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There has been very limited research on the biomechanics of occupant safety in the ambulance environment. Occupant protection or crash testing safety standards for these unique vehicles are lacking in the United States. Recent studies have identified ambulances as high risk passenger transport vehicles. This study was conducted to identify some of the occupant safety hazards in the ambulance environment and to determine the efficacy of some countermeasures to mitigate ambulance occupant injury. Accelerator sled testing of the ambulance rear patient compartment (ambulance box or rear cabin) with Anthropomorphic Test Devices was conducted under frontal impact conditions with a target sled pulse was 26 G and 30 mph. The ambulance box was configured with instrumented and uninstrumented Anthropomorphic Test Devices positioned as in the real world environment.

The introduction of occupant position sensors into automobiles raises questions about the response of these sensors to current crash test dummies. To adequately test the performance of these sensors in a crash environment, it is crucial that crash test dummies resemble humans. Each sensor technology perceives the crash test dummy as being different from a human. These differences range considerably. The differences for four sensor technologies, capacitive, electric field, ultrasonic and pressure pattern, are described. The differences between humans and crash test dummies are discussed, along with possible modifications to the crash test dummies that improve the biofidelity of the crash test dummy. Results will be presented from testing on a mid-sized male and small female.