By EMS1 Staff

ORANGE COUNTY, Va. — New mobile ultrasound technology will be used on-board ambulances to evaluate a patient’s internal injuries.

Orange County Fire and EMS received the new equipment and will be able to discover trauma or internal bleeding a patient may have suffered.

Prehospital ultrasound imaging will allow hospitals to better prepare to receive critically ill and injured patients. (Photo by Greg Friese)

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“Ultrasound gives us in EMS our first look into the patient. Everything we do now is outside by touch, by feel, by signs and symptoms,” Assistant Chief Nathan Mort told NCB29. “Having ultrasound will actually get us a view of the inside of the patient.”

EMS providers can then email photos or videos of the ultrasound to medical professionals at hospitals.

The department’s ultrasound unit cost them between $20,000 and $30,000; they intend to equip each of their ambulances with one unit by 2020.