Hummer Dealers to Distribute Mini Hummers to Hospitals Across the Country

Despite the distressing state of GM’s finances it still can afford to be generous. Hummer a GM brand of sport utility vehicles and recipient of quality Hummer exhaust system has one again showed its caring side when it has donated child-sized Hummer battery-operated vehicles to the pediatric units of its chosen hospitals across the United States.

The mini Hummers were donated under the program called “Courageous Kids” which aimed to make hospital experience for kids less traumatic especially for children who are to undergo surgeries and other medical procedures which may prove a little frightening for them. The mini Hummers are to be used by children patients to drive themselves into surgery and hopefully reduce the anxiety that frightened kids often experience when undergoing medical treatment.

According to Martin Walsh, Hummer General Manager, “We believe this mode of transportation definitely beats a gurney ride and can help take young patients’ minds off their fears.” To date hospitals in Louisiana, Washington, Wisconsin, Texas, and Michigan have begun replacing gurney rides with self-driven Hummer rides in style. The mini Hummers are also 100 percent eco-friendly and this is not because of advanced Hummer exhaust technology but more of the fact that its battery operated.

This project of donating mini Hummers to pediatric units of hospitals across the country is not developed just now. This might come as a surprise but the said project was developed last year at the General Motors plant in Shreveport, La, where the Hummer H3 is built. The first donation of the two ride-on Hummers were made to the local Sutton Children’s Hospital at the suggestion of GM Shreveport employee David Burroughs, an environmental engineer.

Burroughs was familiar with diversion therapy which is a strategy often employed at children’s hospitals. Using diversion therapy medical professionals and volunteers often bring with them dogs as well as other pets when visiting patients since animals are known to have therapeutic effect. Other children hospitals make use of rides in wagons and golf carts to distract children from worries about their upcoming medical examinations. Burroughs said, “So I thought why not do the same thing with Hummers?”

So far the results have been overwhelmingly positive. As a matter of fact according to the Sutton hospital’s medical staff, even the most anxious kids totally forgot about their fears of surgery tanks to the excitement brought about by driving a Hummer. “Local surgeons have told us that some kids even require less anesthesia when they ride into surgery in the Hummers. It’s a rather remarkable phenomenon,” stated Burroughs.

Medical workers as well as parents have discovered that a ride in a Hummer toy is also a great motivator during recovery and according to Amanda Hays, Child Life manager at the Louisiana State University Health Services facility, “I worked with one patient who used to take thirty minutes to swallow his medications. Now he takes them in about five minutes so that he can ride!”

This is not the first charitable work that Hummer has given. The history of Hummer is loaded with charitable works such as: