Paramedics
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40 free Paramedics trivia questions with answers — science & nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Paramedics are the people who turn up when things have gone badly wrong, and their profession is younger than most people think. Within living memory, a ride to hospital often came with no medical care at all. How that changed is a story full of odd turns, unlikely pioneers and a television drama that helped a whole country understand the job. These questions turn the best fun facts about paramedics into quick multiple-choice trivia. They cover where the word itself came from, the doctors who trained the first crews, the drugs and tools carried on a modern ambulance, the meaning of the symbols and markings on the vehicles, emergency phone numbers, and the films and dramas that put paramedics on screen. The quiz is written for anyone curious about emergency medicine, and for paramedics, EMTs and students who want fun facts to share with a crew or a class. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so each round leaves you with something new to tell.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The face of CPR manikin Resusci Anne came from the death mask of a young woman reputedly drowned in which river?
The Seine
The Seine gave the unidentified woman her nickname, the Unknown Woman of the Seine. A Norwegian toymaker picked a female face because he thought male trainees would be reluctant to kiss a man's.
Q 02Which businesses ran many early American ambulance services because their vehicles could carry a patient lying down?
Funeral homes
Funeral homes owned hearses, long the only vehicles that could carry a person flat. They stayed among America's most common ambulance providers until the early 1970s.
Q 03Which Bee Gees disco hit, at about 103 beats per minute, is used to teach the right pace for CPR chest compressions?
Stayin' Alive
Stayin' Alive sits inside the 100 to 120 compressions a minute that rescuers aim for. The American Heart Association built a whole CPR campaign around the song.
Q 04When the word paramedic first appeared in the 1950s, it described a military medic who reached the wounded by what?
Parachute
Parachute plus medic gave the first paramedics their name in 1951. The modern meaning, a medical technician, only arrived around 1970 as a shortening of paramedical.
Q 05The yellow-and-green chequered Battenburg markings on British ambulances are named after what kind of food?
A cake
A cake called Battenberg shows the same squares when it is sliced. The lighter squares are fluorescent, so the vehicle stands out in daylight, at dusk and at dawn.
Q 06Which future animation pioneer forged his birth date to drive an ambulance in France just after the First World War?
Walt Disney
Walt Disney had been turned away by the army as too young, so he altered his birth certificate and signed up as a driver in 1918. He decorated the side of his ambulance with cartoons.
Q 07Which city introduced 999 in 1937, the world's oldest telephone number reserved for calling the emergency services?
London
London got 999 first, within a 12-mile radius of Oxford Circus. Days after the launch, its first call led to a burglar being caught in the act.
Q 08Which explosive chemical, heavily diluted, do paramedics give under the tongue to ease chest pain from the heart?
Nitroglycerin
Nitroglycerin widens the blood vessels, which eases the load on the heart. The medicine is the same chemical as the explosive, diluted until it can no longer go off.
Q 09Paramedics carry naloxone, often as a nasal spray, to reverse a life-threatening overdose of which class of drugs?
Opioids
Opioids can stop a person breathing, and naloxone can restore it about two minutes after an injection into a vein. It has been approved for overdoses in the United States since 1971.
Q 10Which effect, first described by a physicist in 1842, makes an ambulance siren seem to drop in pitch as it passes?
Doppler
Doppler is the name, after the physicist Christian Doppler. Each sound wave from an approaching siren starts closer to you than the last, which raises the pitch until the vehicle goes by.
Q 11Paramedics score a patient's consciousness from 3 to 15 on a coma scale named after which Scottish city?
Glasgow
Glasgow gave the scale its name because two doctors at the city's university devised it, publishing it in 1974. It adds up three tests: eye, verbal and movement responses.
Q 12In the FAST test that paramedics use to spot a stroke, F is for face and A for arm: what is S?
Speech
Speech that is slurred or hard to follow is the third warning sign, and T is the time to call for help. The test was devised in Britain in 1998 to train ambulance staff.
Q 13On the triage tags used at major incidents, which colour marks a victim who needs immediate life-saving treatment?
Red
Red tags go to the victims who cannot wait. Rescuers make one attempt to open the airway of a person who is not breathing, and only if that fails do they move on.
Q 21Freedom House, the first US ambulance service staffed by trained paramedics, served the Hill District of which city?
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh's police had been carrying patients to hospital in paddy wagons. Freedom House, founded in 1967, drew its crews from the Black neighbourhood it served.
Q 22The 1970s TV drama Emergency!, credited with making paramedics famous, followed Squad 51 of which real fire department?
Los Angeles County
Los Angeles County firefighter Mike Stoker drove Engine 51 on screen under his own name. The vehicles of Station 51 are now kept in the county's fire museum.
Q 23Which future US president signed the 1970 Wedworth-Townsend Act, which first let paramedics practise in California?
Ronald Reagan
Q 14Which hormone do paramedics inject into a muscle to stop a life-threatening allergic reaction to a bee sting or peanuts?
Adrenaline
Adrenaline, also known as epinephrine, drives the body's own fight-or-flight response. An auto-injector pen delivers about a third of a milligram in one push.
Q 15Which common painkiller do paramedics give suspected heart attack patients because it slows the growth of blood clots?
Aspirin
Aspirin stops platelets, the blood's clotting cells, from working normally. Most heart attacks are caused by a clot, so the tablet is a fitting first treatment.
Q 16Entonox, the pain-relieving gas and air that British paramedics offer, mixes oxygen with which other gas?
Nitrous oxide
Nitrous oxide, better known as laughing gas, makes up half the mixture. Patients hold the valve themselves, so anyone who grows too drowsy simply drops it.
Q 17The word ambulance comes from the Latin verb ambulare, which has what everyday meaning?
To walk
To walk, or to move about, is the root sense. An ambulance was originally a moving hospital that followed an army on campaign, long before it was a vehicle.
Q 18When paramedics cannot find a vein, an intraosseous needle delivers fluids and drugs straight into what?
Bone marrow
Bone marrow drains into the veins and, unlike a vein, cannot collapse. That makes a bone a dependable way in when an ordinary drip cannot be started quickly.
Q 19The Star of Life badge worn by paramedics has which ancient symbol of medicine, a snake around a staff, at its centre?
Rod of Asclepius
Rod of Asclepius is the staff of the Greek god of healing, with one snake and no wings. The star's six points stand for six stages of a rescue, from detection to handing the patient over.
Q 20Which two-word phrase, promoted by trauma surgeon R Adams Cowley, names the vital period right after a serious injury?
Golden hour
Golden hour was Cowley's label for the time in which fast treatment decides whether a patient lives. He led Maryland's Shock Trauma Center, which now carries his name.
Ronald Reagan signed it as governor in July 1970, despite opposition from doctors, nurses and attorneys. The pilot film of the TV drama Emergency! took its title from the act.
Q 24Which US city's fire department launched the Medic One paramedic service in 1970, later profiled by 60 Minutes?
Seattle
Seattle began with a single unit staffed by 15 paramedics. The idea came from a cardiologist who asked the fire chief to let firefighters treat cardiac arrest.
Q 25Triage, used on battlefields long before it reached paramedics, takes its name from a French verb with what meaning?
To sort
To sort, or to pick out, is what the Old French verb trier meant. The practice of ranking the wounded is far older than the use of the word for it.
Q 26Which actor played a depressed New York paramedic in Martin Scorsese's 1999 film Bringing Out the Dead?
Nicolas Cage
Nicolas Cage carries the film through two days in his character's life. Paul Schrader wrote the script from a novel by Joe Connelly.
Q 27Which action director made the 2022 thriller Ambulance, in which bank robbers hijack a paramedic and her patient?
Michael Bay
Michael Bay cast Eiza González as the paramedic taken hostage, opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the adoptive brothers on the run.
Q 28Which NBC drama follows the paramedics of Ambulance 61 and the crews of Truck 81 and Rescue Squad 3?
Chicago Fire
Chicago Fire is set at the fictional Firehouse 51, which is also home to Engine 51. The series follows both the working and the private lives of its crews.
Q 29Which slang word do Australians use for a paramedic, built the same way as smoko for a work break?
Ambo
Ambo is clipped from ambulance, just as arvo comes from afternoon and servo from service station. The word is used for the vehicle as well as for its crew.
Q 30Which eight-pointed white cross, linked to the medieval Knights Hospitaller, is the emblem of St John Ambulance?
Maltese
Maltese cross logos differ from country to country, but every St John organisation keeps the eight points. The cross is named after Malta, the island the knights ruled from 1530 to 1798.