EMT Trivia
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8correct to beat the crowd
48 free EMT trivia questions with answers. This EMT trivia quiz is for anyone in or around emergency medical services: EMT students, paramedics, firefighters, dispatchers, and the families who wonder what the job involves. It covers the certification ladder from emergency medical responder to paramedic, what each level can do, how many hours it takes and who writes the protocols, then moves into the field skills every EMT knows: CPR rates, the Glasgow Coma Scale, START triage colours, FAST, SAMPLE and OPQRST, the rule of nines, naloxone and epinephrine. The history questions are the fun part: Napoleon's flying ambulances, the 1966 White Paper, Freedom House in Pittsburgh, the 70-kilogram Belfast defibrillator, the first 911 call in Haleyville, Alabama, and Squad 51 on Emergency!. It works for an EMS Week station quiz, a classroom icebreaker in an EMT course, or a competitive round between shifts. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and NREMT or NHTSA descriptions, and each question shows its citation once you have answered. It is trivia, not a protocol reference.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The small clip an ambulance crew puts on a patient's fingertip measures what?
Oxygen in the blood
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.
Q 02An AED, the box on the wall in airports and gyms, treats cardiac arrest by delivering what?
An electric shock
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.
Q 03Which device do ambulance crews strap round an arm or leg to stop life-threatening bleeding?
A tourniquet
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.
Q 04An ambulance staffed only by EMTs is called what kind of unit?
Basic life support (BLS)
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.
Q 05Which body's exams do most US states use to certify their EMTs?
The National Registry of EMTs (NREMT)
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.
Q 06Which of these medications is within the scope of a basic EMT in the US?
Albuterol
Oxygen, epinephrine, dextrose, albuterol and aspirin are among the others on the short list.
Q 07EMS protocols in the US are developed under the guidance of whom?
A physician medical director
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.
Q 08What sits at the centre of ambulances' Star of Life?
A snake
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.
Q 09US ambulances swapped an orange cross for the blue Star of Life in the 1970s after which organisation complained?
The Red Cross
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.
Q 10A landmark 1966 US report said the seriously injured had better survival odds where than on a city street?
In a combat zone
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.
Q 11Freedom House Ambulance Service, the first US paramedic service, was founded in 1967 to serve which neighbourhood?
Pittsburgh's Hill District
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.
Q 12CPR pioneer Peter Safar worked with a Norwegian toy maker on which training mannequin?
Resusci Anne
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.
Q 13Adult chest compressions in CPR should be delivered at what rate?
Q 21Which 1972 NBC drama about Los Angeles paramedics is credited with popularising the profession?
Emergency!
Emergency! made paramedics famous when the job barely existed, and programmes like the one it showed sprang up across the country.
Q 22The Squad 51 paramedics of the 1970s TV drama worked for which real agency?
Los Angeles County Fire
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.
Q 23In the FAST stroke mnemonic, what does the T stand for?
Time to call for help
100 to 120 per minute
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.
Q 14The American Heart Association suggests humming which Bee Gees song to keep CPR compressions on tempo?
Stayin' Alive
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.
Q 15The coma scale that ambulance crews use worldwide is named after which Scottish city?
Glasgow
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.
Q 16The word 'triage' comes from a French verb meaning what?
To sort or select
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.
Q 17In the START triage system for mass-casualty incidents, which colour tag marks the walking wounded?
Green
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.
Q 18Baltimore trauma surgeon R Adams Cowley is credited with which phrase for the vital window after a serious injury?
The golden hour
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.
Q 19The first portable defibrillator, fitted to a Belfast ambulance in 1965, ran on what?
Car batteries
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.
Q 20The first 911 call in the United States was made in 1968 in which small Alabama town?
Haleyville
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.
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.
Q 24In the SAMPLE patient history mnemonic, what does the A stand for?
Allergies
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.
Q 25EMTs give aspirin to a patient with a suspected heart attack because the drug does what?
Helps stop blood clots forming
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.
Q 26Which California governor signed the 1970 Wedworth-Townsend Act, the law that first let paramedics practise in the state?
Ronald Reagan
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.
Q 27Naloxone, carried by EMTs to reverse opioid overdoses, is sold under which brand name?
Narcan
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.
Q 28An epinephrine autoinjector such as the EpiPen is most often used to treat what?
Anaphylaxis
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.
Q 29The recovery position is used for a casualty who is what?
Unconscious but breathing
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.
Q 30The Heimlich manoeuvre, or abdominal thrust, is a first-aid treatment for what?
Choking on a foreign object
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.