EMS Ground Transport Safety

The first known use of ambulance transport for the sick and wounded dates to 1000 B.C., as documented in Homer’s Iliad. According to Battlefield Medicine: A History of the Military Ambulance from the Napoleonic Wars Through World War I, early transport devices were no more than litters strung between two horses. Since that time, there have been significant advances in patient transport and care in the prehospital environment, including efforts to make ambulance use safer for patients, the public, and Emergency Medical Services (EMS) personnel.

EMS ground transport presents multiple opportunities for injury and the death of prehospital personnel and the public. From 2003 to 2007, there were approximately 65 Paramedic and Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) deaths that occurred while on-the-job. The death rate for Paramedics and EMTs was 6.3 per 100,000 full-time equivalents, which was 1.4 times greater than that for all workers. Forty-five percent of those deaths were attributed to ground transportation accidents. In a National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) report from 2015, there were an estimated 1,500 ambulances crashes annually, leading to injury, and nearly half of those injured were inside the ambulance.