Emergency Medical Services (EMS) have only been around for the last 40 years. Before that hearses were used to transport injured and sick people to the hospital and deceased to the funeral home. Ambulance services were ran by the local funeral home and the attendants had very little to no first aid training. After WWII rescue squads and ambulance services began to emerge, but while their intentions were good they were untrained, unorganized, and poorly equipped to deal with emergency situations. At the time there were no training programs for even basic first aid skills and no standards for training. Therefor pre-hospital care was a group of uncoordinated, well intended efforts.
In 1965 more people died in auto related accidents (50,000) then what died in 8 years of the Vietnam war. In 1966 a report called the Accidental Death & Disability was released by the National Academy of Science. It vividly described the problems in pre-hospital care along with the magnitude of traffic related death and disabilities. Recommendations were made for ambulance standards, policies and regulations at a state level. The US Dept. of Transportation was also formed and became responsible for improving EMS education. As a result in 1967 the first well designed textbook for ems personnel was made.
