shocked that A&E were in effect letting me bleed out. I explained what it was like there and I was one of the less unfortunate ones. Other people were in a worse state. When I told the nurses I was leaving I interrupted them having a tea break all set together chatting. So many thanks for you thoughts and for sharing them. But I'm afraid that as a 55yo I don't need lectures on if I should follow minor injuries unit instructions or not. When I went home I was still bleeding profusely into a towel though the seaweed bandages. More relevant is the fact that A&E is not on its knees, it's actually flat on its face in a coma. As I said. It looked and felt like a warzone and the nurses had given up. Hence them in effect hiding away having tea. A nurse told me they had in effect given up.
@@focusmicro
Immigrants
Immigrants.
@@iant9461 what?
This is just like watching one of the 'Carry On' hospital films like 'Carry On Doctor'! 😃😃(they made quite a few medical Carry Ons).
"I concur!" 😅
they missed the Indian dr in those films
‘Proper nurses uniform! 😉
Ding dong!
I love that there was a seatbelt for the driver and he didn’t use it :)
Actually they both had seatbelts on
Oh how far we have come.
Interesting how the bed and chair design were still in use 25 years later - albeit modified into York 4 bed and rumbold chair.
Scary black rubber masks for the laughing gas were still in use in ‘95 too - to be washed after each use!
I can remember washing the resus masks after a job
"This is our brand new design ambulance"
(brake squeeeeeels)
Damn, must have used O'Reilly brand brakes.
I love how there's a no smoking sign in the ambulance. I've just smashed into a tree in a 1960's car but I'll light up a tab
doctors would prescribe smoking to help anxiety patients... times have changed
Its great that BBC are still producing these information videos so i feel safe.
I wonder what advances we will have in 2024?
My dad would pick me up from school in his in the 70s/80s , he would put the blue light on to get through the traffic, I loved it
That's Leatherhead! Unsurprisingly, barely changed since I last took a 408 bus to school in 1966.
Wow, good spot! I often run down where the ambulance came from, opposite the now ESSO garage.
It’s amazing how things have moved on. It’s seems so strange now that the sickest patient would have to wait whilst the walking wounded were off loaded.
Last road section filmed was the Mickelsham bends south of Leatherhead
Rejoice! We've come a long way!
I loved tomorrows world
And nowadays they are so modern they have as much equipment as an A&E unit and don’t just rush off to the hospital
Far more emphasis on offering conversation to the patient and to keep them conscious until they arrive at hospital.
@@davidcarrol110 that’s because they are now trained as A&E paramedics and not just racing drivers with a first aid certificate
😂 so true
Love these archive films. Tomorrows World - Great programme. I remember them introducing the CD disc, they had a car drive over it. Now CD are out of date, also a small scratch would interfere with the disc playing.
If this ambulance was cutting edge. Imagine what the model before was like.
I can remember the models before. Oh dear.
@@BillyBoy1235 And me, they didn't have a siren, it was a bell!
in the us in the early days they used a hearse
When the previous model had a lot of HP they meant LITERALLY a lot of HORSES 😉😉😁😁
You,can,see,it,on,Heartbeat.
And this ambulance was equipped with 4hr waiting time avoidance system.
Facinating stuff, thanks. I wasn't born for another 6 years after this so it's fascinating to see what life was like then.
"he can be kept on the ambulance trolley: in future this might become normal practice"... *rolls eyes from the future*
Staying on the trolley may become normal practice, yeah for hours on end.
If you are in an RTC you are a priority
Good old days when paramedics were respected and well paid.
I can't get over him trying to pot a red with another red.
In the days of Black and White telly there were no reds.
Now I can see where Top Gear got their inspiration for their electric vehicle "Geoff" 😂
Back when the health service was funded appropriately. The days when you call 999 and an ambulance is with you in at most 10 minutes.
Now i can see where they got the idea from, for Postman Pat
Lmaooo this comment should be pinned
That siren always reminds me of the 80s. Didn’t think they were using it as far back as the 60s.
It was still bells in the 50s
@@markiliff that is what surprised me. Didn't think they had the technology to have sirens like that back then (but I suppose they landed on the Moon during this year.....LOL)
Germany had been using electric horn sirens since the late 40s. UK was extremely far behind technology-wise, especially with the firefighter's lack of adequate protection up til the 90s. @@swaneknoctic9555
@@xaviert.123 thanks.
