98 Fun Facts About EMT

The small clip an ambulance crew puts on a patient's fingertip measures what?

Oxygen in the blood: the pulse oximeter shines light through the fingertip and works out the level from how much gets through. No needle is needed, and the patient feels nothing.

An AED, the box on the wall in airports and gyms, treats cardiac arrest by delivering what?

An electric shock from the defibrillator can jolt a quivering heart back into a normal rhythm. The unit talks the user through each step, so even an untrained bystander can use one.

Which device do ambulance crews strap round an arm or leg to stop life-threatening bleeding?

A tourniquet takes its name from the French for 'to turn': early ones were tightened by twisting a rod or screw. It goes 2 to 3 inches above the wound, never over a joint.

An ambulance staffed only by EMTs is called what kind of unit?

Basic life support (BLS) is the level a crew of EMTs can give; federal ambulance rules require at least one on board. Put a paramedic on the crew and the same vehicle becomes an advanced life support unit.

Which body's exams do most US states use to certify their EMTs?

The National Registry of EMTs (NREMT) dates from 1970, after President Johnson's highway-safety committee called for one agency to set uniform standards. Until then ambulance training varied from one region to the next.

Which of these medications is within the scope of a basic EMT in the US?

Oxygen, epinephrine, dextrose, albuterol and aspirin are among the others on the short list.

EMS protocols in the US are developed under the guidance of whom?

A physician medical director is in charge of the protocols and, under the national model, must also credential each crew member: a state licence alone is not enough to use a skill.

What sits at the centre of ambulances' Star of Life?

A snake coils round the rod of Asclepius, the Greek god of healing, at the star's centre. Each of the six bars around it stands for a step in a rescue, from detecting the emergency to handing over at hospital.

US ambulances swapped an orange cross for the blue Star of Life in the 1970s after which organisation complained?

The Red Cross complained that the orange cross on a white square imitated its own emblem. Federal highway safety officials answered with the six-barred blue star, registered as a certification mark in 1977.

A landmark 1966 US report said the seriously injured had better survival odds where than on a city street?

In a combat zone, said experts back from Korea and Vietnam, where first aid and fast transport had cut battlefield death rates. The report, Accidental Death and Disability, launched modern American EMS.

Freedom House Ambulance Service, the first US paramedic service, was founded in 1967 to serve which neighbourhood?

Pittsburgh's Hill District supplied the crews as well as the patients: the service recruited local Black men, many written off as unemployable, and their work became a national model for emergency care.

CPR pioneer Peter Safar worked with a Norwegian toy maker on which training mannequin?

Resusci Anne came from Asmund Laerdal, who made dolls and model cars before turning to medicine. Her face copies a Paris death mask said to be of an unknown young woman drowned in the Seine.

Adult chest compressions in CPR should be delivered at what rate?

100 to 120 per minute is close to two pushes a second, each about two inches deep. Pushing hard and fast keeps blood moving to the brain until a defibrillator arrives.

The American Heart Association suggests humming which Bee Gees song to keep CPR compressions on tempo?

Stayin' Alive has a beat that matches the pace rescuers need. The American Heart Association built a hands-only CPR video around it, starring comic actor and qualified doctor Ken Jeong.

The coma scale that ambulance crews use worldwide is named after which Scottish city?

Glasgow neurosurgeons Graham Teasdale and Bryan Jennett published the scale in 1974. Eyes, speech and movement are each scored from 1 up, so even a deeply unconscious patient scores 3, never zero.

The word 'triage' comes from a French verb meaning what?

To sort or select: French 'trier' gave English a word first used for grading goods by quality. English borrowed the medical sense from French field hospitals in the First World War.

In the START triage system for mass-casualty incidents, which colour tag marks the walking wounded?

Green goes to everyone who can get up and walk: rescuers simply call for the walking wounded to move to one spot. Red, yellow and black tags then go to the patients who stay put.

Baltimore trauma surgeon R Adams Cowley is credited with which phrase for the vital window after a serious injury?

The golden hour was Cowley's name for the gap 'between life and death' after a critical injury. To beat the clock, his shock trauma unit began receiving patients by Maryland State Police helicopter in 1969.

The first portable defibrillator, fitted to a Belfast ambulance in 1965, ran on what?

Car batteries powered Frank Pantridge's 70-kilogram machine, which let crews restart a heart at the roadside instead of racing to hospital. He later cut the weight to about 3 kilograms.

The first 911 call in the United States was made in 1968 in which small Alabama town?

