St John - Event Patient Transport Vehicle

[FlameTrees]

Was at the Royal Show on the weekend, and walked past a new St John vehicle, a Fiat van marked up as "Event Patient Transport".

Markings were incredibly similar to SAAS markings, in fact I would hazard a guess that SAAS workshop (or whoever does their livery) did the work on this.

The FIAT was purchased from a Victorian NESP that went bust, and apparantley is the way St John are going. I dont know if that means we will start seeing these vehicles rock up at fires when St John are called in, or they will still use the poxy Dad's Army Transits for that stuff.

For those playing at home, or can muster up any care factor, it sports the fleet number of 180. Even a quick glimpse in the driver cab seems to look like a SAAS fit out.

[disOrderly]

Mader is the company that fits out SAAS and pretty much the entire country with ambulances. Its likely Mader did this too. Get a pic?

[82740444]

Mader make trucks for SA and QLD only now. ETT emergency transport technologies now make 80% of ambulance in Australia.

Sounds like SA St John is making a decent effort to reclaims its previous market share of event work it has lost to smaller private companies. The same rebirth of St. John has been occurring in NSW where St John has modernised it's service and large events are returning to them. I'm sure these modern vehicles and their NEPT licence is part of this process.

[bajdas]

Saw it a few times on Tuesday (has red/blue strip light on front roof). Will try & get photos on Thursday when at show

[AirWick]

Yeh I agree the new St. Johns vehicles look very much like SAAS vehicles in colour and style. Maybe SAAS has done this for them as some type of partnership. St. John is now licensed and permitted to transport non life threatening cases from major events to hospital. This is great news as it keeps SAAS Paramedics available for 000 calls. I was told the other private companies doing event work don't have such licenses and no matter what they do on site they still have to call 000. They said that St. John UK has been doing this for some time reducing event impact on day to day ambulance operations.

[SA Firey]

Managed to snap that very vehicle yesterday on route to RAH

[straps]

Hi All,
The Fiat (Fleet 180) was purchased earlier this year from a NEPT company that was liquidated in Victoria. originally a 2 stretcher set up, however modified to a single carry only for SA use. Additionally a number of stretchers were also purchased at this time - these have been fitted to a range of existing SA fleet.

There is no relationship between this vehicle / St John and SAAS. Those of you that are aware of St John in other states will observe that the livery is changing and research also shows that yellow and green are 'purported' as the ideal/visible colours for emergency vehicles. Livery and installation of devices etc was done by a private contractor - again not related to SAAS.

St John has had an appropriate licence as well as a signed MoU with SAAS for NEPT from St John events for several years and was using Mobile First Aid Units (MFAU) previously.

The vehicle does have emergency warning devices.

The screen in the front is a combo GPS / Reversing camera - no AVL at this time.

Cheers
Shane

*Views / comments above are my own personal and not that of my agency**

[bajdas]

Well done

[82740444]

Straps

Will you guys be changing the livery on the rest of your fleet (transits, station wagons)

The new scheme looks very good.