Patient Lifting Straps for EMS and First Responders

The PAL Strap is a revolutionary tool for EMS providers, quickly becoming a staple for every ambulance, fire engine, and emergency vehicle. Designed by a firefighter who wanted to improve the risky and unreliable “lift-with-bedsheets” process, the PAL strap is a versatile tool that speeds up the lifting process, reduces liability, improves comfort for the patient, and reduces strain on the responders.

How do you lift patients?

Every day, firefighters, paramedics, assisted care workers, and any emergency responder who’s been on a patient lift call tell us they’re still lifting fallen patients with bedsheets. Lifting with bedsheets is unsanitary for the responder, is a different assembly each time, and introduces risks of slipping, ripping, or disbalancing an elderly or bariatric patient. Bedsheets have no instructions for proper assembly and, therefore, are never assembled the same way twice. Sheets can’t be trusted to safely lift the patient or protect the responder from back injury. This level of liability is almost unimaginable in this day and age.

How should you lift patients?

The PAL Strap is a simple, belt-like strap that goes under a patient’s legs and behind their back to form a stable basket with a lifting handle on each side. In addition to the lifting handles, the back strap offers reliable, easy purchase points, especially compared to bedsheets. Once assembled around the patient, EMS locks their front foot in front of the patient, creating a leverage point. Because of the weight distribution and the accessible lifting handles, assisting the patient to their feet from here takes a fraction the effort of other methods. With this approach, small responders can easily and safely lift much larger patients without fear of injury to themselves or the victim.

The PAL Strap can also lift a patient directly up from a seated position. This technique can move a patient to a stair chair, wheelchair, or bed. Additionally, most first responders can, with lifters on either side, raise a patient into a cot or stretcher. This same technique can also lift a patient out of a car seat or from a stretcher to a hospital bed.

The PAL strap comes in a rugged kit with three sizes: Regular, Large, and X-Large. The regular strap (red) will be your primary strap, suitable to lift at least 90% of your patients. EMS have even started replacing their medical bag’s default strap with a red PAL strap and two carabiners, further improving the usefulness and utility of their bag and ensuring a lift-assist strap is with their go-bag at all times.

The PAL strap is ideal for scenarios where minimal intrusion is needed. For example, when the fire department needs to lift a patient quickly without intruding on the privacy or personal life of the patient to regain their comfort and maintain their dignity.

Best of all, the PAL strap disassembles in seconds. Removing the bedsheets from underneath a lifted patient is a chore. Paramedics shimmy the patient around, wrestling to scoot the sheets out from underneath. With the PAL Strap, you simply pull the loop apart and slide the strap out from behind the patient’s back. We aren’t kidding when we say an experienced paramedic can disassemble the strap and remove it from a patient in under five seconds.

The PAL Strap prioritizes both patient comfort and first responder safety. The patient’s weight secures the girth hitch and ensures the patient is stable and at ease throughout the lifting process. Equally important, however, caregivers guarantee a snug and comfortable fit by confirming the strap’s presence around the thighs and providing support along the back. The PAL Strap has two strong handles that naturally provide patient stability and minimize extra strain on the EMS provider.

The PAL Strap comes in a kit of three straps and includes the Standard, Large, and X-Large sizes. Choosing which strap to use is based on the patient’s build, not weight. A kit costs only $219 and, when used correctly, greatly reduces possible liability for fallen patients. With its commitment to standardized techniques and provider safety, the PAL Strap sets the bar for EMS-first lift-assist solutions. Purchase or learn more about the PAL strap here, or contact us today for bulk order discounts.

Our own Gary Candela demonstrate the application of the Patient Assist Lift (PAL) Strap, a simple harness designed to lift fallen patients. The PAL Strap has been adopted by many first responders who respond to patient lift calls, such as Fire Rescue, EMS, and non-medical first responders. The PAL strap is also a versatile tool that can help improve comfort and reduce strain on caregivers in residential care, assisted care, nursing homes, post-acute care, and other healthcare facilities.

How do you lift your patients?

Every day, nursing caregivers, assisted care facilities, and home patient-lift first responders tell us they’re still lifting patients with bedsheets. Lifting with bedsheets is unsanitary for caregivers, is a different assembly each time, and introduces risks of slipping, ripping, or disbalancing an elderly patient. Bedsheets have no instructions for proper assembly and, therefore, can’t be trusted to safely lift the patient or protect the caregiver from back injury. This level of liability is unthinkable in this day and age.

How should you lift your patients?

The PAL Strap is a simple, belt-like strap that goes under a patient’s legs and behind their back to form a sturdy, stable basket with a comfortable lifting strap on each side. Once assembled around the patient, caregivers can quickly and easily lock their front foot in front of the patient, creating a leverage point. Assisting the patient to their feet from here takes minimal effort. With this method, small caregivers can easily and safely lift much larger patients without fear of injury to themselves or the patient.