Haleyville's first call ran from Alabama House speaker Rankin Fite to Congressman Tom Bevill, who picked up at the police station. The local Alabama Telephone Company had set the service up.

Which 1972 NBC drama about Los Angeles paramedics is credited with popularising the profession?

Emergency! made paramedics famous when the job barely existed, and programmes like the one it showed sprang up across the country.

The Squad 51 paramedics of the 1970s TV drama worked for which real agency?

Los Angeles County Fire began training firefighters as paramedics at Harbor General Hospital in 1969, before any state law allowed them to practise. The show went on air three years later.

In the FAST stroke mnemonic, what does the T stand for?

Time to call for help: the last letter is an instruction, not a symptom, because the sooner a stroke is treated the less damage it does.

In the SAMPLE patient history mnemonic, what does the A stand for?

Allergies follow signs and symptoms; then come medications, past history, last oral intake and the events leading up. If the patient cannot answer, crews put the same questions to relatives or bystanders.

EMTs give aspirin to a patient with a suspected heart attack because the drug does what?

Helps stop blood clots forming: aspirin makes the blood's platelets less sticky, so the clot blocking a heart artery grows more slowly. It is one of the few drugs a basic EMT is allowed to give.

Which California governor signed the 1970 Wedworth-Townsend Act, the law that first let paramedics practise in the state?

Ronald Reagan signed it as governor. Until then California's first firefighter-paramedics could not answer a call without a hospital nurse riding along, because no law let them practise alone.

Naloxone, carried by EMTs to reverse opioid overdoses, is sold under which brand name?

Narcan can wear off in 30 to 90 minutes, sooner than many opioids do, so a revived patient can slip back into overdose. That is why crews still want them seen at hospital.

An epinephrine autoinjector such as the EpiPen is most often used to treat what?

Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening allergic reaction, so the pen is built for speed: it goes into the outer thigh, straight through clothing if need be.

The recovery position is used for a casualty who is what?

Unconscious but breathing casualties go on their side so the tongue cannot fall back and vomit can drain from the mouth. If breathing stops, they are rolled onto their back for CPR instead.

The Heimlich manoeuvre, or abdominal thrust, is a first-aid treatment for what?

Choking on a foreign object is what the thrust treats: a sharp squeeze just above the navel forces air up from the lungs to pop the blockage out. It is only for someone who cannot cough, speak or breathe.

A Kendrick Extrication Device (KED), carried on many ambulances, is used to remove victims from what?

Motor vehicles after a crash: Richard Kendrick designed the wrap-around vest because a rigid backboard is nearly impossible to slide behind someone sitting in a car's bucket seat.

Napoleon's surgeon Larrey called his battlefield wagons 'flying ambulances' because they were what?

Rapidly moving is the sense: Larrey's horse-drawn wagons went in during the fighting to bring out the wounded, instead of waiting until the battle was over.

In the US national EMS system, what is the lowest of the four certification levels?

Emergency medical responder is the rung below EMT. They are often first on scene and start life-saving care, but the national model says they should not be the senior person looking after a patient during transport.

An advanced EMT can do which of these that a basic EMT generally cannot?

Start an intravenous line is the big step up: advanced EMTs can put fluids and a few drugs straight into a vein. Defibrillators, oxygen and splints are already in the basic EMT's kit.

In 2019 the NREMT dropped which requirement for candidates seeking national EMT certification?

The age limit went in 2019: until then candidates had to be at least 18. States can still set their own, and California and Wisconsin both require an EMT to be 18.

In the 1960s, about half of American ambulance services were run by which kind of local business?

Funeral homes had the one vehicle in town where a patient could lie flat: the hearse. A landmark 1966 report counted 12,000 morticians running about half of the country's ambulance services.

In 1996, New York City moved its ambulances from the public hospital system into which agency?

The fire department took over the city's EMS from the Health and Hospitals Corporation in March 1996. Rudolph Giuliani pushed the merger, under which firefighters trained in medical care turn out to medical emergencies too.

Which actor played burnt-out New York paramedic Frank Pierce in Martin Scorsese's 1999 film Bringing Out the Dead?

Nicolas Cage plays the sleepless medic, haunted by the ghost of a patient he could not save. The film comes from Joe Connelly's 1998 novel of the same name.

The Star of Life was adapted from a symbol for patients' ID bracelets and cards, created by which organisation?

The American Medical Association devised the six-barred star for medical ID tags. Leo Schwartz, the federal EMS chief, borrowed it for ambulances in the 1970s and gave each bar a rescue task.

