NHTSA Releases Best Practices for Safe Transport of Children in Ground Ambulances

[News]

The guidelines could serve as a tool for standardizing national child restraint protocols.

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[Just Plain Ruff]

46 pages on how to transport a child in an ambulance.

Leave it to the government to do in 46 pages what we as providers have learned to do in less than one page.

Seriously. You secure the child as best you can given the equipment that you are provided.

I know that we can do better with better equipment but our services just won't provide better equipment to provide better restraining systems for children, toddlers and infants as well as adults.

But the report cited only 2 children fatally injured in ambulance accidents and those children were killed in other vehicles rather than the ambulances. I didn't see a number for children injured inside the ambulances though.

So is there a problem with us transporting children safely? According to the government YES but according to the 46 page report, not really.

And on page 10 there is an entire discussion on the "non-technical" definition of a child. Really

So I say keep doing what we as providers are doing well, transporting millions of people yearly, both safely and quickly, and leave the government to wasting money on 46 page papers on how to transport children and others.

46 pages. Wow. I wonder how many years this study and group spent on this topic.