Ferno Pediatric Stretcher?

Nicholas Studer

PCS Elected Director 2022-2025
Rather odd, but that's what the seller billed it as. Anyone with more educated guesses on what it is? Looks pretty much like a smaller version of a Ferno Model 12. Never seen anything like it. Has markings from a fire department in Illinois - I ended up with two plus a Ferno Model 11 in black as well. No Ferno tag that I can find to date it.

FernoPedi.jpg
 
Cool. I imagined that if allowed to be in half it could act as a stair chair. We had something similar that was basically a mat you put under the patient and carried them by four handles.

However, it "locks out" in the configuration you see as straight, and the "patient side" of the material can only be used in the straight position. Same as the Model 12. Seems kinda odd to me.

(I photographed it "upside down" so one could see the old-school lacing as well as the USAR team stencil.)
 
Scott is right, it's a "pullman". Not for pediatrics.

To use it, you put the patient's tush and legs on the cot, with the patient sitting upright. The EMT at the "rear" end held the cot near where the patient's tush was, and the other EMT carried the foot end. The patient's head and shoulders rested...against the chest of the head-end EMT. Not too comfortable for patient or EMT, particularly since the head-end EMT was carrying about 98% of the weight of the patient.

When I worked in private ambulance in Washington, DC in the 80's, there were two competing ambulance service. The "other company", all their rigs had pullmans. The company I worked for, we had no pullmans (though one rig of our 14 did have one, stolen from the other guys). Though the competition was fierce, on a very few occasions, we'd have to have a crew from the other company come and bring their pullman if there was no other practical way to get a patient into/out of a very tight DC rowhouse.

My question, though, is this. Does anyone know why it was called a "pullman"? Does it have to do with Pullman railroad sleeper cars?
 
Close but no cigar

Believe Steve you are sooo close,were not Pullman the porters used on the train that helped you on and then into the sleeper cars,thus the pullman stretcher helped get a patient out,does my guess win the cigar????
 
I'm not playing trivia, I'm asking because I really don't know why it was called that.

Wayne, your answer sounds right to me, there were Pullman porters who catered to passengers - except for one thing. How often would there be need to move someone to/from a Pullman railroad car on a stretcher? It doesn't seem like it would be a common enough situation to require a completely new product. But I don't know.
 
Sorry for the trivia inference,wonder if because it was a assist piece of equipment it got the Pullman title,so much of our stuff had nicknames or shortened titles such as the KED,many did not know it was actually called the Kendrick Extrication Device. we used to also have a canvas cot 2 poles covered with canvass that split via a leather strap,we called it the rip cot,
 
Cool info - that seems a very uncomfortable carry Steve! If the pt is just sitting at the "head" end with legs straight forward indeed most weight is on the guy at the back. The way Scott describes how they used it also sounds like less than fun.

Glad we had stair chairs at my service. Too bad we usually seemed to be going up rather than down though...
 
Back in the day, we had the Pullman, short and long Ferno folding aluminum spine boards, folding flats, and the cot. So faced with a tight area, you improvised. Most times it involved strength and occasionally a back strain. Stair chairs came later. Usually just you and your partner, the concept of a fire truck full of first responders also came later.
 
Back in the day, we had the Pullman, short and long Ferno folding aluminum spine boards, folding flats, and the cot. So faced with a tight area, you improvised. Most times it involved strength and occasionally a back strain. Stair chairs came later. Usually just you and your partner, the concept of a fire truck full of first responders also came later.

Some places still demand the two-man lift. My private service time never got the truckload of Firemen to help carry. I'll never forget carrying this 275 pound guy up 5 stories on a Ferno 107 combination chair/cot with just me and my 110 pound partner. Lord knows how my back is still OK...
 
I'm not playing trivia, I'm asking because I really don't know why it was called that.

Wayne, your answer sounds right to me, there were Pullman porters who catered to passengers - except for one thing. How often would there be need to move someone to/from a Pullman railroad car on a stretcher? It doesn't seem like it would be a common enough situation to require a completely new product. But I don't know.

Steve - you are indeed correct, it was for Pullman cars. Bomgardner's version (named the "Midget") specifically notes this purpose in their 1964 catalog. In F-W's 1963 catalog, it omits that but the device is called a "Pullman Stretcher."
 

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Pullman cars

Actually, the sleeper cars on overnight trains were operated by the Pullman Co., and used on the various railroads.........and ALL the porters were called "George", the first name of Mr. Pullman.
 
You read the add it states that folder in to the chair is handy for getting PT into a Pullman car doesn't say a thing about getting them out.
 
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