How are ambulances stored overnight in your area?

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James Broderick

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Hi Guys, I've been applying to different companies in NJ lately and noticed some places stored their vehicles in garages and some left them outdoors. This has me wondering how the vehicles outdoors are kept warm during winters with freezing temperatures? Do they unload supplies and Oxygen tanks at the end of each shift and reload them in the mornings? Or is it ok to leave them in overnight with no issues? Been wondering lately - any info would be appreciated. Thanks.
 
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Why would an ambulance have co2 tanks? And some places put heaters into ambulances that are left outside. Or shorline power helps run the temp control units and maintain a constant temp inside
 
Our ambulances are in a garage or plugged in with heaters running. It can get quite cold up here in the winter. like less than -45 to -50. Gotta love northern Canadian winters.
 
If an ambulance is to be left outside overnight, anything that can freeze gets pulled. In service rigs are kept inside a heated bay, except for the Alternative Care Transport vehicle (Ford Expedition) that has a space heater in the trunk to hopefully keep the bags somewhat warm.

I worked briefly for a private company that left its ambulances outside overnight, each morning you were issued your bag, monitor, radio, and a pillowcase filled with liquid things. It was er um, special...
 
Ours are only stored outdoors. It never gets below 40 degrees in my area. The only medication that is stored in the ambulance is O2. All the other medications are taken out at the end of our shift.
 
The only thing you would need to worry about is the regulator on the tank freezing in a closed position. As long as you prevent that happening, which wouldn't require it to be inside, you wouldn't have an issue with the O2 itself.

But who am I to speak about cold weather. I wear shorts and a smile year-round.
 
All 4 of our 24 hour shifts and one of our 2 12 hour day car shifts are parked inside a garage when not on calls or running an errand. Our 6th ambulance, the station it's at during shift is too small so it has to park outside in the driveway, otherwise at night at the end of its shift it goes back to the headquarters station where it has it's own garage (go figure) along with the bariatric reserve....Our Eola reserve and other regular reserves however have to park outside but every effort is made to keep a shoreline plugged in...however this is LA and therefore rarely drops below 50°F and we're all freezing half to death lol ;P
 
Freezing temperatures? What's those?

When I worked in So Cal, most of the ambulances were stored inside the base, but there wasn't enough room so the reserve and some of the front line ambulances were stored outside. Additionally all of the 24 hour units were stored outside because... well... hotels and motels don't have garages (24 hour crew stations being a hotel or motel room is common practice in So. Cal).
 
Outsid .
 
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