Last week I spent a lot of time designing a SAR unit to allow us to pick up an injured patient by boat and get them back to base in a stretcher inside the cab of the jet boat. Sounds like an easy thing but actually as with anything to do with boats it is not. We started by taking apart a stretcher (see above) which had runners on it allowing it to be used on snow. Tommy then cut it apart and rewelded it together into a back board (allowing us to immobilise a patient with a potential c-spine injury) that fits through the jet boat door and also fits into the pulk that is used for transport on scree, snow and on the RIB from the beach.

Below is Tommy with the finished product – I added 8 handles which I sewed on made of ABS plumbing pipe and climbing webbing to allow the backboard to be easily picked up.