Pink ambulance designed for women EMTs

CHICAGO — The National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians says seven of every 10 EMTs are men. But a Chicago ambulance company is now seeking to change the balance, and its first step is a powerful pink ambulance.

It is an ambulance that is not only pink on the outside but pink down to its door handles, stethoscopes and rubber gloves. "We thought about what would be appropriate for our 20th-anniversary celebration and women, you always think pink. So, we were thinking pink and that's how it got started," MedEx founder and CEO Lauren Rubinson told WMAQ.

For MedEx, the pink ambulance is about more than just color. It's a rolling mission statement. "We don't want to be the biggest, we want to be the best. So, we are looking for new innovations to create something no one else has," said Rubinson.

MedEx designed the ambulance to be easier for smaller stature or female EMTs to operate, right down to the $40,000 power stretcher. "This apparatus can lift a patient up to 750 pounds and... actually, if she wanted to, can operate this with one hand," said Michael Pieron, MedEx's director of operations.

TRENDING NOW:

Another piece of gear designed to make it easier for the EMT is called the PowerTraxx chair. It is designed to get a patient weighing up to 500 pounds up a flight of stairs. All you do is lower the tracks and turn on the motor to climb the stairs. "There is a belief out there that you have to be Superman to do this job, what we have done is put the technology in this truck to show you just because we have done things one way for 40 years, that doesn't mean there isn't a better way," said Pieron.

MedEx is also teaming up on a training program for low-income, female EMTs. "Over the last 11 years, we received about 800 applications, accepted about 50 women. We graduate about 80 percent of them. Half of them become EMTs or go on to work in the health care industry in some other capacity," said Priscilla Torrence of the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago.

The pink ambulance is not just for show. It will go into service right after the Chicago Auto Show.

NBC/WMAQ