Kiddicraft Brick City – Ambulance Building Set KC1203

Kiddicraft's Brick City Ambulance is built from 296 pieces — an ambulance with side panels that open for full access to the interior, and three KIDDIZ figures as the crew. Age 5+.

A German ambulance often brings a doctor with it

This is a German set, and the emergency system behind it works differently from the American one in a way that is worth knowing.

In the United States, paramedics are trained to stabilise and transport. The principle is sometimes called scoop and run: get the patient to the hospital, where the doctors are, as fast as possible.

Germany runs the opposite model. For serious calls a second vehicle is dispatched alongside the ambulance carrying a Notarzt — an emergency physician, a fully qualified doctor with additional emergency training. They arrive at the roadside and can do there what an American patient would wait until the hospital for: anaesthesia, intubation, chest drains, drugs a paramedic is not permitted to give.

The reasoning is that the first twenty minutes decide the outcome, and that bringing the hospital to the patient beats bringing the patient to the hospital. The reasoning against it is cost and the number of doctors it occupies.

Both systems produce good outcomes and the debate has run for decades. What it means for this set is that three crew figures is accurate rather than generous.

It opens

The side panels come away so the interior is reachable. An ambulance a child cannot get into is a van.

In the Brick City range

Sets KC1202 (Tiny House) and KC1204 (Uschi's Sausage Stand) are built to the same scale, and the KIDDIZ packs KC1403 and KC1404 add city residents.

Specifications

Pieces: 296 · Figures: 3 KIDDIZ · Series: Kiddicraft Brick City · Opening side panels · Age: 5+ · Compatible with leading brick systems