"Ambulance, is the patient breathing?"
Ambulance is a BBC documentary series that follows various ambulance services across the UK. Each series follows a service in a different region and documents the highs and lows of both the day and night shifts. Running from 2016 to the present, the series has been praised for showing just about everything that goes on in the UK's ambulance service.
Kris Marshall narrates the first series. All series after that are narrated by Christopher Ecclestone.
The series deals with some pretty heavy issues so a Content Warning is definitely warranted.
DO NOT confused with a Michael Bay film.
Ambulance provides examples of
- A Birthday, Not a Break: An episode features a teenage girl having a potentially fatal fit on her sixteenth birthday. To make matters worse, her mother is one of the paramedics on the show and when she receives the news, she's understandably distraught.
- Brutal Honesty: One episode features a teenage boy with a six inch gash in his arm. Once the paramedic has bandaged him up, this exchange occurs.Teenage Boy: So, I won't die?Paramedic: No, you won't die.Teenage Boy: Thank you.
- Book Ends: The first series focuses on London Ambulance Service. The sixth series does the same.
- Cool Old Guy: Mick, a paramedic from series 2. He retired from the service but missed the job so much that he rejoined. He's paired with much younger, less experienced paramedics.
- Christmas Episode: Arguably one of the darkest ever shown on television as it's the infamous Belgrave Middleway crash, which just happens to take place on the last Saturday before Christmas.
- Delivery Stork: Multiple ambulance services give 'stork badges' to their call handlers after they've helped deliver babies over the phone for the first time, and these are referenced throughout the show, with trainee or junior staff discussing when they might get theirs.
- Dirty Old Woman: Some of the elderly ladies who appear will occasionally flirt with the male paramedics. One notable example is Mary, who not only flirts with the man caring for her but insists he stays with her in the back while his partner drives and then invites him to her hundredth birthday party.
- Driven to Suicide: Crews are occasionally called to a couple of hangings. One of the paramedics in Series 6 outright states she believes hangings are the worst incidents to deal with.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Although it's shown after the watershed, the series is very careful not to show too much gore and tends to avoid showing full dead bodies. A good way to tell if someone is going to make it into the ambulance alive is if you can see their face. If you can't...
- I Want My Mommy!: A serious version. After dealing with the infamous Belgrave Middleway crash, one of the paramedics states she wants her mum. As soon as she's back at base, she gives her mother a call and breaks down as she describes what has happened. Her partner state he also wants to talk to his mother, but doesn't want to wake her at three in the morning.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Sui during the Belgrave Middleway episode has one of these moments. Her job is to dispatch crews across Birmingham but due to the nature of the accident, she's forced to let an elderly patient who's fallen wait for over six hours. When the crews finally get to her, they take her into hospital to make sure she doesn't have sepsis (which can be fatal if not treated quickly). When Sui hears about it, she's horrified.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. It's most notable in Series 2 and 3, which feature two paramedics called Nat who are partnered together in the same ambulance.
- Running Gag: A series 4 episode features a lot of babies being born, with the paramedics joking that the new children should be named after them. The epilogue of the episode reveals the number of babies born during the shift before mentioning none of them were named after crew members.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: A slight variation. One paramedic mentions PTSD is about as common in the emergency services are it is in the army, right after dealing with a fatal crash.
- One Series 4 episode which deals with a lot of mental health patients mentions how many paramedics end up suffering from mental health issues themselves due to some of the horrors they witness on a regular basis.
- Skewed Priorities: Some specialist paramedics deal with a shooting victim. He spends most of his time on screen complaining that he was shot on a Saturday night.
- Stepford Smiler: One Series 2 patient suffers from "the full English breakfast of cancers" but as the paramedics treat him, he laughs, jokes and even blows air horns. The end of the episode later reveals he died before it aired.
- Tempting Fate: The Belgrave Middleway episode lampshades this with one of the paramedics hoping for a quiet night before his colleague shoots him a Death Glare and says "You've jinxed it now." (And, indeed he has.)
- This Is Gonna Suck: The very start of the Belgrave Middleway episode. It takes place on the last Saturday before Christmas so the call handlers are expecting it to be a bad night. (They just didn't realise how bad.)
- True Companions: The paramedics are pretty much this. Given what they go through in their careers, it's hardly surprising.
- Voice with an Internet Connection: As well as the ambulance crews and helimed doctors, the series also focuses on the 999 call handlers, ambulance dispatchers, and operational control staff.
- Where Are They Now: Each episode ends with a follow up on the patients featured. However, it doesn't mince words. If a patient dies either in hospital or afterwards, the show will say so.
