Windmill and Swiss Army Tool save the day and

possibly a life or two...

As most of you know up here in New York it has been pretty damn cold. Well it's not that cold but many people are totally unprepared (fashion vs warmth) and cought by the suprise. My ambulance which has to be in service 24/7 is being rotated in 8 hour shifts. Needless to say winter weather, slush, salt and sand make white vehicle pretty dirty fast. We have a bus depot wash next to our base that we can utilize for washing. Yeah it's great but I told my drivers not to go there when temperatures are below freezing. I would rather have dirty bus than bus with frozen locks, cracked paint and stuck doors. Well somebody didn't listen and started putting the ambulance thru routine bus wash. I get to work on Friday night, pull out the bus, make a check out sheet and can't open any doors. Everything is stuck. Besides locks being frozen, water got between doors and the frame, expanded and sealed the outside compartments. My radio is going off, Im still at the base on mechanical delay. I got out my windmill and worked on the locks which took me about 15 min to work open. But the frame doors are next to imposible. I started heating up blade on my tool and putting it in between frame. After 30 min I got most of the stuff open. It basically took me about an hour to have eveything back to normal. Minute we get out of the base we have a call to car accident (MVA) and my outside compartments are the one we had to use. Thank God I decided to double check after my driver otherwise I would be sitting at the scene with a thumb up my nose. But that also forced me to add (at least during winter time) a small blow torch (size of the marker) to my bag.

Matt

ps.
I had lock deicers but they wouldn't work. Locks are too deep and most of it soak right thru it.

Matt:

You are not the first person that this has happened to. Prior to getting a heated garage, the VP of the last EMS company I worked for decided that he had to have a shiny ride in the middle of the winter. As with your crew we had access to an indoor wash facility. So the boss washed his rig and went out to a staging point in the city. About an hour later the doors (not the locks) were frozen shut. He and his partner had to kick the doors open to get out. Luckily they were only at Dunkin Donuts and not on a call.

Chris

You could just hit the lights and sirens and drive fast to air dry <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
It was above 10 degrees yesterday so we took both vehicles to a working car wash and got a lot of the salt and crap off the underside. Parked both in the sun and towel dried most of the door and window openings to keep them from freezing up. Didn't even bother to use any soap on the body, just wanted to spray the salt off, my truck is already showing some surface rust in spots underneath.