Joe Imel/Daily News A Vanderbilt air ambulance lands behind an Air Evac helicopter Wednesday.The Medical Center EMS demostrated its newly acquired Regional Emergency Services Care Unit (RESCU), an 850 square-foot, inflatable treatment facility Wednesday . The facility is able to accommodate 17 patient beds along with necessary equipment to provide on-site intensive-care quality medical services

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As it lay in the parking lot of The Medical Center’s Emergency Medical Services, it looked like a giant, black burrito.

By the time it rose to its full height, it was a blue and white haven for the sick.

The Medical Center’s EMS recently unveiled RESCU, an 850-square-foot inflatable treatment facility equipped with an HVAC system, lights and generator. RESCU can accommodate 17 patient beds and necessary equipment to provide intensive-care-quality medical services and can be sent to other areas in need.

“We can use it as a facility in a community for major fires, earthquakes and man-made disasters. We’ve got enough equipment to set it up and use it,” EMS director Randy Fathbruckner said. “For example, if there was a disaster in Edmonson County, we could deploy it and set it up so they have a facility where they could bring people to take care of them. If there was a nursing home fire, we could set up to do more things on-site there.”

RESCU, which has dividers to give each patient privacy and windows, could also be used at community events, Fathbruckner said.

“Louisville has one that they use for Iron Man contests,” he said.

People who receive care in RESCU won’t feel like they’re in a tent.

“It has a portable air conditioner and heating so it will feel like a hospital room,” EMS field operations manager Jim Williams said.

Kentucky Department of Public Health selected The Medical Center EMS to be the steward of RESCU and a trailer that will act as a surge unit with enough supplies and equipment to care of up to 25 patients for 72 hours. The trailer works hand-in-hand with RESCU to allow on-site treatment of patients in emergency or disaster situations.

“We’re fortunate to be stewards for that equipment,” Williams said. “We’re still waiting for the trailer for the equipment.”

Kentucky Department of Health provided surge units to 14 hospital preparedness coalition regions using federal funding through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s pandemic influenza grant. Each unit is valued at $34,500. Bowling Green is the second city in the state to receive a RESCU, valued at $260,000. Louisville was the first, and there is also one in Lexington.

“We got funding from the federal government that filtered through the Department of Public Health,” Williams said. “We were very vocal about our need of it.”

The surge unit and RESCU will enhance the services already provided by EMS, Williams said.

“We’re designed to go out and give hospital care and bring the patient to a definitive care center, but we’re not just orange and white ambulances you see running around,” he said. “(EMS serves) Warren and Logan counties. That’s 1,100-square-miles. We usually have anywhere from five trucks on the road (during the early morning hours) to 10 to 15 trucks (during times of heavy usage).”

Fathbruckner believes the mobile treatment center will be an asset to southcentral Kentucky.

“The region is fortunate to have this. If the need is there, we’ll set it up,” he said. “It’s a prime example of how you can see what your tax dollars are going for.”