Ambulances must necessarily be versatile, with equipment designed to handle life-threatening first aid needs.
This is part of the reason why ambulances today often come in all shapes and sizes, with supplies designed around the particular needs of an area or region and the types of injuries or illnesses that people needing paramedic treatment are likely to require.
For as long as there have been carts and trolleys used to help get people to doctors faster or, conversely, get medics to injured and critically ill people faster, there have technically been ambulances.
However, the modern history of ambulances begins with the development of powered vehicles capable of taking injured and ill people to hospitals and clinics who cannot reach them by their own power.
What was the first? How was it equipped? And how influential was it on modern ambulances?
What Was The First Ever Powered Ambulance?
Dedicated ambulance services have existed since at least 1880, with Liverpool Northern Hospital having Britain’s first-ever ambulance unit in 1884, spearheaded by Reginald Harrison.
At the time, ambulance services relied on horse-drawn carts to reach patients, but the dawn of the 20th century brought with it the potential for motorised self-propelled ambulances.
The very first was in 1893, when an Electric Ambulance Car was put into service in St. Louis, Missouri. It lasted less than a year in active service before being discontinued due to funding shortages, but it proved the principle, with the concept being applied in Chicago and New York City.
Early ambulances were typically one-off modifications, designed with the equipment needed for the specific hospital and lacking a lot of the paramedic equipment that is considered standard today.
The three-wheeled Palliser Ambulance and the British Army’s ambulance based on a Staker-Squire bus entered service in 1905, taking very different approaches to ambulance design.
What Was The First Mass-Produced Ambulance?
The problem with bespoke models is that they are expensive to make, slow and difficult to maintain. As ambulances became a more consistent part of hospital and medical services, there needed to be a more consistent approach to building them and modifying existing vehicles.
The first step towards that was the Cunningham 774 Model H from 1909. Built by coachbuilder James Cunningham, Son & Company in Rochester, New York, it featured a 32-horsepower engine, a side-mounted gong to act as a siren, electric lights and a dedicated cot with two seats.
Whilst they were not the fully-featured doctor’s seats seen in a modern ambulance that can swivel and have seatbelts, they allowed for doctors and paramedics to attend to patients even whilst en route to the hospital.
How Did The First Ambulance Change Emergency Services?
The ambulance was a major success and would be very quickly replicated. By the First World War, the Red Cross-supplied battlefield ambulances quickly led to the end of horse-drawn medical carts.
The faster speeds and larger carrying capacity of ambulances led to rapid changes in equipment. The effects of traction splints, used to keep the femur and other long bones aligned following a leg break, were credited with saving lives during the war and have remained standard issue ever since.
Two-way radio communication also became standard thanks to developments during the war, and has helped to more easily communicate and coordinate rescue efforts.