Kollder vs Corben: Emergency Cooling Tub Comparison

Choosing an emergency cooling tub for your service or medical team is a technical decision that directly affects patient outcomes. Here is an objective comparison between Kollder and the Corben cooling tub, based on publicly available product specifications and international protocol requirements.

Product overview

Corben is a French medical device developed in collaboration with the Paris Fire Brigade (BSPP). It features an aluminium tubular frame (Ø34 mm) with a welded blue PVC waterproof liner, integrated headrest and rapid drainage valve. It is distributed through standard French fire service equipment channels.

Kollder is an emergency cooling tub with a food-grade stainless steel frame and high-resistance liner, engineered specifically for rapid prehospital deployment by one person on any terrain.

Technical comparison

What Corben does well

The Corben tub has two significant advantages that explain its adoption by the Paris Fire Brigade and several French fire departments.

Full patient access. Like Kollder, the Corben is an open tub that allows medical staff to freely access the patient during immersion — to monitor the airway, measure rectal temperature, insert an IV line or perform any other advanced medical procedure. This is the fundamental difference from closed bag-type systems.

Full immersion protocol compliance. The Corben enables whole-body immersion consistent with SFAR and ACSM recommendations — shoulders and scalp submerged, airway maintained above water. The Cool First Transport Second protocol is fully applicable.

Identified limitations of the Corben

Deployment. The aluminium frame structure with 10 Velcro attachment points requires several minutes and ideally two people to assemble correctly under operational stress. In a real emergency, every second matters.

Portability. Folded, the Corben measures 190 x 48 cm — significant bulk in an already-loaded rescue vehicle, and a real constraint for wildland fire operations or forward medical posts that must be carried on foot.

Durability. Field user feedback points to a frame that is less rigid than desired under repeated use in harsh conditions.

What Kollder adds

30-second deployment by one person. This is the key operational difference. At a wildland fire, a sporting event, or a mobile EMS response, the medical team does not always have two people available to assemble equipment while others manage the patient. Kollder enables a single responder to deploy the tub while a second handles the patient.

Food-grade stainless steel frame. More resistant to corrosion and repeated impact than aluminium tubing, for a longer operational lifespan.

Compact folded profile. Kollder integrates into any rescue vehicle without compromising the organisation of other equipment.

Conclusion

Both products share the essentials: full-body immersion, open patient access, Cool First Transport Second protocol compliance. The difference comes down to deployment speed and portability — two decisive criteria for teams operating outside a fixed medical post.

For teams with a permanent infrastructure (event medical post, fire station), the Corben is an established French solution. For mobile operations, wildland fires, mobile EMS units or tactical medicine teams, Kollder offers a decisive operational advantage.

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Corben data: corben.fr (public product page). Protocol data: SFAR, ACSM Expert Consensus Statement 2023, IOC Adverse Weather Impact Expert Working Group 2021.