EP0136303A1 - A frame structure for carrying stretchers - Google Patents

Abstract

The structure is intended to equip spaces for passengers in vehicles. The structure comprises a system of arches (5-10) interconnected by means of lateral tubes (34, 35) and upper tubes (36, 37). The structure thus formed is fixed inside the vehicle against support elements (2, 3) using a support (38) for the extendable elements (46), these supports being one of the characteristics of the present invention. They are movable along the tube (34 to 37) so that the expandable elements (46) can be fixed against the support elements (2, 3) regardless of the location of the latter relative to the arches.

Description

A FRAME STRUCTURE FOR CARRYING STRETCHERS

The present invention refers to a frame structure for carrying stretchers, which structure is intended for equipping the passenger space in coaches, airplanes, ships and railroad cars so that the said space and thereby also the veh ic le s in ques tion w i l l be adapted f or the transportation of injured who are lying on stretchers. Spaces of the abovementioned kind are characterized by at least a narrow aisle with an overhead height which permits a person to walk upright and chairs are placed at either side of the ais le or ais les and above which the overhead height may be reduced, for example owing to existing service channels for ventilation, illumination etc., baggage racks and so on.

The Swedish patent no 156 756 describes a frame structure of the kind referred to above. This prior art structure is formed of arches which at the top are joined to each other by a threaded screw and at the bottom are fastened with screws to supporting parts of the floor of the passenger space. The stretchers are placed on telescope arms which are rotatably fastened to the arches. A longitudinal supporting beam is disposed on the arches and is intended to support the roof of the body of the vehicle at the places of the removed supporting uprights. Besides the fact that this prior structure is complicated and timeconsuming to erect and install, it has in practice been found useless for its purpose. The fastening of the structure of the vehicle body is inadequate when it is loaded by stretchers with injured. The arches carrying the telescope arms are deformed when loaded with the stretchers with injured. The loaded structure is so unstable that the maximum speed of the vehicle at the transportation of injured amounts to not over about 25 to 30 km/h. The Swedish Design Application No. 82-0801 shows a structure for equipping trucks so that these will be adapted for the transportation of injured. The structure described is suitable only to be mounted in spaces which are in the form of a square box where at least the corners of the load space consist of surface elements of sheet metal or wood which may be loaded to an appreciable extent without being damaged. Expansible elements which are attached at the corners of the structure are expanded so that they will come into contact with the said corners and supporting parts of the vehicle, respectively, to stabilize the structure which in other respects is selfsupporting. A disadvantage of this prior structure is that it can only be erected in spaces which are in the form of a box. Another disadvantage of this prior structure is that for its stabilization it requires that the corners of the passenger space in the vehicle can withstand a considerable load. In modern coach constructions this is not always the case, for which reason the prior structure cannot be used in such coaches.

When designing a frame structure for carrying stretchers one has up to now underestimated the possibility of anchoring the structure to walls and to the roof of the passenger space of the vehicle. The invention emanates from the circumstance that in such walls and roofs there are nevertheless always supporting structural elements which will withstand a considerable load - even though these structural elements may either be consealed by a sealing or be provided between the vertical edges of two tightly adjecent windows.

The present invention aims at providing a frame structure which avoids the above disadvantages and which may easily be erected and installed, which is firmly fastenen to supporting structural elements of the body of the vehicle, also when the frame structure is loaded by injured on stretchers. The points of fastening the structure to the supporting structural elements will be situated at the walls, roof and floor of the passenger space. The vehicle has to allow driving at a high speed without inconvenience to the injured and, not least, the vehicle has to allow braking without the frame structure yielding, which however occurs in the case of the prior structure.

This is achieved with a frame structure which has the elements defined in the characterizing part of the attached claim 1. By the feature that the movable holders have expansible elements which may be placed opposite supporting structural elements of the chassis, the fastening of he frame structure may be readjusted after the structure has been loaded with stretchers with injured, so that the holders will all the time press the loaded structure securely between roof, floor and walls of the passenger space.

