German Fire Apparatus (a brief extract)

Thanks Christoph_51.  What is a "rollglis-system"; I don't think I've seen the term before.
 
The rollgliss is a system for confined space rescue to rope a person down and up.
It looks like this: http://ffw.rotthalmuenster.de/index.php?id=460

I'm sure you knew that thing before but not under this name. ;)
 
FDNY Rescue's have the Rollgliss system since the '80s.....very effective.
 
Thanks Christoph_51, great pictures and information. Two questions, do any of the ladders have pumps on them or just the piping and need an engine to supply water? Also, what's that black piece of pipe on the outside of the ladder in the second picture?
 
Concerning the pumps: All Ladders in Germany are standardized.We call this "DIN-NORM". If you order a ladder-truck within this specifications you get a subvention from the state. If a department adds something they or the city  have to pay for it by themselves. This DIN-Norm doesn't include a pump nor a water-tank which is the reason why 90% percent of the ladder-trucks in Germany need an Engine-Company for supply-purpose.

Concerning the black pipe piece: It's a connection between the hose coming from the engine-company and the ladder pipe.
It gets moved to the top of the ladder.
Its rear end gets connected with the hose coming from the engine-company and its front end gets connected to the ladder pipe which gets installed in the basket.

The numbers in this picture show where everything gets connected. (1 gets connected to 1 , 2 gets connected to 2 etc.)


And then it should look like this:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/af/Wenderohr.jpg/450px-Wenderohr.jpg

I also have photos of an example for one of the few Ladders that don't fit the DIN-Norm and have a pump.
The Reutlingen Career-Fire-Department operates a 3-axle , 140ft Rearmount Tower-Ladder with a 1000 gal/min water-/foam-pump.


 
So, after a "long time" I've found some more photos in my archive to go on with my little excursion into the world of German rescue-vehicles.


This is the MERV of the Stuttgart Career-Fire-Department.
It's based on a Mercedes Citaro-Chasis and equipped to carry up to 15 patients. (5 patients can be transported on the ALS-Ambulance-Level and 10 on the BLS-Level)
But in most cases it doesn't transport and instead functions as a treatment-place on the scene until the victims get moved away by regular ambulances.

Furthermore it is capable of carrying a special-stretcher (for very overweight people) and a Bed from a Hospital, in case that a severely injured person needs to be moved to another (specialized) hospital without leaving his bed for medical reasons.

Then there are 2 support-roll-off-containers for the bus.
Together theses two containers can provide on-scene-treatment to 10 people on the ALS and 40 people on the BLS-Level.




This whole unit (MERV+The two Containers) is the only of its kind in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg (was partly financed by federal-money) and has been designated to respond to every severe mass-casualty-incident in the whole state but it actually responds only around the town of Stuttgart most of the time due to the long time it needs to reach other regions which makes its use there very ineffective.
 
So guys, it's been a while since my last posting here. But now that the weather was good I've found some time to take new pictures.

This time they're not showing Fire Apparatus but EMS-Helicopters.

First to make it even more interesting let's make a short digression into the world of the German EMS-Helicopter-System.

In Germany we have about 70 civilian EMS-Helicopter-Bases + 5 Search and Rescue Bases (Army/Navy) + 3 Private Search and Rescue Bases run by the operators of our offshore wind-power-plants.
In addition to that our State Police has 13 Bases and our Federal Police a total of 5 from which they can assist if needed.

Although most of the operators are civilian operators they can't just place their helicopters where they want to make the best profit.
Since they are part of our health insurance system from which they get nearly of of their money (the rest gets filled with donations) they have to negotiate with the government and the health insurance companies which both aim to spread the helicopters as far as possible all over the country to provide the same service to every citizen whether he lives in a suburban or a rural area.
The only exceptions are the helicopters of the Power-Plant-Operators and those of some "semi-legal" private operators since they get their money from other sources.
The Army/Navy and the police are getting financed directly by the government/the state and therefore are also not affected.

This procedure combined with a rather small country has led to one of the densest EMS-Helicopter-Networks on earth.
95% of Germany can be reached by a rescue-helicopter in a maximum of 15 minutes!

Our 4 Main Operators are :  (English translation in brackets)

-"Deutsche Rettungsflugwacht" (German Air Rescue Organization)
-"Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club" (German Automobile Association)
-"Bundesministerium des Inneren" (Department of the Interior in Cooperation with the Bundespolizei (Federal Police)  )
-"Johanniter Unfallhilfe" (Johanniter Disater Aid)

Search and Rescue operations (ICAO) are taken care of by the "Heer" and the "Marineflieger" (German Army (Onshore) and Navy (Offshore) )

The following Helicopters are in use:

Civilian:
Eurocopter EC 135 P2/T2
Eurocopter EC 145 T1/T2
Eurocopter BK 117 B2/C1
Eurocopter AS 365 N2 /N3 "Dauphin"
Bell 412

The Army and Navy are using the good old Bell UH 1 D "Huey" and the Sikorsky MK 41 "Seaking".

