Videos of MSU-II: Make No Little Plans
The following is a note from Mission to Heal founder Dr. Glenn Geelhoed regarding the brand new Mobile Surgical Unit II that is currently in production in Breda, Netherlands. Learn more about the truck here. What sets this MSU-II apart from previous projects? It’s big, it’s tough, and it’s custom-built to bring healing to the most remote places on earth!
“MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS: THEY HAVE NO POWER TO STIR MEN’S BLOOD!”
Each MAN Cat-I truck is over ten tons (EMPTY) TARE WEIGHT; the modules when loaded will be over seven additional tons including their water and fueling and surgical supplying. That makes the combined MSU-II gross weight over thirty tons ready for action. This means that in approaching an African rickety wooden bridge over a muddy river, the better option (as the drivers on our test course of rough terrain will be taught) is to just take off through the river and skip the bridge, since the rugged six wheel drive diesel with snorkel and door seals can handle river crossings and not getting stuck, but has fore and aft and lateral winches for which the pulling power is not a PTO but the big diesel engine itself!
We will be instructing the drivers to respect the power of this unstoppable force since if the steel cables were winched on the lateral resistance of a seventeen ton loaded truck, the rupture of that steel cable wold decapitate any bystanders. A special order nylon cable that unravels before it parts is one addition engineering solution to the safety of the unit in the extremes of environment access.