The characteristics of the invention are seen from the attached patent claims.

The invention will be described in more detail below in connection with the attached drawings, in which

Fig. 1 shows the frame structure according to the invention in a perspecitive view,

Fig. 2 shows a cross-connection in a plan view,

Fig. 3a and 3b show an upright in a plan view and a lateral view, respectively,

Fig. 4 shows a holder for an expansible element in a lateral view,

Fig. 5 shows a modified plate of the expansible element shown in Fig. 4, and

fig. 6 shows an extra leg for the frame structure in a plan view from the side.

Fig. 1 shows a frame structure according to the present invention. The structure is mounted inside a coach in which the passenger chairs have been removed. The windows of the coach are indicated with the dashed lines 1. Between the vertical side edges of the windows the coach has vertical uprights 2 which can be loaded to an appreciable extent and which are indicated only by the dashed lines in Fig. 1. Furthermore, in the roof of the coach there are a number of supporting beams which are indicated by the reference numeral 3 and which are shown in dashed lines. The reference numeral 4 designates a service duct which extends along the roof of the coach above the windows 1. The service duct contains ventilation conduits, electric lighting etc. Possibly, the service duct may also include baggage spaces. For reasons of clearness only one service duct is shown in Fig. 1 but it is to be understood that a corresponding service duct is provided at the opposite side of the passenger space although this is not shown. The uprights 2 and the beams 3 are normally covered with surface elements of plastic, or plastic cloth, but are easy to find by knocking at or squeezing the said surface elements. The mechanic who is going to fit up the structure according to the invention accordingly need not have the construction drawings of the vehicle at hand to find the uprights 2 and the beams 3, respectively. As is mentioned in the introduction to the specification one has earlier overlooked the possibility of utilizing these uprights 2 and beams 3 for fastening frame structures.

The frame structure according to the invention includes pairs of uprights 5, 6, 7, 8 of which the uprights 5, 6 form one pair and the uprights 7, 8 form another pair. The uprights of one pair are connected with each other at the top by means of a cross-connection 9 and 10, respectively. The uprights 5, 6 and the cross-connection 9 form an arch, while the urights 7, 8 and the cross-connection 10 form another arch. In the drawing two arches are shown but it is understood that more arches may be provided depending on the length of the passenger space. Two adjacent arches are positioned with a mutual spacing which corresponds to the spacing between the front handles 11 and the rear handles 12 of a stretcher 13. The stretcher 13 and its handles are shown in dot and dash lines.

The handles 11, 12 at one longitudinal side of the stretcher are each fastened in a clamp 14, 15 which is movable along the respective upright 6, 8. The clamp is described in greater detail in the Swedish patent specification no. 8201569-3 and, therefore, is not described in greater detail. By expression "movable" as used in the present patent specification is meant that an object, in this case the clamp, is capable of being fastened detachably, i.e. the object can be unfastened, its position can be altered, and thereupon the object can be fixed in its new position. The stretcher handles 11, 12 at the opposite longitudinal side of the stretcher are hung up in loops 16 and 17, respectively, which are each sewn on to a band 18, 19. Each band is made from a strong textile material about 5 cm broad. The appearance of the band is seen from the Swedish design registration document No. 82-0801. Each band is anchored at the top to the cross-connection 9 and 10, respectively. For reasons of clearness only one stretcher 13 is shown in Fig. 1, but it is understood that several stretchers may be mounted above each other and that each stretcher is then hung up in the same way as the stretcher 13 in Fig. 1. Accordingly, the bands 18, 19 have a plurality of loops arranged at regular intervals above each other and each upright 6 , 8 has a number of clamps 14 and 15, respectively, corresponding to the number of stretchers, provided thereon.

