The first ambulances were horse-drawn wagons that carried sick or wounded soldiers in wartime. The Spaniards used such vehicles during the siege of Malaga in 1487. In 1869, Bellevue Hospital in New York City began to use the first civilian ambulances. During World War II (1939-1945), armies first used helicopters to transport wounded soldiers from remote battlefields.

Until the 1970's, ambulances merely carried patients to a hospital. The vehicles were too small to allow any treatment and they carried little medical equipment. Most ambulance workers received only basic first-aid training and could not handle serious emergencies.

Today, most ambulances have room for treatment of patients, and they carry equipment that helps ambulance workers keep patients alive. This equipment includes bandages, oxygen masks, resuscitators (breathing machines), splints, and medications. In addition, many ambulances are staffed by highly trained workers called paramedics. Paramedics can provide cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and other lifesaving emergency treatments.

Many ambulances carry a two-way radio, which enables a worker to communicate with a hospital physician. The worker reports such information as a patient's pulse, blood pressure, and breathing condition, and the doctor can determine the proper treatment. Some ambulances have instruments that send the hospital medical data, such as a patient's heart activity, by a process called telemetry .

David R. Boyd, M.D.C.M., Consultant on Emergency Medical Services.