Image Falsely Claims to Show World’s First Ambulance
The Claim
An image depicts the world’s first ambulance.
News posted on
Emerging story
On social media, a picture of an old vehicle with someone inside and another uniformed man peddling it is circulating. Users claim this is the first ambulance in the world.
Misbar’s Analysis
Using reverse image search TinEye, Misbar discovered the image's source on Getty Images, which is shown in in the image below.
The image was taken on July 29, 1941, and the caption reads, "A one-man anti-gas ambulance and resuscitator, designed and made for use by the Home Guard." This explains why the ambulance in the image was the first non-gas ambulance where the driver had to physically peddle it and not the first ambulance in general.
Further investigation revealed that the first ambulances were hammock-based carts built in 900 AD. While the Spanish army used ambulances for emergency purposes as early as 1487.
Despite the fact that the image and claim are frequently shared on social media, the Misbar team confirms that they are false and that ambulances were in use much earlier than the 1940s.
