The British Army in the UK- Evacuation From Dunkirk, May-June 1940 H1670

A stretcher-bearer is a person who carries a

stretcher A stretcher, gurney, litter, or pram is an apparatus used for moving patients who require medical care. A basic type (cot or litter) must be carried by two or more people. A wheeled stretcher (known as a gurney, trolley, bed or cart) is often ...

, generally with another person at its other end, especially in a war or

emergency An emergency is an urgent, unexpected, and usually dangerous situation that poses an immediate risk to health, life, property, or environment and requires immediate action. Most emergencies require urgent intervention to prevent a worsening ...

times when there is a very serious accident or a

disaster A disaster is a serious problem occurring over a short or long period of time that causes widespread human, material, economic or environmental loss which exceeds the ability of the affected community or society to cope using its own resources ...

. In case of

military personnel Military personnel are members of the state's armed forces. Their roles, pay, and obligations differ according to their military branch (army, navy, marines, air force, space force, and coast guard), rank ( officer, non-commissioned office ...

, for example removing wounded or dead from a

battle A battle is an occurrence of combat in warfare between opposing military units of any number or size. A war usually consists of multiple battles. In general, a battle is a military engagement that is well defined in duration, area, and for ...

field, the modern term is

combat medic A combat medic, or healthcare specialist, is responsible for providing emergency medical treatment at a point of wounding in a combat or training environment, as well as primary care and health protection and evacuation from a point of injur ...

who will have received considerable training. Stretcher-bearers would have received basic first-aid training. The wounded soldier had to wait until the stretcher-bearers arrived or simply the stretcher-bearers will find them. In times of war, stretcher-bearers may in certain situations be covered by Art. 25 of the First (Geneva) Convention of 1949 under the category of auxiliary medical personnel.

Origin

This term appears between 1875 and 1880. It is largely used before and up to the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

and is derived from the

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Oxford Dictionaries, "English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England, or, more broadl ...

verb ''to stretcher'' means "to carry someone on a stretcher". A stretcher-bearer party, sometimes a stretcher party or company, is a group or a band of people temporarily or regularly associated which have to carry injured persons with stretchers. In the army stretcher-bearers were a kind of specific soldiers who work with military

ambulance An ambulance is a medically equipped vehicle which transports patients to treatment facilities, such as hospitals. Typically, out-of-hospital medical care is provided to the patient during the transport. Ambulances are used to respond to med ...

s and medical services. A famous stretcher-bearer and ambulance driver during the First World War was the young

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century f ...

Notes

References

*Martine Da Silva-Vion, Jacques Theureau, "Stretcher bearers Autonomy Coordination with Units" in ''Healthcare systems ergonomics and patient safety, human factor, a bridge between care and cure'', Riccardo Tartaglia, Sabastiano Bagnara, Tommaso Bellandi, Sara Abolino (editors), Taylor & Francis, London, 2005, 546 pages, § page 185-196.

External links

Definition and usage with quotations in literature and poetry

The Stretcher Bearer Party painted around 1918 by the lieutenant Cyril Barraud (1877–1965)masterpiece from the Canadian War Museum

Photograph of stretcher-bearer party, National Library of Scotland

The Dead Stretcher-bearer painted by Gilbert Rogers
{{emergency medical services Health care occupations

Origin

See also

Notes

References

External links