The word ambulance comes from the Latin ambulare meaning to go and is used today to denote a vehicle designed to take the disabled in battle or civil life to hospital or in which they are treated in default of hospital wards. It was invented by Baron Jean Dominique Larrey (1766-1842), a French surgeon, and introduced in the late 18th century with the fervent support of Napoleon who used the "flying ambulance service" during his campaigns from 1797. 

Improvements were made and a corps of stretcher bearers organised to operate with the ambulances. The British did not begin to use the idea until after the Crimean War of 1854-56 and other powers subsequently adopted the system. Under the Geneva Convention of 1864, this method of first aid was given neutral protection.

The ambulance wagon, as it was known, used during the First World War of 1914-18, was a canvas covered vehicle marked with the Geneva cross and constructed to hold four stretchers and six men seated. It was light and adaptable for quick transport and became the forerunner of the ambulances we know today.

A civil ambulance association was first organised in England in 1878 by the Knights of St John and this society also provided training in first aid in order that assistance might be at hand for those who sustained injuries in civil life. The success of the enterprise led to the formation of ambulance corps in all parts of the country with policemen, railwaymen and factory employees holding certificates of the association and since then, the evolution of ambulance work has been rapid and notably successful.

The ambulance service in Bourne, in common with other local authorities in this country, originally came under the control of the fire brigade but is now a separate entity within the National Health Service. Until the reorganisation of local government in 1974, it came under the control of Kesteven County Council with an ambulance station at the corner of Queen's Road and Harrington Street, scene of a tragic fire in the late autumn of 1979 when it was destroyed and a young man lost his life.

The blaze broke out at the brick and asbestos building at around 7 pm on the night of Tuesday 16th November while Leslie Woolf, a mechanic, was working on an ambulance. The entire station was gutted and three ambulances, each valued at £10,000, were destroyed. Mr Woolf, aged 33, whose family ran Woolf's Garage in North Road, was rushed to Peterborough Hospital with serious burns but after a short spell in intensive care was transferred to Leicester Royal Infirmary where he died later from his injuries. He was a married man with a small son. He had been rescued from the burning building by two ambulancemen, Harold Joyce and Trevor Beer, who wrapped him in blankets in an attempt to prevent the flames from spreading. Four fire brigades, from Grantham, Bourne, Corby Glen and Market Deeping, attended and at the height of the blaze flames shot through the roof and high into the night sky, illuminating the surrounding area and surrounding streets were sealed off by police as oxygen cylinders burst and exploded in the intense heat.

The alarm had been raised by Mr Tony Rodgers who lived next door to the station and who telephoned the emergency services. "It was frightening", said his wife Sandra. "The first thing I did was to get the children to safety." Across the way in Harrington Street, Mrs Phyllis Fisher who lived at number 69, was calmed by her husband Ray. "The lights in our sitting room began to flicker and from the ambulance station we heard pop, pop, pop and then an almighty bang", she said. "Moments later, it was one massive inferno. I was frightened to death at the thought of what was happening."

After the fire, the ambulance station was moved to a corner in the grounds of Bourne Hospital alongside the A15 in South Road where a purpose built four bay building was eventually erected. It is now run by the Lincolnshire Ambulance Service which operates a 24-hour service for the area. The hospital land was later sold for housing development in the summer of 2003 and the building complex demolished to make way for new houses and there was concern about the future of the ambulance station, being so close to a residential development. 

Despite assurances by the developers and the Lincolnshire Ambulance Service that its future was safe and that the access road to the A15 would be preserved, there are still fears in the town that once the houses are built, the new owners may object to the ambulances being located so close to their homes and call for its relocation.

WRITTEN NOVEMBER 2005

See also George Ernest Robinson

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