Diesel Ambulance Shuts Down Due to EPA Regs While Victim Dies

   / Diesel Ambulance Shuts Down Due to EPA Regs While Victim Dies #2  
How long is the warning on the emission system active before it goes into shutdown? In other words, is the failure not in the emission system itself, but in the maintenance procedures? The article said that the vehicle went from warning to shutdown "unexpectedly," but that may be a failure of the operator's expectations, not the vehicle itself. If an ambulance's fuel light was on and the operator didn't refill the tank and ran it out of gas, we wouldn't blame the vehicle, is all I'm saying.
 
   / Diesel Ambulance Shuts Down Due to EPA Regs While Victim Dies
  • Thread Starter
#3  
I guess the verdict isn't in yet. It would be nice to know what kind of ambulance it was. Looks like a 5 year old Ford in the article.
 
   / Diesel Ambulance Shuts Down Due to EPA Regs While Victim Dies #4  
Well what we don't ever seem to have from "news reporting" is details. Either because no-one truly knows what happened, or because they don't have the brains and determination to dig for the facts. We don't know if the ambulance went into "regen mode" or ran out of Diesel Exhaust Fluid after the warning lights were ignored, or for all we know the diesel fuel tank was empty.. We just don't know what happened, and probably never will. But I can tell you this, I bet the proverbial fertilizer hits the ventilator over this incident.

James K0UA
 
   / Diesel Ambulance Shuts Down Due to EPA Regs While Victim Dies #5  
"When Ambulance 19 broke down, it was transporting 34-year-old Nathaniel McRae, who had just been in a shootout with D.C. police."

I'm having trouble finding any sympathy at all. Hopefully no cops got hurt.
 
   / Diesel Ambulance Shuts Down Due to EPA Regs While Victim Dies #6  
The other thing that I find myself thinking is, if the "few minutes" it took the new ambulance to get there made the difference between life and death, the guy's odds weren't very good to begin with. An ambulance is specifically equipped to stabilize victims for transport. If they couldn't keep the guy alive, he was probably pretty much a goner.
 
   / Diesel Ambulance Shuts Down Due to EPA Regs While Victim Dies #7  
Yeah- lots of facts are missing in the story. There was definitely a malfunction of some sort. I am more of a GM guy than a Ford guy (if this is even a Ford), but I can't believe that Ford would manufacture/sell a vehicle that would likely stop unexpectedly in the middle of a drive. If this regeneration was required within a certain 5-600 miles- it seems like the engineers could have designed it to happen before the driver could refuel (the fuel door wouldn't open until the regeneration took place).
 
   / Diesel Ambulance Shuts Down Due to EPA Regs While Victim Dies #9  
Let me tell you, there is no sympathy for the DC Fire Department Ambulance management. In fact some question the leadership of the entire department.

They have a lot to answer for, and this deflection against some EPA regulation is on the bottom of the list.
 
   / Diesel Ambulance Shuts Down Due to EPA Regs While Victim Dies #10  
What if the other 2 warning lamps are defective (burned out or loose connections) and the actual warning was given by unseen due to the defective lamps.. That might explain it.. oOOOR.. someone ignored the lamps.. (don't know I wasn't there) but one would have to take that under consideration. OR.. the driver circuitry that turns on the lamps is defective or intermittent... It went into regen mode.. should not have such a system on a critical vehicle like an ambulance. It it was my fat -A in the back of the ambulance having a heart attack (likely scenario:)) I would be um.. angry if the driver said.. whoops we are going into regen for 10 minutes.. please sit quietly while we idle at the side of the road... NOT good.

James K0UA
 
 
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