@@swaneknoctic9555 ;-)
Back before spinal immobilization was ever a thought. The ambulance might've been revolutionary for it's time but the attendants could've still killed or caused more serious permanent injuries to the patients. I guess it's still better than a hearse coming to take you to the hospital.
in reality thou, how many people ended up with a secondary injury with movement by medics?
How interesting to see how the role has evolved in only 54 years! Not only that, but the advances in medical services generally.... God bless the NHS!!
2x quadriplegics there.
Those were the days when we had hospitals all over the place, now we are all over crowded into a few bigger ones.
One of the regulars on a Friday evening in my local pub is old enough to remember the county hospital system in the Republic of Ireland and he doesn’t miss it here, he is is in his early 80’s.
Reassuring squealing brakes mean they work.
Love the fact that everyone, even the paramedics, is wearing collared shirt and tie .....
Started working on the ambulance here in Ireland in 2000, and we had a collared shirt and tie. You were sent to a tailor for your uniform. Different times 🚑.
Nowadays we're just happy if the uniform is the right size and your pants don't rip when you bend (not joking). 😬
And a peaked cap that fell off every time you bent down to do something - like pick up a patient!
Still, in those days you weren’t really dressed without a hat, and certainly couldn’t have an emergency service uniform without one.
They weren't really paramedics back then.
So nobody is going to mention the paramedic not hitting the white ball? And HE is trusted to save someone's life!
And now they have the technology to operate upon the injured at the roadside.
50 years later and we're still using adapted mainstream manufacturers vehicles...I guess producing a bespoke ambulance like this would have proved far too costly..
Fire brigades too in the ROI and UK since Dennis made the last sabre in the late 2000’s
These modern adaptations are much bigger, have all the features and the large space recommended back then, and have much more equipment because rescuers are now paramedics, not just attendants. Common rail injection and other engineering leaps makes modern diesel engines very powerful, and infinitely more reliable than any Jaguar-made engine.
Back then, it was desirable because common ambulance types were converted estate cars and stuff like that, those were even more cramped than modern estate cars.
Vans had more space, but engines and handling (suspensions) were weak, and the ride quality was spine-shattering, which is bad for patients, just how it was before the Transits became dominant on the market. You were more likely to create another accident in those conditions.
@@charlesc.9012 I reckon commonality of parts with regular vehicles will have been a factor as well - it makes vehicle maintenance a lot easier if the various components can just be got from off a shelf, and there's far fewer thing that require individual vehicle specific knowledge to fix!
@@RedHillian It is definitely cheaper and more reliable to send it to a mainstream logistics chain than specialists and strange parts.
Industrial technology and economy of scale are also huge factors. It is much cheaper to order vehicles from volume production, then send it to conversion than to spend the same amount of research funding on a low volume specialist vehicle.
The economic utility and attractiveness for a Jaguar-engined commercial vehicle is suspect too, I bet it would need weekly repairs, and a 5L bottle of oil as standard cabin equipment
With the ballooning costs of automotive development, production and the advances in reliability, ride quality, performance and ergonomics, mainstream vans make perfect sense now.
In America, ambulances have large V8 engines.
Pye Cambridge dash mount radio
Yeah, the digital AM version lol
Interesting that even today, more than half a century later, auto transmission in UK ambulances is not that common.
Really? That is insane to me
5 or 10 minutes drive every hour or so must of been knackering
It’s mostly auto now, all mercs and new new fiats are autos, just a few old manual fiats knocking around
Things didn’t change much over the next 20 years after this was made. Most changes came in the 90s.
I’m still waiting for the hover boots we were promised
I miss the days the paramedics wore black leather gloves. I think the removal of black leather gloves from paramedics was the start of the decline of the NHS😂😂
Yes and all proper uniforms . Not like now. 🥴
I cant wait to see these advanced ambulances on the roads in 2024!
🙄 NHS wasting more money.
Hi this is an archive film. The ambulance would be obsolete now i would assume.
Oh dear me. @@bid84
A dead ringer for Postman Pat even down to the squeaky brakes.
The inspiration for Postman Pats van...
In the US at the time, we were using Cadillacs as ambulances.
Cool!
Yeah realy long and sleek
Nee narr nee narr nee narr.....Ah the sound of my childhood.
In our strange topsy turvy world where things seem to be moving backwards with each passing day, this standard of healthcare will soon be cutting edge again.