80% of the civilian Helicopters are designated to be dispatched directly to the scene of a medical emergency /accident (MVA,Heart Attack,Stroke etc.)
The other 20% are so called "Intensive-Care-Helicopters" which are use for transports from one hospital to another. (From a little rural hospital to a Trauma-Center or University Hospital)

The Army/Navy only gets dispatched if the accident involves any aircrafts or if no civilian Helicopter is available at this time.

All Civilian Helicopters are equipped like an ALS-Ambulance manned by a Pilot (2 at night), a "Rettungsassistent" (Paramedic) and an Emergency-Doctor, whereas the Army/Navy-Helicopters only have the pilot and the Paramedic so they need to fly to the nearest hospital first to pick up a doctor if needed.

21 civilian Helicopters are also available at night.The rest flies only at daytime.
The 5  Army/Navy Helicopters are on duty all around clock.

Only 4 Civilian Helicopters are equipped with a winch (Mostly for the Bavarian Alps) while ALL 5 Army/Navy Helicopters have one.

The Police Helicopters are only used for EMS-Purpose in the case of a MAJOR Emergency (Train Derailment with over 100 casualties and so on) because they have only little emergency equipment on board and have to be equipped first. (The advance is: Most of them can fly at night - some have a winch)

The private Offshore Helicopters are equipped like an ALS-Ambulance and can also flyat night/have a winch but they are mainly used to rescue the emploeyees of the Offshore-Power-Plant and are rarely uses for civilians.

All Civilian Rescue-Helicopters have the Callsign "Christoph"+ A random number or in case of the Intensive-Care-Helicopters the State or City they're stationed at.
For example a callsign could be "Christoph 51" (My nickname by the way  ;D ) or "Christoph Berlin".
The Search and Rescue Helicopter (Army/Navy) have the callsign SAR (For Search and Rescue) + a random number.
For example "SAR 87"
The police has different callsigns in every state of Germany. Mostly names of birds+ a random number.
For example "Eagle 33"
The private ones (Power-Plant-Rescue) call their Helicopters whatever they want.^^

I hope that I could give you a good look at a very complexe topic.
Because of the complexity I couldn't write down anything I know but if you have questions: ASK!^^

Now we finally move on to the pictures:
(All pictures were taken either at the Helipad of Tuebingen Trauma-Center or Tuebingen University-Hospital)








 
IRISH said:
Bulldog said:
Those were some great pictures!  It's kind of interesting that the fire service has cranes as part of their equipment, is this normal in Europe or just a special case for the department you had pictures of?  Since they require considerable training to be proficient with I really wonder how beneficial they really are vs. calling on a contractor with highly skilled operators?

I've visited Germany as well as several other European countries multiple times and have always been fascinated by the major differences between fire equipment in Germany and the US.  Other than the major obvious difference that in general equipment in Europe is smaller which necessitated by the narrower streets in the old cities there are also several other differences that I've never really heard a valid answer for.  The biggest of these is the fact that the pump capacity of trucks in Europe is considerably less than what US trucks have.  I'm sure part of this is due to the fact that the majority of their buildings are not woodframe structures so they don't require as much water for firefighting.  However they have a lot of industrial situations where it seems like the larger water flows would be just as valuable as they are in the US.  They also are much more dependent on smaller diameter hoses that are stored on reels, also probably mainly because of the much reduced water flows.

Overall I'm sure everybody has the trucks that are best suited for what they are doing but the differences are very major in most cases.
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Ireland & UK do not have cranes. There is a move towards the "Hiab" on there Rescue Vehicles. Im not sure of the weight they are allowed lift i think its more towards the lower end of the scale. In Ireland if anything big needs lifting its contractors who are called in.
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Thirty years ago, my volunteer company in northern Delaware had a Mack CF 75-ft Aerialscope.  With a couple of custom modifications.  We didn't trust that little portable hydraulic pump (looked like a Hurst tool power unit) which Baker supplied as an emergency power source for the Aerialscope boom, so we designed a PTO hydraulic pump arrangement for the pumper we ran as the truck company - it had a lot more flow and could run the boom at more-or-less normal speed.

The other customization was the addition of a good-sized hook on the first fly of the boom.  It came in handy for confined space rescue.
 
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