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Emergency Medicine & First Aid vocabulary · Ambulance and Prehospital Care

Stretcher

Meaning in emergency medicine & first aid, with examples

/ˈstretʃər/nounCore term

In emergency medicine & first aid, stretcher means: A frame with a padded surface, often on wheels, used to carry a sick or injured person who cannot walk.

In Turkish: sedye

How it is used

Crews load patients onto a stretcher and into the ambulance; they also use carry chairs on stairs and scoop stretchers to lift people off the ground. Americans often call the wheeled ambulance stretcher a gurney or cot, and in UK hospitals a wheeled one is a trolley.

Example sentences

  1. We'll need the scoop stretcher, he's lying in a narrow corridor.

  2. Patients on stretchers were lined up in the corridor.

Common collocations

  • scoop stretcher
  • on a stretcher
  • load onto a stretcher
  • stretcher bearer
  • ambulanceA vehicle with medical equipment and trained staff that treats sick or injured people at the scene and on the way to hospital, and takes them there.
  • spinal injuryDamage to the bones of the spine or to the spinal cord inside them, which can cause pain, numbness, weakness or paralysis below the injury.
  • immobilizeTo keep an injured part of the body from moving, using a splint, sling, collar or stretcher, to reduce pain and further damage.
  • paramedicA trained health professional who works mainly on ambulances, assessing and treating patients at the scene and on the way to hospital.

More terms: Ambulance and Prehospital Care

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.