I bet you didn't have to wait several hours for an ambulance to arrive 55 years ago either.
When I had a heart attack 2 years ago, a first responder paramedic was with me in under 10 minutes and the main ambulance 5 minutes after that. Off to the hospital with the driver aiming for every speed bump and pothole he could find, I'm sure I almost hit the roof at one point 🤣
@@TestGearJunkie.I'm so glad your story had such a positive outcome, there is so much to thank the NHS for.
@@tasercs Absolutely 👍 Tell you what, it was absolutely freezing in the cath lab, they said it was to keep all the X-ray machines cool..!
@@TestGearJunkie.Slightly off topic but seeing your Fluke meter avatar reminds me that I acquired a Fluke 77 as part of my job in 1989. I still have it, and it still works perfectly 😮
@@tasercs It's a Fluke 179 multimeter, lovely piece of kit. Is your 77 currently calibrated..? If it's not, you should get it done, I'd be willing to bet that it's still within spec.
It's interesting to watch this now and see how the presenter suggests things like the bed, the oxygen pump running from the battery, the wheelchair, the automatic FWD etc as if they are futuristic things - even basic ambulances in the UK have all those things now and the latest ones have so much more.
It shows how much less they expected an ambulance crew to do or even be able to do as well - and they were probably better paid then, in real terms.
My dad's a paremedic and they also have a snooker table at the station.
05:42 Bit of dodgy overtaking, there! 👀
Postman Pat was a design cosultant .
Very squeaky brakes 😄
Well then again, it is a Dennis. I remember someone saying that they do tend to have squeaky brakes.
Looks like the top gear electric car 😅
what a time to be alive 😂😂
Well those two "victims" are probably quadraplegics or dead after being manhandled like that.
Potential head injuries, no cervical collar, no spine board just man handled out of the car. Guess that was the 60’s. I expect modern paramedics will cringe at this piece of history.
This ambulance looks reminds me of that Top Gear episode when they made an electric car and called it "Geoff"
50 years is a long bloody time
Neck brace hadn't been invented or the ramp. I suppose in those days it was just about getting the patient to Hospital, hopefully still a live!
I mean, at least they weren't smoking 😂
It's like something out of Trumpton 😂
Looks like Postman Pat's van.
Ambulanceman Pat XD
After proof of concept testing I’m guessing they built the full size one 😂
Looks like it was designed from 5 year child’s drawing
Can't believe they had to smash a car for that demonstration!
It was an old car at the time. Worthless
Looks like the electric car they built on top gear 😂
Post man pat also had one of these for his job too.
Damn rip the guy who went into cardiac arrest
Imagine the shock if modern paramedics saw the way those people were moved lol. I wonder how many ended up as campervans at the end of their working life.
Was that Ambulance designed by a kid with some Lego?
It looks appalling, chunky, zero styling. It was supposed to be the Swinging 60s etc. Where is the love for that Ambulance?😢
Mark from Melbourne Australia 🇦🇺
Looks like the Bracknell to Bagshot road…?
LOL at the "crash" ... jump cut to a slightly car with what appears to be a fake windscreen and popped out headlamp
The snooker bit - cueing a red ball?
Did the designer of postman pats van design this also,if i was near death at the roadside i would think it was an ice-cream van coming to my rescue 😮😂🍺
I wonder how long these new ambulances lasted?
According to the British Ambulance Preservation Society, only 3 were made, the first one was used as a normal van and was painted purple. Number 2 was used in Leicestershire but only lasted 3 weeks before a bus smashed into it, and the third is the one in the video which was in Surrey. Number 1 survives and was donated to the St. John's Ambulance.
@@robthemodYT In other words, a typical British success story.
@@simonjones7727 it was a prototype, everything shown here is now the norm and then some, it took a while but this was just a stepping stone to the Ambulances we have today
@@andreww2098 As long as there are British manufacturers making those ambulances I would not object. If the manufacturer is Mercedes then perhaps not so good.
They only made a few of these Dennis ambulances
Anyone know who the vehicle was made by and any specifications??
It's a Dennis FD4
Dennis were the coach builders I believe.
Does anyone know which company made this ambulance?I worked for Wadham Stringers coachbuilders for 20 years making Ambulances from the 70's to 90's.
I believe it was bedford
2:26 "The designers of the ambulance produced a new rubber sprung suspension for the chasis. Already they are trying to improve it." O dear, what was wrong with it????