The PAL Strap can also lift a patient directly up from a seated position. This technique can move a patient to a stair chair, wheelchair, or bed.

The PAL strap is ideal for many scenarios where minimal intrusion is needed. Instead of calling the fire department to lift an elderly relative, simply keep a PAL strap in the house. Instead of getting five caregivers to heave an assisted care patient, keep a PAL strap within reach. Lifts will be quick and not intrude on the privacy or personal life of the patient to regain their comfort and maintain their dignity.

Best of all, the PAL strap disassembles in seconds. Removing the bedsheets from underneath a lifted patient is a chore. Caregivers shimmy the patient around, wrestling to scoot the sheets out from underneath slowly. With the PAL Strap, you simply pull the loop apart and slide the strap out from behind the patient’s back. We aren’t kidding when we say an experienced rescuer can disassemble the strap and remove it from a patient in under five seconds.

The PAL Strap comes in a kit of three straps and includes the Standard, Large, and X-Large sizes. Choosing which strap to use is based on the patient’s build, not their weight. A kit costs only $219 and if used correctly, removes your facilities liability for fallen patients. Purchase or learn more about the PAL strap here, or contact us today for bulk order discounts.

When practicing down firefighter rescue techniques last year using a drag rescue device (DRD), we noticed that almost all firefighters in turnout gear wearing self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) lost their face piece when being dragged to safety. Also, DRD drags disrupted airways, causing neck pain or even breathing construction. As a metal fabricator, I had experience creating solutions to all kinds of problems, and I asked the command and safety staff during the DRD training for a chance to provide a solution to our problem.

I set off to make a tool that would allow for a safe and easy rescue of a down firefighter while maintaining the integrity of the face piece. The outcome of that effort is the Jack Strap.

With the support and encouragement of my department, I set off to make a tool that would allow for a safe and easy rescue of a down firefighter while maintaining the integrity of the face piece.

What eventually came out of a year of trial, error, and testing was the Jack Strap. It is a tool that replaces a useless shoulder strap on a rapid intervention team (RIT) bag. The Jack Strap uses heavy-duty carabiners to clip into the SCBA plate brackets. After cinching the strap tight using a cam buckle, the backplate of the SCBA now acts as a mini backboard. There are handles for one or two firefighters to grasp, making dragging easier. The Jack Strap brings innovation, simplification, and diversification to RIT deployments and rescues.

When responding to a box alarm, HCFR firefighters must deploy a RIT bag in case of a Mayday. The Jack Strap transforms the RIT bag into a rescue system. It replaces the strap on your RIT bag with a helpful rescue tool for firefighters. By switching out straps, the RIT bag gains a practical, simple, and heavy-duty firefighter rescue tool without increasing the size or footprint of the bag. Operationalizing every part of a fire engine is what makes it an apparatus, not just a vehicle.

We try our hardest to standardize response tactics and equipment across the entire department. When this is done effectively, it increases the likelihood of success in response to fire and emergency medical service calls. However, nothing could be more critical to a rescue event than one of our own. During a Mayday event, time management is critical. Anything we can do as firefighters to simplify and minimize training requirements improves the chances of success and minimizes failure.

Self-explanatory functioning is a critical component of the Jack Strap. The entire device consists of only four components. Two carabiners for clipping into the backpiece, a cam buckle to keep the strap tight, two handles, and the webbing. Although there are many training videos on using personal webbing or rope to effect a rescue drag of a down firefighter, those techniques often require constant refresher training because the skills are perishable. The Jack Strap reduces the cognitive load of the rescuer because the system is self-explanatory, eliminating the need for complicated weaving rope or webbing. This gives the rescuer more time and mental bandwidth to focus on other issues such as transfilling, buddy breathing, escape, breaching, radio communication, and more.

The Jack Strap was designed for rescuing a firefighter with full turnout gear and SCBA. However, the JackStrap can be used without SCBA or even without turnout gear as a lift assist or drag assist system. The Jack Strap would simply clip to its own carabiners after being wrapped around a firefighter or patient’s torso under the arms, and rescuers would then use the grips to carry or drag the firefighter or patient. Furthermore, the rescuer does not have to use the handles on the JackStrap but can connect webbing or rope to one of the heavy-duty D-rings (photo 7), giving the rescuer the ability to wrap the webbing or rope around his chest and pull with his entire body weight. If nothing else, when trying to innovate in the middle of a rescue scenario, would you rather have a RIT bag strap or a heavy-duty strap with carabiners?

The Jack Strap is not meant to replace personal webbing or rope. The Jack Strap instead operationalizes a piece of previously useless gear. Like having cargo pockets on our turnout gear pants, the Jack Strap took undeveloped real estate and made it functional. Every RIT bag in my department now has a Jack Strap. In the event of a Mayday, our firefighters have a simple and reliable way to drag firefighters to safety without their face pieces coming off, their airways being compromised, or damaging their necks unintentionally.