Dubai Ambulance is showing SANAD, an off-road emergency vehicle built with FERNO, TORSUS, and five other manufacturers, at EMS World Expo in Orlando through 2 October. The four-wheel-drive unit carries up to 14 people, including two patients on stretchers, and is meant to reach people in mountains, deserts, and disaster zones that a regular ambulance cannot get to.

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In April 2024, the heaviest rain the UAE had recorded in 75 years fell on Dubai in a single day. Drivers abandoned their cars on flooded stretches of Sheikh Zayed Road, and some residential communities were cut off for days while the water drained away.

Dubai Ambulance’s new vehicle, SANAD, is built for the moments when a normal ambulance cannot get through. The emirate’s government ambulance service is showing it this week at EMS World Expo in Orlando, Florida, on the stand of the Ohio equipment maker FERNO, and running demonstrations every day until the show closes on 2 October.

What is SANAD?

Dubai Ambulance calls SANAD a Field Support Unit, and it sits on a permanent four-wheel-drive platform with air suspension that can be raised and lowered electronically, so it can handle mountain tracks, sand, and debris. The back is a critical care cabin with room for 14 people, two of them on stretchers. There is a military-grade loading system, tracking and asset management, patient monitoring, and systems that let the crew keep an eye on both the scene outside and the patients inside.

Dubai Ambulance says the vehicle is meant to work as a medical post as well as a way to get patients to the hospital. It is pitched at disasters, search-and-rescue, and mass-casualty incidents, but also at ordinary emergency calls. The service calls it a world first, however, it has not said what SANAD cost, how many it plans to build, or when the vehicle will go into regular service.

Seven Manufacturers Behind One Vehicle

SANAD was designed in Dubai but most of the hardware came from outside suppliers. TORSUS, a Czech company that makes off-road buses, provided the base vehicle, FERNO supplied the patient handling equipment and its iNTRAXX mounting system, which much of the medical cabin is built around. Bristol did the fabrication, Whelen the lights, Acetech the control system, Frestems the loading system, and UXE the patient analytics and situational awareness software.

The project is also a showcase for “Dubai-it,” a push launched this year by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE’s Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to get government bodies delivering big projects quickly without letting quality slip. Dubai Ambulance says SANAD went from idea to working vehicle in record time, not stating the actual time.

HE Mishal Abdul Karim Julfar, the Chief Executive of Dubai Ambulance, tied the vehicle directly to that initiative. “Dubai Ambulance has always been on a mission to provide trusted, agile and proactive ambulance services, but 'Dubai-it' challenged us to prove it at speed. SANAD is that mandate come to life: an agile, proactive answer to crises no conventional ambulance could reach, taken from concept to a fully operational platform in record time. Bringing SANAD to the EMS World Expo means putting that standard in front of the people who understand it best: thousands of EMS professionals and agency leaders from more than 50 countries. We’re proud to showcase the fruits of Emirati innovation and collaboration,” he said.

SANAD Goes to Orlando's EMS World Expo

EMS World Expo is widely described as the biggest event in the world for emergency medical services, and it draws people from more than 50 countries. Dubai Ambulance says it wants to use the week to meet agencies, manufacturers, and trade press from the US and Europe before any talks about deploying SANAD elsewhere or partnering on it.

A 2023 study by the Maine Rural Health Research Center found that about 4.5 million Americans live in ambulance deserts, more than a 25-minute drive from the nearest ambulance station, and that roughly half of them are in cities rather than the countryside. After Hurricane Helene in 2024, floods and landslides left mountain towns in western North Carolina unreachable by road for days.

No single vehicle fixes paramedic shortages or slow response times, and any US agency looking at something like SANAD would have to weigh the price and upkeep against how often a specialized off-road unit gets called out. FERNO, which has been making emergency medical equipment for 70 years, supplied the majority of what went inside SANAD’s cabin.

“FERNO is extremely proud to be supporting the incredible work DCAS do as a true global leader in EMS. For 70 years, our business and our people have focussed on innovation that makes a difference to the professionals working in EMS, and those patients that need our help. It is our privilege to continue striving towards that goal, and to be part of this world-first initiative from our partners at DCAS in the preparation of the SANAD multi-mission vehicle. It had been a true example of global collaboration towards EMS best practice,” said Renee LaPine, President and CEO of FERNO.

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