VIDEO: East Midlands Ambulance Service reveal how vehicles prepared

A member of staff at the East Midlands Ambulance Service depot in Alfreton has revealed how she prepares each vehicle for duty in an online video.
Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team at the East Midlands Ambulance Service Alfreton workshop.Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team at the East Midlands Ambulance Service Alfreton workshop.
Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team at the East Midlands Ambulance Service Alfreton workshop.

Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team, works behind the scenes making sure each and every EMAS vehicle is kitted out ready for crews to save lives.

By her own reckoning, Carol has spent almost 5,000 hours cleaning and stocking some 370 ambulances and 241 rapid response and patient transport vehicles which have rolled out of Alfreton since 2009.

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She said: “The ambulances are my babies so it’s a shame to see them go and leave the nest - but I get 100 per cent job satisfaction.”

Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team at the East Midlands Ambulance Service Alfreton workshop.Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team at the East Midlands Ambulance Service Alfreton workshop.
Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team at the East Midlands Ambulance Service Alfreton workshop.

To mark the roll out of 68 new ambulances across the East Midlands, and demonstrate how much work goes into preparing an ambulance ready for the road, Carol was filmed carrying out her role.

She usuallly spends around ten hours on each vehicle, but that has been condensed into seven minutes of time-lapse footage.

Each of the new Fiat Ducatos ambulances costs around £125,000 to build and kit out.

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During the process,Carol must ensure every piece of equipment on the ambulance is in the right place, is in date and ready for action.

Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team at the East Midlands Ambulance Service Alfreton workshop.Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team at the East Midlands Ambulance Service Alfreton workshop.
Carol Robinson, a member of the ambulance support team at the East Midlands Ambulance Service Alfreton workshop.

That includes the defibrilator, suction kit , maternity kit, still water, absorbant powder, thermometer, glucose test kits, an oxygen cylinder and masks and airway devices.

Crews also need essential items for administering drugs, treating burns, immobilising limbs, lifting patients, cleaning and covering wounds, vomit and urine bowls, and even a razor to shave off chest hair before a defibrillator is applied.

A spokesman for the service said: “Without Carol, our EMAS ambulances would not be able to go out onto the road to save lives.”