Development of Rescue Support Stretcher System with Stair-Climbing

A sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system on March 20, 1995, sickened many passengers. Since the attack was made underground, the main job of rescue personnel was to transport victims on stretchers to a ground-level first-aid station. We therefore conducted research on the development of a rescue support stretcher system for handling serious casualties in a quick and effective manner in underground areas or at stations. The stretcher system is expected to help rescue personnel such as fire fighters achieve efficient rescue operations. In this paper, we introduce a rescue support stretcher system for going up and down stairs. We also examine the effectiveness of the system in experiments.