The First Paramedics

Nope: it wasn’t Johnny and Roy.

The first most people in the world heard of paramedics was “Johnny and Roy” (Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe) — the lead medics in the Emergency! TV series (NBC, 1972–1977) based on the real life exploits of the Los Angeles County Fire Dept., which was one of the early pioneers in modern Emergency Medical Services.

But they weren’t the first.

Military corpsmen go way back, providing special care to soldiers on the battlefield. Hospitals often provided horse-drawn ambulances, staffed by…