Most of the time when you think of an ATV or All Terrain Vehicle you think of a bunch of kids rolling through the back hills racing and jumping and having a ton of fun but did you also know that these ATV’s and UTV’s can help save lives?
The market for ATV’s has expanded as there is a whole new target market outside of the recreationist that has emerged. More and more health and emergency incidents are occurring in remote areas that are not easily accessible by people and that is opening up the doors for ATV manufacturers to design more off road vehicles that have life saving attributes.
Across the country, there are police units, firefighters and medical teams that are using ATV’s and other off-road vehicles to help fight fires in remote areas, evacuate injured people in places that are simple inaccessible by full size vehicles and searching for fugitives who have taken the chase off-road. Whether these issues are in national parks or dense wilderness, these specially made ATV’s and UTV’s are definitely getting the job done for our emergency personnel.
Companies across the U.S. are springing into action as they all scramble to expand their wares in this new sector. Companies that once solely worked on outfitting full size vehicles with emergency equipment are now turning to smaller ATV’s, UTV’s and other OHV’s (off-road vehicles) that can be retrofitted with everything from lights and sirens to custom colors and GPS. Other companies are working on trailers and towing equipment that can be retrofitted for an ATV including water tanks and foam shooting machines for fighting fires and flat beds with specially made stretchers for careful removal of injured hikers from remote areas. The possibilities in this new market are endless and companies are continuing to expand into this area with new ideas every day.
For the local firefighters or emergency medical teams, these newly outfitted off-road vehicles are a God send. In many rural areas, these emergency teams are not only serving the normal town neighborhoods but they’re also tasked with serving the remote wooded areas that are sometimes impossible to access. Search and Rescue groups are also assisting in these areas and the newly designed ATV’s are definitely helping these teams access those in need no matter where in the back country they are.
The bottom line is that our country is so vast and there are many places on the outskirts of towns on the edge of the back country where people will go to play and work and emergency teams need to have the right equipment for the job. If a 250-300lb man needs medical attention in a deep wooded area, there is no need to send 20-personnel into the woods on foot anymore as these specially made OHV’s can now do the job. ATV’s and UTV’s are no longer just for racing and playing, they’re also saving lives everyday.