Likewise for reasons of clearness only one stretcher 13 is shown in Fig. 1 s ituated in the right-hand part of the fram e structure, but i t i s understood that as many stretchers may be anchored in the right-hand part of the frame structure (as seen in the direction of travel of the vehicle if the vehicle is considered to move to the right in Fig. 1 ) as many strecthers can be hung up in the lefthand part of the frame structure. The characteristic feature of the present invention consists in movable first connectors 20 , 21 , 22 and 23 , respectively, provided on the uprights 5 to 8 and second connectors 24, 25 , 26 and 27 , respectively, provided on the cross-connections . The second connectors 24 to 27 are preferably movable but, in an alternative embodiment of the invention, they can be firmly anchored to the cros s-connections without too highly restricting the possibility of adapting the frame s tru ctur e to any occur ing geom etr i ca l shape o f the prevailing passenger space. The first connectors 20 to 23 ar e pre f e rab ly subs tantia l ly s i mi lar to the s econd connectors 24 to 27 , and Figs . 3 a and 3b show the more detailed appareance of these connectors . In Figs . 3a, b such a connector 20 is shown to include a first sleeve 28 the cross-section of which corresponds to the crosssection of an upright or a cross-connection, respectively. Two threaded eye bolts 29, 30 are threaded into the s leeve 28 and form the means by which the connector may be detachably fastened in a described position along the upright or cross-connection, respectively, considered. At the top of the sleeve 28 and at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the sleeve 28 there is a transverse sleeve 31 which is welded to the sleeve 28. Two threaded eye screws 32, 33 extend through the wall of the sleeve 29 and permit detachable fastening of tubes required through the sleeve 31. These tubes the cross-sectional shape of which corresponds to the cross-sectional shape of the sleeve 31 will not be described in greater detail.

A first longitudinal side tube 34 (Fig. 1), the length of which is greater than the distance between the uprights 5, 7, is received in the transverse sleeve 31 of the connectors 20, 22 so that the ends of the tube 34 project beyond these connectors. In a corresponding way a second side tube 35 is received in connectors 21, 23 on the uprights 6, 8. Also the ends of this side tube project beyond the connectors in the way shown in the figure. In a corresponding way there is an upper tube 36 which is received in the second connectors 24, 26 and an upper tube 37 which is received in the connectors 25, 27. Also these upper tubes project beyond the connectors in the way shown in Fig. 1. Each longitudinal tube 34, 35, 36, 37 has a number of holders 38 movably mounted thereon. The holders are shown in greater detail in Fig. 4 from which it is seen that they comprise a clamp 39, a sleeve 40 fixed to the clamp and having a nut 41 welded thereto. A threaded rod 42 is screwed into the nut 41 and extends through the sleeve 40. At the free end of the threaded rod 42 there is a plate 43 which is provided with a layer 44 of a friction-increasing material. The plate at the free end of the threaded rod 42 may be modified and have the appearance shown in Fig. 5 from which it is seen that the plate 43 has an upturned margin 45 intended to get into engagement with the side of an upright 2. The sleeve 40 with the threaded nut 41, the threaded rod 42 and the plate 43 from an expanding member generally designated by 46 in Fig. 1. The purpose of the expanding members 46 is to fasten the structure formed by the arches and the longitudinal tubes inside the passenger space of the vehicle, is being assumed that the expanding members are moved along the longitudinal tubes 34 to 37 by means of the movable holders 38 and that the plates 43 will be opposite one of the said loadable elements 2, 3. Thereupon the plate 43 is turned, alternatively the nut 41 is turned, until the layer 44 gets into intimate connection with parts of said loadable elements 2, 3 so that the structure is fixed in this position.

Since the position of the uprights 2 and the beams 3 varies from one to another type of vehicle and since there possibly is no loadable beam 3 between two adjacent arches, the holders 38 may also be placed on the projecting ends of the longitudinal tubes 34 to 37 and from this point transfer frictional forces to the uprights 5 to 8 of the structure.

it is obvious that the first connectors 20 to 23 movable along the uprights, the second connectors 24 to 27 movable along the cross-connections 9, 10, and the holders 38 movable along the longitudinal tubes 34 to 37 permit clamping of the structure formed by the arches and the longitudinal tubes 34 to 37 against supporting points of the uprights 2 and the beams 3 of the vehicle independently of the position of these lastmentioned elements in relation to the location of the arches.

