Do emergency vehicles like ambulances and fire engines have especially powerful engines to get them to and from emergencies at higher speeds?SOS
Probably not. While they must make their journeys with extreme urgency, and perhaps at a higher speed than the general traffic, they very rarely could, should or would need extra power. The “standard” vans and light and heavy trucks they use (even the ones in Kenya) already have plenty of power to go fast enough.
Their speed advantage lies not in engines or gear ratios, but in purpose and urgency. It is in their lights and sirens (which ordinary vehicles are forbidden to have or use) to help get all other traffic “out of the way”, so they are not held up by crawling queues on urban streets and busy highways.
In those conditions, even speeds between 60 and 80 kph would be very fast. Even half those speeds would enable “prompt” response to an emergency.
If the other traffic (in both directions) does not get out of the way, immediately and sufficiently, that is another matter. The boneheads who ignore them and/or continue to obstruct their passage should know this: by delaying rescue, they could be responsible for the death of someone who might have survived.
What’s more crass than clever is tailing rescue vehicles to exploit the path they clear. There's an emergency - what's needed is calm cooperation from everyone, not reckless opportunism. Put simply: keep a cool head, not a smart-arse attitude.
And here’s another thought. An ambulance driving away from a hospital towards an emergency is in more of a hurry than an ambulance bringing a rescued victim to a hospital.
Because until an ambulance reaches a victim, the critically injured or ill patient has little or no help even at a First Aid level and could die.
When the ambulance arrives, it brings Second Aid - paramedics, equipment and medicine with a much higher level of ability, especially related to two absolute priorities: to restore and maintain the patient’s breathing, and to keep the heart beating (CPR).
Victims doing those two things aren’t dead. If the ambulance’s arrival is delayed, it might be too late. Getting there as quickly as possible is imperative.
On the return journey to hospital, the victim is in the close care of Second Aid expertise and resources for whatever time it takes to reach the Emergency Room (Third Aid) and perhaps the ICU.
The sooner the victim gets there, the better, but while the time taken might be important, it is usually “less” life-and-death critical per minute, and the emergency vehicle can lower its risk benchmark.