Peter Safar, who helped launch America's first paramedic service in 1967, had lost his young daughter a year earlier to what?

An asthma attack stopped Elizabeth Safar's heart in 1966 before her father, the doctor who championed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, could reach her. Within a year he was helping to design the training for Freedom House's crews.

Which emergency phone number, the world's first, did Britain launch in London in 1937?

999 was picked over 111 because phone wires rubbing together in the wind could dial 111 by accident. The service began after five women died in a London fire.

Ambulance crews' Cincinnati stroke scale checks face, speech and what else?

Arm weakness completes the three-item check: crews watch whether one arm drifts down. Cincinnati doctors cut it down from the much longer NIH stroke exam so crews could use it on scene.

Which of these procedures is within a paramedic's scope but not an EMT's?

Paramedics may also perform cricothyrotomy, cardioversion, pacing and pericardiocentesis.

The Wallace rule of nines exists mainly to estimate what?

Body surface area burned is what the rule measures: each arm counts as 9 percent, each leg 18, and the total steers how much fluid the patient needs and whether to head for a burn centre.

Which city official's opposition ended Freedom House's ambulance service in 1975?

The mayor cut the service's funding and then replaced it with a city-run ambulance corps. Before Freedom House, police had answered the city's emergency calls and did little more than drive patients to hospital.

Elevators marked with the Star of Life indicate what?

The car is big enough for a stretcher: US building codes require at least one such elevator in buildings of four or more storeys, sized for a 24-by-84-inch ambulance cot.

Across Canada, which title marks the entry level of paramedic practice?

Primary care paramedic is the national name for the first paramedic rung, but each province regulates its own crews, so the official title can differ from one province to the next.

In the UK, which body's registration protects the title 'paramedic'?

The Health and Care Professions Council also registers physiotherapists, dietitians and arts therapists, so Britain's paramedics are regulated alongside the therapy professions, not with doctors or nurses.

Which 1984 film's heroes drive a converted 1959 Cadillac ambulance with a roof full of gadgets?

Ghostbusters turned a 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor into the Ecto-1. It was a 'combination car', a body built to work as either an ambulance or a hearse.

Which American novelist was wounded in 1918 while a teenage volunteer ambulance driver in Italy?

Ernest Hemingway was 18 when shrapnel tore into both his legs on the Italian front. His war supplied the material for his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms.

Which future film mogul forged his birth date in 1918 to drive an ambulance in France aged 16?

Walt Disney reached France just after the armistice, so he never saw the fighting. He passed the time drawing cartoons on the side of his ambulance.

Which rescue tool, inspired by a slow stock-car crash rescue in 1961, pries wrecked cars open?

Jaws of Life was coined because rescuers said the tool snatched people from the jaws of death. Inventor George Hurst had watched crews take over an hour to free one racing driver.

'Ambulance chaser' is an insult for which professional, accused of soliciting accident victims?

A lawyer earned the label from the stereotype of attorneys trailing ambulances to the emergency room to sign up clients. The practice has a legal name too: barratry.

The chequered high-visibility pattern on British ambulances is named after which teatime treat?

Battenberg cake shows the same two-colour squares when it is sliced. The markings were developed in the 1990s for motorway police cars and spread to ambulances afterwards.

The word 'ambulance' comes from the Latin verb ambulare, which has which everyday meaning?

To walk is the root because an ambulance was at first a whole moving hospital that followed an army on campaign, long before the word meant a single vehicle.

A sphygmomanometer, one of the first tools an EMT reaches for, measures which vital sign?

Blood pressure is hidden in the name: sphygmos is Greek for pulse and a manometer is a pressure gauge. The inflatable cuff squeezes an artery shut, then slowly lets go.

Which effect, named for an Austrian physicist, makes an ambulance siren drop in pitch as it passes?

Doppler described the effect in 1842: sound waves bunch up ahead of a moving source and stretch out behind it. The siren itself never changes its note.

Which Star Trek actor hosted Rescue 911, the CBS series that re-enacted real emergencies from 1989?

William Shatner fronted all seven seasons. Viewers wrote in to say at least 350 lives had been saved with first aid they picked up from watching the show.

On an ambulance report, 'syncope' is the medical term for which sudden, short-lived event?

Fainting happens when blood flow to the brain dips for a moment. The Greek root of syncope means a 'cutting short', which is how a blackout feels to the person having it.

Which minor emergency, most common in under-tens and over-fifties, do ambulance crews record as 'epistaxis'?