Each cros s-connection includes two step-shaped tube elements 50 which are joined to each other by means of a transverse straight piece of tube 51. As will be seen from Fig. 2 each step-shaped tube e lement 50 includes two offset straight pieces of tube 52, 53 which are joined to each other by means of an intermediate transverse piece of tube 54. At the free end of the piece of tube 52 there are members 55 for fixing the end of the transverse straight piece of tube 51 within the said free end of the piece of tube 52. Preferably, the said members 55 consist of a transverse bolt which extends through openings in the pieces of tube 51 and 53. Preferably, the piece of tube 51 is provided with a plurality of such openings as will be seen from Fig. 1. At the free end of the piece of tube 52 a loop 56, known per se, is fixed by welding. The band 18 mentioned earlier is suspended in this loop. In the embodiment shown a corresponding loop 56 is fixed by welding to the lower transverse sleeve of the second stop member 25 which is threaded on to the free end of the piece of tube 52 of the cross-connection. This transverse sleeve corresponds, for example, to the transverse sleeve

31 of the first stop member 20 shown in Fig. 3a.

The step-shaped tube element 50, finally, has a member 57 which is arranged at the free end of the piece of tube 53. The purpose of the member 57 is to fix the step-shaped tube element 50 to an upright, for example the upright 5. The top part of this upright 5 is seen in Pigs. 3a and 3b. The bottom part of each upright is shown in Fig. 1 and is conventional and, therefore, will not be described in greater detail. It is obvious that each upright includes a vertical tube 58 which is provided at the top with a transverse piece of tube 59 which is intended to be slid into the free end of the piece of tube 53 and to be fixed by means of the member 57. At the bottom each upright consists of a foot tube 60, with a foot plate 61. The foot tube is adjustable within the tube 58 by means of members which, for example, are similar to the members 55. Accordingly, it is clear that the height of the uprights is adjustable.

Where the passenger space permits the placing of further stretchers beside each other extra uprights of the kind shown in Fig. 6 are provided at each cross-connection 50 at a place in association with the loop 56 of the band carrying inside stretchers. Furthermore, on each crossconnection 50 a second connector 25 of the kind shown in Fig. 2 is arranged at a spacing of one stretcher's width beyond the extra upright 62, on to which a number of clamps 14, 15 are threaded. The additional stretchers are now hung up between the clamps 14, 15 on the extra upright and a band for stretcher handles which is suspended in the loop 56 of the second stop member 25. The extra upright 62 is provided at the top with a detachable unit 63 in the form of a holder 64 which is detachably fixed to the extra upright 62 by means, for example, of an eye screw similar to the eye screw 32 and a plate 65 welded to the holder and having at least one fork 66 welded thereto. In the embodiment shown in Fig. 4 there is an additional fork 67 provided at the side of the first fork 66. Dependent upon the space available in the vehicle either the fork 66 or the fork 67 is placed under the cross-connection 50 whereupon the extra upright is fastened in the frame structure by a foot plate 67' which is adjustable in height in the upright 62 at the bottom thereof and which is fastened on a threaded rod 68 which is threaded into a nut 69 which is welded in the lower part of the extra upright. A handle 70 provided at the bottom of the threaded rod may facilitate the fastening of the extra upright against the floor.

