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Driving around Houma, Thibodaux, Lafayette or the surrounding areas, you may have noticed a certain white, gold and green ambulance with the name “Acadian” written on its side.
Acadian Ambulance started as a result of one community’s need for emergency services. While it has served the Lafayette area since 1971, Acadian Ambulance has spanned to other regions to offer medical assistance in many different facets.
“We are the nation’s largest employee-owned Ambulance Company. Acadian Ambulance services 33 parishes in Louisiana, 33 counties in Texas and one county in Mississippi with both emergency response and non-emergency medical transportation,” said Randall Mann, vice president of marketing and public relations.
Mann said that one division of Acadian Ambulance includes safety management systems. Regional Manager of Safety Management Systems Todd LaPorte said that they provide ground and air medical transportation to sick and injured.
“We provide paramedics in both land and offshore supporting the drilling and production operations throughout the United States as well as some international work,” he said.
Medics are sent to rigs offshore to work with the crews in the oil industry, LaPorte said.
“We have paramedics that are actually stationed on the rigs offshore, so they work in rotations where they’re actually offshore living and working with the crews that are on the drilling regions in the gulf as well as some that are land-based,” he said.
LaPorte said that there are infirmaries on the rigs that are stocked like small hospitals where medics are able to provide care for those who are injured.
“They’re able to care for sick and injured people where, some of them are going to require immediate evacuation via Medivac and others can be kept offshore in the infirmary and treat them there if their condition doesn’t require them to come here,” he said.
LaPorte said because medical treatment is a common occurrence offshore, there is a strong emotional connection that patients endure when being treated.
“There are a lot of emotionally personal medical issues that happen out there. Much more personal medical issues then there are work related, like illness or injury,” he said.
LaPorte said that, with the recent increases in the price of oil, Acadian Ambulance is feeling direct effects as a result of it.
