Off-Road Ambulance

Other, UTV — By ATV Mag on December 14, 2006 at 12:00 pm

Even with superior driving skills, safety precautions and watchful track officials, motocross racing can be a dangerous sport. Up until 2000, however, the AMA Motocross series did not have a dedicated, traveling doctor of its own. The organization had a part-time M.D. who would attend some of the events, but there was no devoted equipment or staff.
That changed in 2000 thanks to the innovation and unusually aggressive marketing strategy of Asterisk, a highly known knee brace maker, that saw a need and stepped up with a solution.
Asterisk, a spin-off of Innovation Sports, was looking for a new way to be involved with motocross racing — something beyond “throwing some banners up on the wall.”
Tom Carson, an Asterisk employee and former pro motocross racer, saw the void in medical services at the races and decided to use the company’s name and marketing dollars to hire Dr. John Bodnar, arm him with a gear bag and send him to every round of racing. It was a popular idea with racers, track officials and the AMA.
The following year, in 2002, Carson witnessed a terrible accident at the second round of the EA Sports Supercross series in San Diego. Veteran racer Steve Lamson crashed, severely fracturing his tibia and fibula and was hauled off the track on the back of a Kawasaki Mule.
Track officials put Lamson on a backboard, mounted him sideways on the back of the UTV, and were taking him off the field when they hit the side of the retaining fence.
“The backboard started to fall off the back of the thing and a guy behind me actually caught Lamson from falling and hitting the ground,” Carson said, who witnessed the scene. “At that moment I thought, wow, we need a way to get an injured rider off the track safely.”
That was all it took and Carson’s idea for the Asterisk Mobile Medic Center was born. He used his racing connections at Kawasaki to procure a donated Mule. Then, the work began to modify the vehicle to build an off-road ambulance to transport injured racers safely and comfortably.
“We spent one week, we stopped everything we were doing and machined a track to basically make it so the stretcher … slid in there the long way, just like an ambulance where nothing was sticking out,” Carson said. “The rider was protected … in there safely riding on a cushioned device to hold him up.”
Using tracks with rollers, injured riders are mounted within the Mule longitudinally. The Mule is equipped with on-board oxygen and a host of initial response items that allow the team to stabilize injuries and administer first aid. They also installed a siren, flashing red light, a public address system and radio communications that connect Carson, the medical staff and track officials.
Because Innovation Sports had formerly sponsored a race team, they still had a transport truck and trailer sitting around to transport the Mule to the races.
Besides Dr. Bodnar, the Asterisk medical team now includes an orthopedic surgeon, a certified athletic trainer and a group of nurses who rotate attending the various Supercross and Outlaw Nationals races.
Carson acknowledges that it has been a significant, ongoing expense, but a bold way to broadcast the Asterisk name and make a serious difference in the racing community.
Carson’s duties are getting the truck, trailer and Mule to the events, handling relations with professional riders who wear the Asterisk braces and coordinating the staffing of the medical team.
“I’m very busy,” he said.
Now that a few years have gone by, the semi and trailer have been replaced and the group is on their second Asterisk Medic Mule — a 3010 4×4 with a diesel engine. Carson said the group decided on a diesel, because the torque-heavy engine could make for a smoother ride across rough terrain.
“We’ve continued to upgrade the level of care,” Carson said. “The more we do it, the more we learn.”