A nosebleed takes its formal name from a Greek verb meaning to drip. First aid is to pinch the soft front part of the nose for at least five minutes.

A crew writes 'cyanosis' when a patient's lips and fingernails have turned which colour?

Blue is in the word itself: cyanosis comes from kyanos, the Greek name for the colour. Large birthmarks and food dyes can stain the skin the same shade and fool a crew.

The radial pulse, usually the first one an EMT checks on an alert adult, is felt at which spot?

The wrist is where the radial artery lies just under the skin, in front of the end of the radius bone. French anatomists nicknamed the spot the 'pulse gutter'.

In the classic ABC order of emergency care, breathing and circulation come after which priority?

Airway leads because each step depends on the one before: a clear passage lets breathing work, and breathing feeds the circulation. For cardiac arrest the order became CAB in 2010.

On the AVPU scale that EMTs use to grade alertness, what does the final letter U stand for?

Unresponsive is the bottom rung, recorded when a patient reacts to neither voice nor pain. The four-step scale is a quick simplification of a coma score with 13 possible results.

In the OPQRST mnemonic that EMTs use to question a patient about pain, what does the O stand for?

Onset covers what the patient was doing when it started and whether it came on suddenly or gradually. The next letters ask about provocation, quality and region.

Which three-letter order tells an ambulance crew that a patient has chosen in advance to refuse CPR?

DNR stands for 'do not resuscitate'. Some people have the letters tattooed on the chest, but the law does not count a tattoo as a valid order, which leaves crews in a bind.

Despite what TV dramas show, which 'flatline' heart rhythm cannot be treated with a defibrillator?

Asystole means the heart has gone completely still, leaving a defibrillator nothing to reset, so crews rely on CPR and adrenaline. The machine only works on chaotic rhythms.

When an American ambulance crew is sent 'Code 3', how are they expected to drive to the call?

With lights and sirens is the top tier of the usual three-code system, in which Code 1 means neither. Several analyses link Code 3 runs to crashes involving the responders themselves.

Which instrument carried by every EMT began in 1816 as a rolled sheet of paper in a Paris hospital?

Stethoscope inventor René Laennec rolled up the paper because he was not comfortable placing his ear directly on a woman's chest. His first proper model was a wooden tube.

In ambulance shorthand, the C in 'C-collar' and 'C-spine' stands for which anatomical word?

Cervical means 'of the neck'. Crews fit the stiff collar after a crash or fall to hold the neck still until X-rays can show whether a bone there is broken.

Trauma shears, the blunt-tipped scissors on every ambulance, are designed mainly to cut what?

Clothing has to come off fast so a crew can see the injuries, and the wide blunt tip slides across skin without nicking it. Hobbyists use the same shears to cut small coins.

The foil emergency blanket wrapped round cold patients was first developed in 1964 by which organisation?

NASA created the metal-coated plastic film at its Marshall Space Flight Center for the space programme. The sheet reflects up to 97% of radiated heat back at the wearer.

Americans often write 'EKG', not 'ECG', for a heart tracing because the K comes from which language?

German spells the word Elektrokardiogramm, and American medicine borrowed its abbreviation in the early 20th century. British usage kept the C.

The Apgar score for a newborn, often taught as an acronym, actually takes its name from what?

Its inventor's surname came first: Virginia Apgar devised the score in 1952. The Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration mnemonic was coined about ten years later to fit it.

Capnography, a waveform on a paramedic's monitor, tracks which gas in a patient's exhaled breath?

Carbon dioxide readings even grade the rescuers: during CPR the level falls as a tiring rescuer weakens, then rises again when a fresh one takes over.

Which oxygen mask, recognisable by the reservoir bag hanging beneath it, outperforms a nasal cannula?

Non-rebreather masks get their name from a one-way valve that stops the wearer inhaling exhaled air again. The bag below holds about a litre of oxygen ready for each breath.

The Thomas traction splint, which slashed First World War deaths, steadies which broken bone?

The femur is the thigh bone, and soldiers who broke it usually died. Surgeon Sir Henry Gray reported that in one battle the splint cut that death rate from 80% to 15.6%.

An EMT who lays a patient 'supine' on the ambulance cot has put them in which position?

On the back, face up, is supine; face down is prone. In the late 1980s researchers linked babies sleeping prone to higher death rates, which changed how infants are put to bed.

Which New York hospital launched a horse-drawn ambulance service in 1869, stocked with morphine and brandy?

