2023 Laws of Puerto Rico › TITLE TWENTY-SEVEN - Public Service (§§ 1 — 2641) › PART IV - Freight and Public Service (§§ 2001 — 2318) › Chapter 75 - Ambulance Service (§§ 2101 — 2111) › § 2102 - Definitions

The following terms as used in this chapter shall have the meaning hereinbelow expressed:
(a) Person.— Means any natural or juridical person, including agencies, public corporations and political subdivisions of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and its instrumentalities.
(b) Ambulance.— Means a private or public motor vehicle, especially designed, constructed or modified and equipped to be used within the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in the transportation of sick or injured, wounded, disabled, incapacitated or invalid persons. Said transportation may be by air, land or sea, operated for pay or free.
Ambulances offering land service shall be classified in the following categories:
Category I.—Ambulance devoted to the transportation of patients not of emergency, and who therefore do not require to be carried in stretchers nor require immediate medical care. This ambulance may be of the bus or station wagon type, and shall be equipped with a first aid kit. To operate this type of ambulance there shall only be required an ambulance chauffeur, who should hold a certificate showing that he has passed a first aid course approved by the Secretary of Health.
Category II.—Ambulance devoted to the transportation of sick, injured, wounded, disabled, incapacitated or invalid persons. Same should have a revolving or intermittent visible red light, and shall be equipped with a siren, radiotelephone and a first aid kit. Said ambulances shall be operated by an ambulance chauffeur and an ambulance attendant, and shall, further, meet all other requirements that through regulations to such effect the Secretary of Health may establish.
Category III.—Besides meeting all requirements established in Category II, ambulances of this category shall be specially designed, constructed and outfitted with a mobile emergency room. Said ambulances shall be operated by medical emergency technicians authorized by the Secretary of Health. The categories for the air and maritime ambulance service shall be regulated as the need and convenience for such services may arise in the future.
(c) Ambulance services.— Shall mean those services rendered in the transportation of wounded, injured, sick, disabled, invalid and incapacitated persons in a vehicle devoted to such purpose.
(d) Medical emergency.— Means the health condition of a person who in an unforeseeable manner needs immediate medical care or first aid assistance as soon as possible, to preserve his health.
(e) Ambulance chauffeur.— Means any person to whom the Public Service Commission issues authorization to drive ambulances. To grant said authorization the Public Service Commission shall require a chauffeur’s license or a heavy motor driver’s license issued by the Department of Transportation and Public Works, as said terms are defined in §§ 5001 et seq. of Title 9, and a certificate of the Department of Health attesting that such person has passed a first aid course. This certificate shall not be required when the chauffeur is accompanied by medical or paramedical personnel qualified to give first aid treatment.
(f) Ambulance attendant.— Means any person trained in first aid by the Department of Health to take care of a patient at the spot where the emergency occurs and during transportation in the ambulance, and who holds a certificate for such purposes issued by the Department of Health.
(g) Medical emergency technician.— Means any person authorized by the Secretary of Health through a license issued under the provisions of Act No. 46, approved May 30, 1972, for the practice of emergency technique in Puerto Rico and who, further, holds a chauffeur’s license issued by the Department of Transportation and Public Works, and an authorization from the Public Service Commission.
(h) Commission.— Public Service Commission.
(i) Secretary.— Secretary of Health of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
History —July 23, 1974, No. 225, Part 2, p. 168, § 2; June 7, 1977, No. 39, p. 86.