Ambulances had extra equipment, including portable oxygen, intravenous supplies, and pressure dressings, that would have been tremendously valuable to the on-scene response. An ambulance stretcher is a piece of medical equipment used to carry a person while lying down. Specifically designed to be transported in an ambulance, it is used in conjunction with its facilities. An ambulance stretcher is deployed from an ambulance upon reaching an injured person who requires lifting and transporting to hospital.

An ambulance stretcher comprising in combination a frame having a pair of side members O each of which is composed of a pair of integrate tubular metal parts of different diameters arranged one within the other and provided alone side with a longitudinal slot of less width than the diameter of the inner tubular part, the two tubular parts being united along the edges of the slots, a cover having a pair of longitudinal hems each containing a locking rod, the hems and rods being insert-able end-wise into the inner tubular parts but being unable to pass later-all through the slots in the side members, and tubular handles removable mounted on the ends of the side members, the handles being provided with internal keys which engage the slots in the side members and serve to prevent end-wise movements of the locking rods contained in the hems of the cover.

Stretchers are used in the medical profession to carry an injured person when they are incapacitated to the extent that they cannot walk, move, or if they are unconscious. Some injuries, even if unconfirmed, require the use of an ambulance stretcher, for example, a suspected neck injury. On the ends of the side members of ambulance stretcher are removable mounted rubber or like tubular handles formed internally with longitudinal keys as for engaging the openings of the channels in the side members, the inner ends of the keys serving by contact with the outer ends of the locking rods to prevent end-wise movement of these rods relatively to the said side members.

The ambulance stretcher can support a patient on a stretcher of conventional design in such a way as to permit a loaded stretcher to be tilted in any direction thus -enabling a stretcher with a patient thereon to be carried otherwise than in the normal horizontal position and to be:passed through constricted passages or other-spaces

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