A good project....lots of welding, not much machining though

[lbhsbz]

I've got this buddy who owns a small ambulance company, and he called me about converting a golf cart into an ambulance....like an idiot, I said....."sure, bring it down"

This is gonna be for fairs/sporting events/etc....

They didn't give me a lot to work with....just kinda told me the objective, a couple details they wanted...and told me to make it happen.

After a night of scratching my head, I came up with a design and spent saturday building the framework:



I've got almost 100' of 1" .062 wall square steel tubing in there...light, but solid. I raised the gurney deck 3" along with the passenger seat pedestal so that they can store a back board under the gurney deck.

Here it is with the decking and the upper trimwork done:



The main deck is .180"diamond plate while the rest is .062". I went this thin in non critical areas to save weight....the framework underneath will support the seats...which isn't done yet cuz they haven't got me the seats yet. The moulding is 1 1/2" .125 aluminum angle, mitered, welded, and ground flat. More pics to come in the next few days. So far, I've got about 15 hours in it.

[Video Man]

Looks like you have it sorted out nicely already, but if you need inspiration, google "golf cart"+ambulance in google images, this is a fairly common product and there are lots of ideas there. The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue has several of these, which they use at Miami Dolphins games and stuff....real life savers!

[boslab]

Nice job, love the chequer plate
mark

[RussZHC]

Looks good

The one thing I don't "see" that you may want to consider is some sort of method for "quick tie down".
I am not sure what "standard" maybe on various pieces of equipment (gurneys, backboards etc.) but slots or wide loops maybe needed at some stage...could vary on what widths of strapping are "standard"...or if hooks are used...very rounded edges etc. wherever straps may pass through...

[lbhsbz]

Thanks for the comments. I looked at a couple pictures online...and used them to come up with this idea. Most of the commercially available units have the passenger sitting way in the back by the patient's feet. They wanted to sit the passenger closer to the patient's abdomen/head...so this what we came up with.

As far as retention accomodations, they supplied me with the gurney retention hardware...I think you can see it in the last picture. It locks the gurney down solid. If a backboard is to be used, the patient will be strapped to the gurney on the backboard. I asked them about tie downs and they didn't express any need for them. Maybe I'll add some anyway just because I can. Can't hurt right?

[RussZHC]

Got it!

Guess I could have asked what those items were...

[A.K. Boomer]

....like an idiot, I said....."sure, bring it down"

Ain't that the way it always starts off! nice job though, they should be very pleased.

[gordsgarage]

Looks like a fun build, sounds like you get to make alot of decisions yourself. Nice work!

Gord

[Ken_Shea]

Nice work and with only 15 hours is pretty fast working.