Bellevue's service was the idea of Edward Dalton, a former Union Army surgeon who wanted patients brought in faster and in more comfort. The wagons also carried splints and a stomach pump.

The first motor ambulance, donated in 1899 by 500 local businessmen, served a hospital in which city?

Chicago's Michael Reese Hospital had its automobile ambulance a year before New York. Early models ran on steam, petrol or electricity, as the rival technologies fought it out.

Which city did a 1974 60 Minutes report name as the place to be if you must have a heart attack?

Seattle won the praise through Medic One, which began in 1970 with just 15 paramedics on a single unit. A local cardiologist had proposed training firefighters to treat cardiac arrest.

Which president first authorised a national EMS Week in November 1974, soon after taking office?

Gerald Ford set the first EMS Week for 3 to 10 November 1974. Since 1992 the celebration has been held in the third week of May instead.

Which US federal department, perhaps surprisingly, sets the minimum standards for ambulance crews?

Transportation does it through its road-safety agency, NHTSA, which runs the Office of EMS. Each state then adapts the national curriculum, usually through its health department.

Which first-aid charity, founded in England in 1877, answers to a royal order of chivalry?

St John Ambulance began by teaching first aid in large railway centres and mining districts. Queen Victoria granted its parent order a royal charter in 1888.

Which Union Army surgeon, the 'Father of Battlefield Medicine', organised an ambulance corps in August 1862?

Jonathan Letterman took the ambulances away from the Quartermaster Corps and put them under medical staff. The system proved itself at Fredericksburg and other Union armies copied it.

Which title belongs to the Navy sailors who serve as battlefield medics alongside US Marine units?

Corpsman, in full hospital corpsman, is the rating, and on a long deployment its holder is often the only medical carer a Marine unit has. Some take independent duty aboard ships.

Which call sign, first used in 1963 by a US Army helicopter ambulance unit, became a byword for medical evacuation?

Dustoff was the tactical call sign chosen by Major Lloyd Spencer's 57th Medical Detachment. A 1964 news story about the death of his successor, Major Charles Kelly, made it famous.

Which laws protect bystanders from being sued when they give reasonable help to an injured stranger?

Good Samaritan laws exist to reduce bystanders' fear of stepping in. Most do not cover career responders on the job, so an EMT at work gets no such shield.

Which country founded the Royal Flying Doctor Service, a pioneer of civilian air medical care, in 1928?

Australia owes the service to John Flynn, whom the Presbyterian Church had commissioned to look at the needs of people living in the outback.

The Edhi Foundation, called the world's largest volunteer ambulance organisation, is based in which country?

Pakistan's Edhi Foundation was started in 1951 by Abdul Sattar Edhi, who led it until his death in 2016. Guinness first gave it the record in 1997.

Which emergency number is built into the GSM mobile standard and used across the European Union?

112 can be dialled from any GSM handset even when it is locked, and in some countries without a SIM card. It usually works alongside a country's older national numbers.

Dialling 119, the reverse of the American number, reaches fire and ambulance crews in which country?

Japan connects 119 callers to the fire brigade and emergency medical services, while police are reached on 110. Taiwan uses the same pair of numbers.

Magen David Adom, which uses a 'Red Crystal' emblem abroad, is which country's ambulance service?

Israel's service has a name that literally means 'Red Shield of David', although its home symbol is more often called the Red Star of David.

Which biblical figure lends his name to the rare return of a heartbeat after CPR has been abandoned?

Lazarus, raised from the dead in the New Testament, was attached to the phenomenon in 1993. Medical journals first described it in 1982, and only a few dozen cases are on record.

Untrained bystanders are told to give 'hands-only' CPR to a collapsed adult, skipping which step?

Rescue breaths can be skipped because compressions alone, given by an average person, succeed at least as often as standard CPR. They are also easier to coach over the phone.

A patient described as 'tachycardic' in an EMT's handover to the hospital has which problem?

A fast heart rate at rest earns the label, which is built from the Greek words for 'quick' and 'heart'. Its slow opposite is called bradycardia.

In the American ranking of trauma centres, which designation marks hospitals with the most comprehensive care?

Level I centres keep a full range of specialists and equipment on hand 24 hours a day. Being treated at one can cut the risk of death by 25% compared with a non-trauma hospital.

Which doctor, who oversaw the pioneering Freedom House ambulance crews, wrote the first textbook for paramedics?

Nancy Caroline called her book Emergency Care in the Streets, and it was the first of its kind for paramedic training. Colleagues abroad later likened her to Mother Teresa.