The frame structure according to the invention is installed, for example, in the following way. The uprights 5 and 6 are laid along the vehicle walls whereupon they are connected to each other by means of the crossconnection 50 by screwing the member 57 tight on the transverse piece of tube 59 of the respective upright. Thereupon the width of the cross-connection is brought into a co-operation with the transverse straight piece of tube 51 by means of the members 55. Therupon the arch formed is raised into vertical position and fixed in such position, for example by an assistant holding the arch or by a holder 38 being temporarily fixed to the arch and fastened against the roof. Thereupon the next arch is raised and placed at a spacing from the first arch corresponding to the spacing between the front and rear handles of a stretcher. This arch is also fixed in a vertical position, and if the vehicle has room for still more stretchers these are mounted and placed at the said spacing from each other. Thereupon the upper tubes and the side tubes are mounted in their second and first connectors, respectively. Possibly, the upper tubes and the side tubes may need to be joined with each other which takes place by conventional joining means, not shown in detail, in the form of a sleeve with eye screws. The frame structure is now self-supporting, and the holders possibly used temporarily for fixing the arches are removed. If not already taken place earlier the possibilities of fixing the structure against supporting points of the walls and the roof of the vehicle are now tried out. When these points are found the holders 38 are fixed opposite these points, and the expansible members on these holders are fastened against the said supporting points. Finally, stretcher bands and stretchers are hung up. When the vehicle has been filled with injured it may be required that the expansible members are expanded still more so that the whole frame structure will be firmly fixed inside the vehicle.

The embodiment of the invention described above may be modified and varied in may ways within the scope of the basic idea of the invention.

Claims

1. A frame structure for carrying stretchers, including a number of pairs of urpights (5-8), crossconnections (9, 10) intended to connect the uprights of a pair with each other at the top to form arches, holding members (14 to 16) for stretcher handles intended to be fastened to the arches, longitudinal tubes (34 to 37) intended to extend between the adjacent spaced aligned erect arches, and holders (38) which are movable along the longitudinal tubes, characterized by connectors (20-27) intended for fixing the longitudinal tubes to the aligned erect arches, expansible elements (46) provided on each holder (38) for fastening the frame structure formed by arches and longitudinal tubes to supporting elemens (e.g. 3) in a passenger space formed by walls, floor and roof within a vehicle.

2. A frame structure according to claim 1, characterized by the fact that each movable holder (38) includes a clamp (39) for fixing the expansible element (46) in an optional position along the whole length of a longitudinal tube (34 to 37), a sleeve (40) fastened to the clamp and having a threaded member (41), a threaded rod (42) for engagement in the sleeve and a plate (43) provided at the free end of the threaded rod.

3. A frame structure according to claim 2, characterized by the fact that the side of the plate facing the roof part or the wall, respectively, of the vehicle is provided with a layer (44) of a friction-increasing material.

4. A frame structure according to claim 3, characterized by the fact that the plate has an upturned margin (45) intended for engagement with a supporting element which is located at an edge of a window of the vehicle.

5. A frame structure according to claim 1, characterized by the fact that the connectors (20 to 23) include a first sleeve (28) intended to be mounted on an upright (5-8), or on a cross-connection, a member (29, 30) provided on the first sleeve for detachable fastening of the sleeve on the upright or the cross-connection, respectively, a second sleeve (31) which is fastened to the first sleeve at one end of the latter and which extends at right angles to the longitudinal axis of the first sleeve and which is also provided with members (32, 33) for detachable fastening of the longitudinal tube.

6. A frame structure according to claim 1, characterized by the fact that the cross-connections (9, 10) are step-shaped (50).

7. A frame structure according to claim 1, characterized by the fact that the cross-connection (9, 10) includes two step-shaped tube elements (50), each of which consists of two off-set pieces of tube (52, 53) which are joined to each other by means of an intermediate transverse piece of the tube (54), as well as a straight transverse piece of tube (51) which joins the two step-shaped tube elements to each other and members (55) for setting the distance between the two step-shaped tube elements (50).

8. A frame structure according to claim 1, characterized by an extra upright (62) which includes a straight piece of tube as well as at least one fork (67) which is provided at one end of the straight piece of tube and which is offset in relation to the straight piece of tube.

9. A frame structure according to claim 1, characterized by the fact that the longitudinal tubes (34 to 37), the arches, the movable holders (38) with the expansible elements and the connectors (20 to 27) are all made from hollow shapes which are square in cross-section.